Notes Pinned to Fridge Doors: A Kitchen Sink Drama

[dillingworth]

when you go out
please buy some slippers
so that when you
come back
i won't hear you

i need
milk, bread, fruit
i’d like
mother, brother, father
i can’t
manage, big, feelings

the door
is squeaking on its hinges
again
WD40’s worth a try
but i can still
hear you

marmite
is like
poetry
you love it
or hate it

the bulb’s gone
the cheese
is sitting
in the dark
maturing

defrost
the icebox
it’s filling up
the ice cubes
fit in
but only just

[Bombadil]

very WCW


kooky fridge people.

[camus]

Hurrah for another fridge poem!

Funny with dark undertones, these are cracking:

"please buy some slippers
so that when you
come back
i won't hear you"

"i can’t
manage, big, feelings"

Why no punctuation? was it emulating WCW for example, as Keith mentioned or for your own reasons?

[dillingworth]

I was trying to emulate both WCW and the style of notes pinned to fridge doors, which don't normally have punctuation. The commas are there because the three clauses are meant to look like a shopping list in some way.

Thanks for your comments.

[camus]

I see.

[pseud]

Not that it hasn't been done, but these could easily be haikus, left punctuationless, and have the same power.

Dunno though, if it messes up your opening with the slippers it's not worth it.

- Caleb

[figure eight]

I really liked the passages highlighted by camus but think the final stanza is perfect. More so without the punctuation as it has that slight confusion in the middle you so often get with fridge notes. They have to be read completely before you understand due to the way people stop reading when things stop making sense i.e "how is the ice box filling up the ice cubes..." seeing only after what was intended....

If that makes sense. I think I've confused myself.

Fantastic piece of work.

[pb]

Is the last stanza a reference to somebody 'springing out' of mould you have cut for them?

I like the slippers opening too, very withering.

pb

[dillingworth]

the themes are domestic: fitting in to a home environment and so on. opens with the slippers - i imagined a husband who hates his wife - and ends with the ice cubes which, as you said, are a metaphor for an inability to fit in without forcing oneself.