ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

UNDERWATER

Do you have some rotten rubbish
maybe sewage, oil or paint;
a mattress, tyre or carcass
that's acquired a greenish taint.
You could find it's gone forever
if you throw it underwater.

Got some solvents, used detergents,
mercury, or plastic bags,
even chlorine, halocarbons
mixed with smelly putrid rags.
Flush them out of sight and mind
washed away, far underwater.

While you sleek and comfy diners
relish prawns and juicy oysters,
your factories and homes are clean;
all filthy waste leftovers
have been safely sluiced away,
out to somewhere ? underwater.

Runs good but for the leftovers Nev ?


Perhaps
Relish prawns and juicy fare
your factories and homes are clean
Filthy waste just lying there


Bob

Agree with Bob Neville that flows pretty well apart from that one line

Had a fiddle - for your consideration...

While you sleek and comfy diners
relish prawns and juicy oysters,
your factories and homes are clean;
likewise your halls and cloisters.
All filthy waste's been sluiced away
to somewhere. Underwater??


I enjoyed the read - a thought provoking use of the prompt. So sad when people oblivious and/or uncaring of the consequences to our water creatures, pollute our seas and waterways.

Cheers

Maureen

Maureen if they do not know what bin means how are they gonna work out cloisters ?


Bob

Thanks for the replies Maureen and Bob. I think you are right, some further thought needed.

I don't think I could use cloisters, Maureen. It's a special term that I can't see would fit this theme, and it makes what I call a clanging rhyme. All the attention would go to oysters and cloisters, which I wouldn't want.
Bob, with the rhyme fare and there, I have a problem that both those words are general terms. I wanted to be specific with oysters because they are a seafood delicacy very much affected by water pollution. Using there in the fourth line I think would leave a thought hanging. English has so few rhymes, and oysters is a particularly tricky one.

I need to give a lot of thought to it if I am going to change it to a perfect rhyme. I will have to change probably the whole last stanza in that case. Move oysters somewhere else away from the end, but I haven't figured out how to do that in keeping with the expression that I wanted.

I appreciate your interest. Revision revision, I'm sure your writing workshop tutor drummed that into you Bob.

Fair enough, it is a bit of a conundrum to work through. Come back to it in a day or two and the answer will probably pop into your head straight away.

how about 'roister'?
I would imagine these thoughtless people would engage in boisterous, drunken merry-making

Thanks Marion. This might be one of those poems that is more useful lining the bottom of the budgie's cage.

Not so Neville - not so. Can your budgie read?