Poetry Friday is with Katie at The Logonauts.
I hate snakes! I always have for as long as I can remember. I grew up running around the piney woods of Mississippi and now I live on a bayou in Louisiana. Snakes are a part of my world, but they terrify me.
This week one of the news stories that we poets responded to was about a snake coming out of a toilet in Texas. If you want to never look at a toilet the same way again, read this article. I decided against posting a picture on my blog. It was bad enough that I had to see it repeatedly on my Facebook feed.
The day this prompt was posted for Laura Shovan’s February ten found words writing project I was teaching cinquains to my students. They were writing them about their names. I chose to write about this snake menace. I enjoyed sharing the frightful article and resulting poem with them.
The rules for a cinquain are 5 lines with 2, 4, 6, 8, 2 syllables in each line.
rattle
in the toilet
camouflaged cryptic sign
surprising an innocent boy
Nightmare!shovel
slamming down hard
killing snake in a clump
unknowing den of twenty three
silentcellar
perfect hiding
for slithering secrets
wondering when their diamonds
will shine–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
Reflections on the Teche 
oh, my gosh…..I know! That picture –just the memory makes me shudder. Two weeks before, in Arlington (far too close to where I live) a “young anaconda was found in an apartment toilet. No cool flushing snakes, people!!
What a great response to horror though…a cinqain which is no easy-peasy task!. Love it….my favorite stanza is: cellar
perfect hiding
for slithering secrets
wondering when their diamonds
will shine
Oh, what a good and creepy, creepy ending.
Thanks, Linda. I added the word diamond in this revised version. It works so well I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.
“wondering when their diamonds will shine” is SO sinister! I’m kind of fascinated by snakes and have more than once caught nonvenemous ones in my yard using a pillowcase just so I could watch them more closely for a while. I would NOT however enjoy finding a nest of them in my toilet! I keep thinking of Indiana Jones… “why did it have to be SNAKES?” 🙂 Thank you for sharing your poem. I like imagining your notebook full of those news poems! Keep going. xo
If Indiana Jones can be afraid of snakes, I guess it’s okay if we are also. I have personally known people who travel the nation looking for exotic snakes to add to their collection. I never enjoyed visiting their “snake room” when I visited, ha ha.
That picture gave me the willies, too! I love that you worked these challenging words into cinquains. Well done!
“Diamonds” made me think of the diamond head snakes I’ve killed in the California desserts. No wonder Satan appeared as a snake in the Garden of Eden; snakes are about as creepy as it gets. Hanging snakes have been known to kill all the birds on a Pacific island. Fortunately, Hawaii is still free of snakes.
Just the memory of that picture makes me shudder. I’m glad you and your students had fun with the story and poems.
Oh my goodness! I think I would have died of a heart attack. Snakes are one of the few things that just creepy me out. The cinquain is perfect for this poem because of the diamonds that your words form.
I saw that picture too–love your cinquain take on it. I’m kind of a fan of snakes…if you want to see millions in one place (maybe exposure will take away the fear? maybe not…) take a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jTxiWmSpk8
Sorry Buffy overexposure doesn’t work.
EEEK not the snakes again! LOL I love your last few lines. Snakes should get to shine. Just not in my bathroom.
This reminds me of one of my favourite movie series – Indiana Jones! “Snakes – why did it have to be snakes?!” 😉
It would be a nightmare for me indeed to find a snake staring back at me from the toilet! I do love this “snaky” cinquain!
Appreciations for the cinquain reminder + the great diamond shape poem + for sharing your fears, so eloquently. My heart went out to the family + the child.
However we infrequently hear of the good that non-poisonous snakes perform – rodent eradicator is one We here have always been interested in snakes & our daughter has a lovely, tame red rat snake, which we now care for that she is away in school. My father was a farm boy who killed , my mother a pure city critter, who never met a snake until she met Dad & moved the country. But somehow they left me with a different feeling about many critters that give most folks the willies. For example, I have had a pet tarantula in my hand. But that is another poem.
Long way of saying that this post is wonderfully passionate. I hope the unfortunate family who had that awful toilet experience sees it, Margaret. I have enjoyed it very much.
Oooh, that last stanza! I grew up in the land of snakes, India – and hate them with a passion.
Margaret, that article we used for the #10FoundWords challenge was weird and scary. You did a marvelous job of piecing the story into a cinquain with a great closing stanza for all to ponder.
You did this wonderfully, and I bet your students loved every bit. I didn’t share with our FB group, but a long time ago my brother had a gopher appear in a toilet (just like the snake). No nest, but they were wary for a long time. Thanks for being so brave to even write about them.
When I first read your cinquains, I was thinking there must be a class of twenty-three kids watching… Not 23 snakes!! Yeepers. You’d almost want to move house, with that! Great poems. I too loved your pondering end about the (rough) diamond’s chance to shine.
Well played! May your toilets forever remain snake-free. (Yes, that image does kind of burn into your memory, doesn’t it!!!)
I have heard of snakes appearing in toilets before. Just the worst kind of nightmare. The cinquain form is perfect. A diamond-backed creation.