Free Association Prompt: Story Sketch for Mother-Tongue

[jjhunter]

From meeks' story sketch project comes this illustration for Mother-Tongue:



What poem or poem(s) does this bring to mind? And what further images, songs, or poems do those poems bring to mind?

Comments

[herlander_refugee]

Beowulf!
And then, not poetry, but John Gardner's "Grendel"....and then, I got nothing.

Under-coffied and still in the grip of a weird dream about a cellphone that looked AND jumped like a frog. (Talk about BAD ideas...sheesh!)

[jjhunter]

Re: Grendel...

“There are kids underneath my bed,”
Cried little baby monster Fred.
Momma monster smiled. “Oh, Fred,
There’s no such things as kids,” she said.

"Frightened", by Shel Silverstein

[jjhunter]

Re: Grendel again...

Ben is angry. Every night,
As soon as he turns out the light,
Some slurping, burping, bumping Creep
Is stopping him from going to sleep.


Beneath the bed are Collywobbles,
Having scraps and silly squabbles,
The Weirdos in the wardrobe snore…
Ben can’t stand it any more.

Beaneath the stairs a Monster waits
With eyes the size of dinner plates.
It’s nesting in his anorak –
He glares until it gives it back.
He finds the castle where they teach
The baby Creatures how to creech,
And tells them, rather angrily,
To go away and let him be.

But matters at the Monster School
Are not as he’d have guessed.
The Spider-Things are sulking
And the Dragons are distressed.
They’ve worked so hard on fur and fangs
And extra eyes and teeth
And lurking under children’s beds
And whuffling beneath…

Ben explains the best technique
For making little sisters squeak,
And leaving dirty socks in heaps –
That always gives grown-ups the creeps.

Ben knows how to trample flowers
And play his toy trombone for hours
And thirty ways to use a frog
The monsters sit there all agog.
They try to finger paint the cat,
But tentacles aren’t good for that,
And scabby knees and getting sticky
Altogether sound too tricky.

They’re good at cupboard lurking,
And inspiring scary dreaming,
And if that isn’t working,
Jumping out and screaming.
These other tricks sound hard, but then,
They’re amateurs compared to Ben.
They’ll stick to growls and sounding gruff,
And he can do the clever stuff.

-"Monster School" by penny_dreadful as posted here at write_good

[alee_grrl]

All the various snippets, especially the Shel Silverstein poem, make me think of Monsters Inc.

The image itself brought to mind Merchant of Venice (both the "pound of flesh" and vengeance themes, and the "if you prick us do we not bleed" lines). Thinking of vengeance and the Merchant of Venice made me think of Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction ("Vengeance is mine sayeth the lord").

[jjhunter]

Thinking of vengeance brings to mind this delightful Billy Collins poem "Flames":

Smokey the Bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.

His ranger's hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.

His brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher's mitts,
crackle into the distance.

He is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.

He is going to show them
how a professional does it.