05-03-2014, 07:45 AM
I gather from what other people have said that the speaker is a therapist who is employed by some institution, and whose mind is wandering onto such things as the wooden floor and the pencils. If that's the case, what's throwing me is the setting. If this is an institution, the floor is more likely to be rug or linoleum than wood. I can't think of any institution, besides a university, where a therapist would be employed to give sessions in such a fancy room that it would have a parquet floor with three or four different kinds of wood in it.
Actually, Keith thinks that the speaker is the patient and not the therapist.
I think the idea is clever, but I would execute it differently. I would scrap the references to being employed and put the therapist in private practice, and then I would give more of the therapist's mental meanderings as he/she comes to grips with whether he chose the right profession.
I also think that there are comic (comedic?) opportunities that are missed here. The ridiculous details that the therapist could be revealing about his patients in such a poem are nearly endless. Instead of day-dreaming about what kinds of wood are in the floor, have the therapist evaluating the sexual attractiveness of his patients -- that could be very funny.
But again, maybe I'm just missing the point.
Actually, Keith thinks that the speaker is the patient and not the therapist.
I think the idea is clever, but I would execute it differently. I would scrap the references to being employed and put the therapist in private practice, and then I would give more of the therapist's mental meanderings as he/she comes to grips with whether he chose the right profession.
I also think that there are comic (comedic?) opportunities that are missed here. The ridiculous details that the therapist could be revealing about his patients in such a poem are nearly endless. Instead of day-dreaming about what kinds of wood are in the floor, have the therapist evaluating the sexual attractiveness of his patients -- that could be very funny.
But again, maybe I'm just missing the point.