The sweet olive emits its fragrance,
mild if slightly enticing, stopping just
short of cloying or sentimental,
and I am running up steps, Prescott Hall,
late and short of time as usual, so much
to do and experience and live, dashing
into this boothed laboratory, signaling
the lesson to the bored attendant as he
plays the assignment tape and then
inhaling, exhaling, thinking, dreaming
those throaty guttural consonants
Ich wurde genre ein Kalbsschnitzel
and superior capitalized nouns
Guten Morgen, Herr Doktor
earphones in place and spitting
words through teeth like a camel
dreaming of that sweet olive.
This poem is submitted to One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.
Illustration: Sweet Olive, Napoleon House (New Orleans) by William Hemmerling.
like a camel dreaming of that olive..ha now that is quite the picture...we had a prescott hall at my college...and i love olive sandwiches though i never learned german....
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when I was fluent in German -- and that is one apt description -- "spitting words through teeth like a camel dreaming of that sweet olive."
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
The german is beyond me
ReplyDeleteAs I can't make it out you see
But in the context of your poem
It really helps make it hit home