25. Trouble Lurking [100 poems challenge]

25.          Trouble Lurking

I cycled English countryside
Past villages, and churches,
Past Roman ruins on the ride,
Past elms and oaks and birches.

With narrow lanes and cars so fast
My top was coloured brightly
So I’d be safe as they sped past,
My helmet done up tightly.

I had my trusty GPS
And maps to guide my steering;
My journey planned—well, more or less—
And only steep hills fearing.

So, thus it was I sallied on,
To see some famed attractions,
But you all know that while I’m gone
I’ll also seek distractions—

For England may be quite well known
For castles, towers, foxes,
But I had maps where it was shown
That there are plastic boxes!

So leaving my poor bike to stand
Locked up against a railing,
I took my GPS in hand
And with my helmet trailing

I snuck away on quiet feet,
I tried for “surreptitious”,
When seeking caches, be discreet
So others aren’t suspicious.

The arrow pointed, off I went,
But other eyes kept watching,
I couldn’t shake them off my scent,
This cache hunt I was botching.

I tried to hide, I tried to sneak,
To blend with my surroundings,
But each time I would take a peak
My heart it kept a-pounding

For people kept on walking by
And looked in my direction;
No matter what decoys I’d try
They offered no protection.

I wonder if at last you’ve guessed
Why stealth just wasn’t working:
The wearing of a fluoro vest
Means you’ll have trouble lurking.

14 May 2013

Comments: Far too much work for a feeble punch line. I broke my “no ballads” promise, and my “less than 100 or so words” rule (by a factor of 2.5). AND it took far longer to write than it would have taken to do a drawing! However, bits of it give an approximately accurate account of some cache hunting I did near Oxford back in 2009. As it happened, I only think I was conspicuous; in fact, sometimes a fluoro vest can make you invisible when you are behaving suspiciously while in search of hidden objects, because you look so obvious and official you therefore become not obvious at all (see Douglas Adams’ “Somebody Else’s Problem”). If memory serves, I was able to find the caches.

In writing this I had the punchline early: I decided to reinterpret the theme—which I presume most people would take as having “trouble” as the object that was lurking and waiting to appear—by having me as the object that was having difficulty (trouble) with the lurking process. I was originally planning to write it in free verse and only a couple of stanzas, but before I’d even tried to write it I could see this would not tell the story properly … and, usually, if there’s a story to tell, this means a rhyming ballad. And that’s what you got.

Themes to come: 26. Tears; 27. Foreign; 28. Sorrow; 29. Happiness; 30. Under the Rain

Explanation about the 100 poems challenge here.