Monday, December 5, 2011

Lunch

Lunch, George Tooker, 1964, Columbus Museum of Art

Lunch


This is what I remember.
Head down tuna surprise
Sweet tea and chocolate
Pudding-like substance
And then that terrifying
Glance up – too much
Too many I can’t even
Can’t even can’t even…

I sit at my desk
unwrapping
ham and cheese
and Ivanhoe.
Falling into
Rebecca’s world
I eat in peace.

The Bug, 11th Grade, 1980
Man that is some serious hair!

This is a Magpie Tale

25 comments:

Elizabeth said...

My dear Bug
,How splendid you look and how vividly you recall HIGH SCHOOL


and I never even attempted Ivanhoe.....!

Lowandslow said...

Wow! That IS some seriously big hair. I hope you won. ;)

S

Argent said...

HUUUGE Haair! Fantastic! Poem goes very werll with that picture as well.

Carrie Burtt said...

I can so relate to this one Bug....but I think that photo is adorable!!

ellen abbott said...

it was definitely the time of big hair.

we were allowed to eat outside on the campus so that's where I always ate, sitting with a small group of friends under a tree.

nice poem.

Helen said...

I enjoyed reading during my lunch hours too! Still do!

Brigid said...

Great post! I am so loving the 80s hair, mine was pretty 'big' too:)

Suz said...

I SHOULD have read during lunch
love the hair....

Gerry Snape said...

You have inspired me to write about my school lunch breaks with your poem...so good!

Jill from Killeny Glen said...

Oh, I know that painting well. Nice poem!

izzy said...

Can identify with the poem, and like it,especially the first half.
My poofy hair always got tied back!

Brian Miller said...

nice...i know that escape well..books have definitely played that role for me...tuna surprise is never a good thing...the surprise gets me every time...smiles.

Titus said...

Really liked the poem - wonderful capturing of a place, a time.

The hair I'm not so sure about...

Rudee said...

The lunch room horrified me. Your words brought back all my anxieties about lunch situations at school.

That is way serious hair, girlfriend!

Enchanted Oak said...

"And then that terrifying Glance up – too much Too many I can’t even Can’t even can’t even… "

Oh, good girl! The broken record sound ~ perfect!

What a satisfying bit of conflict resolution you have captured here. Poets sometimes forget that conflict is as essential to a good poem as it is to a novel.

And the hair, since you invite comment about it, I so coveted your naturally curly hair 10 years earlier, big wild Afro-like ringlets on my fine, flat, straight, parted-down-the-middle blonde anti-war-demonstrating, acid-dropping, pot-brownie-eating head that I braided it wet in tiny Medusa-like braids every week so it would dry big and kinky. The grass is always greener.

Tumblewords: said...

I'm still envious of big hair. Seriously envious. Yes, still. Your poem is a thing of beauty and timelessness.

Templeton's fury said...

hilarious! thanks for taking me back

Templeton's fury said...

hilarious! thanks for taking me back

Dave King said...

This both convinces and moves me utterly. Well done.

Margaret said...

Oh, I have been there. And I call it "GBH" Great Big Hair. Although, yours looks natural - I spent an hour every morning poofing mine up and up and up - only to fall flat by the end of the day. I was shy too...

Loved this.

The Bug said...

Oh no - the hair was NOT natural! It was a perm gone wild. Sigh. Thank goodness after about 10 more years of perms I finally gave up on those!

Margaret said...

Perms.. yes. They were my torture too!

Tess Kincaid said...

I love your reference to the Wyeth...I remember feeling just this way...

Berowne said...

A beautifully written, imaginative take on this week's prompt...

Isabel Doyle said...

Safety at the desk! I loooove your hair and your wide-open eys waiting for life!