13. Misfortune [100 poems challenge]

13.          Misfortune

Seeking lost spheres of
SiO₂
Might drive a person a little crazy;
Misplaced beads
Of glass make you mad.

To lose one marble,
My dear reader,
May be regarded as a misfortune;
To lose more
Looks like carelessness.

2 May 2013 (with apologies to Oscar Wilde)

Comments: I couldn’t get inspiration for this at all, until I had vague recollections of a quote from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest: “To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness”. I then had to figure out what might be lost instead, and it occurred to me that it was kind of witty to think about the quote in reference to losing one’s marbles. So I stole the quote and tried to adapt it. Unfortunately, it’s a prose line rather than a poetic line, and my attempt to mirror it with the first verse doesn’t really come off. And I think the allusions will be too subtle for some and a sledgehammer for others, so I am not convinced about that this poem works at all. It’s more about insanity (the previous theme) than misfortune, in any case. Oh well. It scans better — as much as it scans at all — if you read silicon dioxide as ess-i-oh-two.

Themes to come: 14. Smile; 15. Silence; 16. Questioning; 17. Blood; 18. Rainbow

Explanation about the 100 poems challenge here.