A journey through a body – poem and challenge

Posted on December 30, 2012 by ruleofstupid — 75 Comments

There is a challenge theme happening among these poetic folk. SusanDanielsden : ramblingsfromamum : Stephen Kellogg : WhimsyMimsy : APrayerLikeGravity

Part one of the challenge is to write a poem, and then tell everyone else their poem is better than yours (hehe 😉 ). Part two has been various, with themes ranging from acorns to toilet roll!

I’d like to offer my own challenge, at which I have already failed. The challenge is to write a poem about a journey through the human body as metaphor.

Yeah – I like to make it easy!

You must mention at least the bum or colon, stomach, chest, heart and head – and other bits if you like 😉 It can’t just be a description of the bits, but otherwise, make free!

Here’s my rather broken attempt which might give some idea? It’s a journey through the body as a metaphor for our maturation as people (or that was the plan anyway!)

Life’s journey is a trip through our parents tract – Doggerel Poetry

Our parents are giants
We are small
We look for the world
They overshadow it all

We tiny infants droop
Lie in our poop
Suffer the croup
Throw up our soup

As our height increases
Our journey begins
Through the tract
Of parenting

Our best protection comes
From sucking up – but
It looks like we have our heads – wedged
Simperingly up their bums!

Too young to argue back
We have to take all their crap
And pray what they’ve been digesting
Won’t come out too disgusting

If our parents are careful of diet
We grow like a rose from their shit
But if they eat junk then we’re sunk
The sum of our youth will have stunk

As the teenage days approach us
We journey away from the anus
Up into the guts and we are flummoxed
By what we’re expected to stomach

Having left the stink we begin to think
That life is now ours to be lived
That we see the world as it is, as if!
We’re still locked in our parents peristalsis!

“It’s so not fair”, “you don’t understand”
Moan us clones of our folks they have grown
We just do not see we are transparently
A little bit mummy, a little bit daddy

Finally we fly the nest
But in truth we have only reached the chest
The heart is thumping in our ears
There’s nothing else that we can hear

All ill-thought short lived loves and lusts
Emotional economy booms and busts
Trips to the clinic from misplaced trust!
Energy wasted in youthful rush

Our very own children come out to play
To show us that we’ve learned no better way
To force us to question our smug dictates
We look at the world through their unblinkered gaze

The planet’s imperilled and we shake and cry
We march on governments shouting why
Save the Panda* save the whale
Save the children, put villains in jail

Cut down on logging, ensure carbon reduction
Stop using resources in over-production
Push for the greens at the next election
But don’t take my toys or my net connection

Eventually this is outgrown too
And we move beyond the folly of youth
Rise into the throat where words become
And enter a dialogue with everyone

No longer assume, no longer demand
No lexicographical slight of hand
Just an earnest desire to find the proof
Hoping for some ultimate truth

Until at last the moment arrives
If by miracle we survive
An ultimate reach, the chrysalis breached
We finally outgrow our parenting

Not just our mum, not just our dad
All the illusions from generations back
We’re now in our heads, they grow heavy with thought
But we finally find the contentment we sought

We come to see we are creatures of peace
Only media meanies call us beasts
But now we are old, now we are wizened
We mumble in homes while nobody listens

*seriously!