National Poetry Month Challenge - Day 9

Today's challenge was to write a shelter poem.  This is a poem about my first year of marriage, living in an abode of questionable construction.  All of it is true.

Our bungalow was just down the road from Marsden Rock (now two rocks)

South Shields Bungalow

Our bungalow-by-the-sea

was falling apart,

but it was all we had.

All of our wedding money

went to the move to England.

The bricks were slowly crumbling.

The backyard lawn consisted of long straw,

and we had no mower.

Everything was dark green –

the carpets,

the couch,

the curtains –

even the wallpaper.

I felt like I was living

in a bowl of pea soup.

When I wasn’t at my temp job

doing shift work,

I was writing.

There was no desk,

so we stacked some empty

milk crates and placed a piece of plywood on top.

It withstood my laptop,

my many hours of solitary typing,

and my heavy thinking.

One night, I flushed the plastic toilet freshener

by mistake.

Until the plumber came,

three days later,

we had to go to the pub

to use the bathroom.

The trick was to buy a pint,

so you looked like a customer,

but not drink so much of it,

that you would need to return to the pub

two hours later.

London was calling,

but for one year,

this bungalow-by-the-sea

gave two newlyweds shelter

from the storm.

Cristina M. R. Norcross

Copyright 2014