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Feeding the Whale

David Atwood 1959 (New Orleans, LA)

January 22 
Free verse
I find the newspaper with the story about me,
then returning home, an ambulance in the street ahead -

lights flashing, slowing traffic, doors gaped wide -
like a whale waiting to swallow the man on the gurney.

A Jeep aslant on the sidewalk, all doors ajar –
as if it had just vomited its contents.

Two young women in the car behind me,
busy with phones, pay no attention to

the whale preparing to swallow the man on the gurney –
lost in their story in my rear-view mirror.

Me, the lost women, the man on the gurney -
all grains of sand in our own hourglass –

waiting to feed the whale.

About this poem

A reflection on the individual as a unique being, in a world where it is increasingly easy to be lost among the masses.

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Written on January 15, 2022

Submitted by on January 29, 2022

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
42

Quick analysis:

Scheme AX XA XX AX AX AX X
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 603
Words 129
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1
Full analysis for Feeding the Whale »

David Atwood

David Atwood is a native New Orleanian, voice actor, radio DJ and poet living in Alexandria, LA with his wife, writer Christee Gabour Atwood. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from LSU and has worked in radio in Baton Rouge, Atlanta and currently in Alexandria. His first chapbook of poetry "Find Your Way Home" was released in 2010, his second, "Catfish Bones and Cajun Ghosts" in 2016, and his newest chapbook "Instamatic" was just released in January 2022. Atwood has also been published in Louisiana Literature, Parish Line Press, Delta Poetry Review, The Louisiana Review and Belle Journal. more…

All David Atwood poems | David Atwood Books

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    "Feeding the Whale" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 18 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/119491/feeding-the-whale>.

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