A Mild Success in a Dull Business

[pomespennyeach]

For twenty odd years
I taught staff
throughout the Southwest
a software for processing
interlibrary loan requests.

In a teaching lab in Arizona
a loudspeaker interrupted
me again and again
all morning long.

During the dreaded
after lunch session
it began once more.

I looked at the speaker
on the wall and pretended
to load a shell
into an automatic
and shoot the speaker into silence.

My audience applauded
for the the first
and last time.

[Macavity]

It made me wonder PPE if the applause was for your action or the diversion from the lesson. To reinforce that irony, perhaps A Mild Diversion in a Dull Business.

mac

[CalebPerry]

I have some specific comments.


For twenty odd years
I taught staff
throughout the Southwest (Switch this line with the one above.)
a software for processing
interlibrary loan requests. ("Interlibrary loan requests" is very specific and technical for a poem.)

In a teaching lab in Arizona
a loudspeaker interrupted
me again and again
all morning long. (I think the reader is going to wonder why the loudspeaker interrupted you, and what it was saying.)

During the dreaded (Why dreaded?)
after-lunch session
it began once more.

I looked at the speaker
on the wall and pretended (When you say "pretended", did you mean "mimed"? Is that what made the audience applaud?)
to load a shell
into an automatic
and shoot the speaker into silence.

My audience applauded
for the the first
and last time.

[pomespennyeach]

Thanks Caleb,

I'm in the process of rewriting this completely. This version sounds too much like prose, like a tedious joke. Not sure how much, if any of original will carry over. But you point out some things echoed by other readers.

PPE

[chartsoft]

I will admit, my mistake due to eyesight, that I misread your first few lines three times before I got into your poem! I read ‘I thought stuff’ – maybe time to get new glasses!

Having got the first two lines right I really like your work. Being British I would prefer ‘a program for processing’ as ‘software’ over here is an uncountable noun. But that is the difference between the various forms of English and not a matter of right and wrong.

I like your alliteration – especially ‘during the dreaded’ and ‘shoot the speaker into silence’. I think you could expand the second stanza to make more of the interruptions maybe.

The pathos of the last stanza works particularly well.