Staying Dark

[dukealien]

Staying Dark

I pumped a plumber’s helper (lovely name)
upon my bathroom’s stagnant shower drain.
Two massive, stringy clogs belched up
both puma-black - though strange to say
when dried out in the bin they stayed
quite dark.  That must be hair
from years ago:  I’m now quite gray
with little left to shed.  No lesson here.

[Leanne]

I had to read the first line a couple of times since in our vernacular, pumping a plumber's helper would mean getting exceedingly friendly with the tradesman's apprentice...

The black blobs do conjure up such an appetising image. Hair, once jettisoned from its bodily roots, is really a most unattractive thing -- but I do hope you manage to retain your dignified gre(a)y for as long as it takes for you to at least knit yourself a bonnet.

On a critical level (because I feel compelled to mention), this works well as a metaphor for the departure of youth. All those years down the drain, and the surface is stagnant. Cheery thoughts all round.

[dukealien]

I had to read the first line a couple of times since in our vernacular, pumping a plumber's helper would mean getting exceedingly friendly with the tradesman's apprentice...

The black blobs do conjure up such an appetising image.  Hair, once jettisoned from its bodily roots, is really a most unattractive thing -- but I do hope you manage to retain your dignified gre(a)y for as long as it takes for you to at least knit yourself a bonnet.  

On a critical level (because I feel compelled to mention), this works well as a metaphor for the departure of youth.  All those years down the drain, and the surface is stagnant.  Cheery thoughts all round.

I believe Brit. Eng. for the item is "plumber's friend," same problem in other vernaculars and a syllable short to boot.  In the States it goes by "toilet plunger," example of Am. Eng. being more graphic as is often not the case.

[Achebe]

I had to read the first line a couple of times since in our vernacular, pumping a plumber's helper would mean getting exceedingly friendly with the tradesman's apprentice...

Amen to that    
That's how I read it too...but it didn't sound like duke's brand of humour at all...

[just mercedes]

I could have sworn I read 'plunged' in your poem first time through.

The clumps of loss, a universal theme. A different way to measure time.

[RiverNotch]

Ooh, lovely! But yes, if you had to print it in America (or here, since we learned English from them Thomasites), you'd have to translate plumber's helper to toilet plunger --- but ooh, same meter! So perhaps you could spoiler in an American version, if you thought so necessary.