Title of Poem: Death Comes to Dinner
Poet: Ellaraine Lockie
Source: Finising Lines (2005)
Rating: 4 laurels out of 5 laurels
Ellariane Lockie's poem "Death Comes to Dinner" is a free verse poem of 1 stanza of 24 lines.
The poem is about a a woman who receives a phone call from a doctor who reveals that her male companion has 6 months to live.
The phone call happens during dinner time.
Receiving a death call from a doctor is a very difficult and painful experience. The situation of receiving a death call is a shocking situation.
Death will happen anytime in any family. Receiving a phone call from a doctor about a dying patient is an unusual situation and a stressful situation.
How does one react to a bad news from a phone call that a relative is dying?
The poet describes how the female character feels and reacts upon receiving the death call from a male doctor -
"Six months were the doctor's words
resounding from the phone....
His words wedge in my throat
As if the shrimp I'm eating
suddenly spawned bones
Or the phone cord ran amok
Wrapped itself around
the wrong neck......"
The poet describes the feeling of receiving a death call as something like- words wedge in her throat, a shrimp she is eating becomes a spawned bones or a phone cord wrapped around her neck!
The male character in the poem has cancer and he does not know it yet.
In the last lines, the female character reveals the bad news that his male companion is dying of cancer.
Ellaraine reveals the bad news this way:
"And I vomit
the venomous words"
Ellaraine's use of words to describe an unusual, stressful and shocking situation (like revealing a doctor's death call) is excellent.
Hence, this poem is nominated Best Poem of the Year 2005 for 2006 Muses Prize.
Poet from California
Menu
News
Events
Submission
Advertise
Donate
Bookstore
Archives
Spring 2005-June
Table of Contents
Editorial - June
Poetry
Poem Reviews
Book Reviews
Interviews
Advertisements
Ellaraine is a well-published and awarded poet who has received seven nominations for Pushcart Prizes and has three previous chapbooks:
1. Midlife Muses, (Poetry Forum) (winner of their 2000 chapbook contest)
2. Crossing the Center Line, (Sweet Annie Press)
3. Coloring Outside the Lines, (Plowman Press).
She also teaches school and community poetry workshops.
by Ellaraine Lockie (California)
Source: Finishing Lines (2005)
Six months were the doctor's words
resounding from the phone
I needed a number
Choked it out of him
Telepathic telephone cord twist
His words wedge in my throat
As if the shrimp I'm eating
suddenly spawned bones
Or the phone cord ran amok
Wrapped itself around
the wrong neck
All the while
slithering the table surface
A cat size serving
of scampi licking the coils
While the patient paws
the reptilian twitch
Purring his priority status
Oblivious to the cancer
consuming his insides
As surely as he
nibbles a shrimp
And I vomit
the venomous words
--------------------
Historical Novel
by Ellaraine Lockie (California)
Source: Finishing Lines (2005)
I'm reading my nightly novel
When a word brings you
into blurred focus: bombastic
I look it up in Roget's Thesaurus
hoping alikeness will define
the fuzzy edges of a year's futility.
I find grandiloquent, magniloquent
inflated, verbose, padded, pretentious
All appropriate to your presence
I read on that pretentious
refers to language that is purposely
inflated in an effort to impress
And there you are
as real yet fraudulent
as rain on a full-moon night
Each word out of your mouth
a puffed-up drizzle that shrivels
the pages of the past.
------------------
Copyright (c) 2005 to Ellaraine Lockie.
Available in print edition.
--------------------
Do you like the poems of Ellaraine Lockie?
Rate the poems of Ellaraine Lockie from 1 to 5. One is the lowest and 5 is the highest.
Send your comments to [email protected]
Do you want to buy the chapbook "Finishing Lines" by Ellaraine Lockie ?
If yes:
a. Contact our email address.
b. Click the book ads of Ellaraine Lockie.
c. Visit our bookstore at www.musesreview.org/store.html