2012.06.03 — Cotton for Comfort — a Nearly Successful Poem

Hello!
It has been too long since I have posted here. I have been busy writing. Elsewhere. Primarily for the Weekly Short Story Contest and Company — WSSCC in Goodreads. But it is long past time to post something. I have been amassing a long string of tiny fushigis (March to June), but today's blog won't be them. Instead this blog will be entirely self-promoting.

I have been having the smallest of creative writing successes over in Goodreads and the WSSCC. Today's post began with the story/poetry prompt Cadaver. I wrote 'Cotton for Comfort' and subsequently had it critiqued and with the help of some excellent writers revised it into a form good enough to make it as a finalist on the Poetry Group's monthly competition (out of 300+ entries). And even though it finished 5th out of the 6 finalists, this constitutes a form of publication, and so here is:

Cotton for Comfort
The cadaver wanted to signal the world
That the remains of the she
she once was was not all that she was!
But her tongue remained still, thoughts stillborn
under the weight of entomological entropy.

The cadaver remembered
all her apprehensions, understandings
and now even their misses. All of them.
Misses. Missus. Masses. Mass. Mas. Maws. Mauls. Mulls.
Mulligans! Now that is a great word!
Missed. Mist. Miss. Misses.
Where's the mulligan?

The cadaver wondered
at the state of her body.
It would seem, by the sights
she couldn't see, and the sounds
she couldn't hear, that she had been abandoned
somewhere wild, wild where the wild things are.
Where the wild things were returning
her once complex interleaving of molecules and cells,
with a macabre dance,
to the more natural chord of thrumming humming humus.
Humus! Hum Us. Humour Us. Humorous!

She wondered that she could hear
that chthonic humming
now that she couldn't hear words
that chimed charmingly
with an importance she could no longer fashion.
Fashion?
She began to soundlessly laugh
at being alive in vain.

Vain. Vanity. Inanity. Insanity.
She'd left that morning wearing her badly worn,
tired and holey underwear,
underwear her mother told her
not to be seen dead in,
but in which she felt natural.
Nature all. All Nature. All Natural.
Cotton for comfort. Comport. Come apart.
Be apart. Be a part of. Be a part of wordlessness.

One of the people who commented on this poem asked to hear it. With Koeeaddi's prompt, I proceeded to record it with music. If you are curious about how it sounds as read brilliantly by Rose Mary Boehm click Cotton For Comfort. To hear me read it not as well as Rose Mary, click on Cotton for Comfort.

And I encourage you to visit the WSSCC if you like creative writing of all short stories, not just short stories. Recently a script writing thread/competition has been started.