Grex Poetry3 Conference

Item 68: Working at the Hardware Store

Entered by cloud on Wed Mar 31 01:27:08 1999:

I stand on a platform
   So I'm very tall
I smile at customers
   who often smell of water damage
I take their money
   which is as dirty as they are


I smile and say thank you
   it's in my contract
and they frown
   thinking of their job
and take the plunger and go.

As they go
I wish them a nice day.

        --Cricket, 3/29/99, 11:10 PM
7 responses total.
#1 of 7 by arianna on Wed Mar 31 03:06:01 1999:

one comment:  I'd change the line "take their plunger and go" to "take their
plunger and leave" -- the repatition of "go" is redundant to my ears.

#2 of 7 by cloud on Thu Apr 1 02:53:37 1999:

How about I change the second to last line to "As they exit"?  I like the way
"go" sounds in the line before.  I must have been sleeping when I put it down
twice

#3 of 7 by arianna on Thu Apr 1 22:01:10 1999:

"as they exit" is a little too formal, methinks...
another thing: there's a lot of "ands" in the staza before the last one.
<is nit picking>

#4 of 7 by lumen on Wed Apr 7 06:15:34 1999:

No.. I like 'go' being repeated-- gives the poem a sense of steady 
rhythm.  Poets do not have to be scholarly writers-- when repetition 
works, it works.

#5 of 7 by cloud on Sun Apr 11 23:33:28 1999:

Or it doesn't.  I'll sit on the disition for a bit.

#6 of 7 by cloud on Tue Apr 13 01:26:45 1999:

OK, on the advise of my writing teacher, I'm just going to cut that line "as
they go".  It's not really nessessary, as we've already said that they're
going.  Oh, and the line after will remain on it's own, so I have a one line
ending.

#7 of 7 by bookworm on Tue Apr 13 04:57:09 1999:

I like it.  I think you should leave it as is.

It sound much like somebody describing his job to somebody else.

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