Sunday, November 1, 2009

Sibling Assignment #108: Creepy Abecedarian Poem Inspired by My Creepy Sacred Heart Medical Center Photographs

InlandEmpireGirl gave us this assignment. I think it's the most challenging one we've ever tackled.

Pick a favorite photo you have taken yourself. Post the photo and write an Abecedarian poem about the photo. You can also use a series of photos. Silver Valley Girl's poem and photos are here and here is InlandEmpireGirl's.


My Abecedarian poem is a fiction inspired by photos I took on Halloween when Russell and I made a photo taking visit yesterday to Eugene/Springfield's Sacred Heart Medical Center, a place I find creepy. The line breaks are messed up. New lines begin with each capitalized letter.



“Annihilate this place! Annihilate it!” Zoe

Bellowed. She fell to her hands and knees as if to

Creep across the lawn into the parking garage. “It

Depresses me. All this brick. Those crosses. It


Endangers health. This place is creepy.” Later Zoe

Flipped out when a nurse wheeled her to the calming waters. Zoe

Grumbled that the waters looked dirty, polluted. “These waters will only

Hamper my recovery”she cried as she thrashed about, threatening to


Injure herself and the nurse, who couldn’t believe how these waters

Jarred Zoe into such a rage and so she hustled her back to the hospital and

Knifed Zoe’s wheel chair between the doors just as they closed, Zoe ready to

Leap out of her chair. Zoe longed for Andy to arrive in his tricked up

Mazda and take her out of this place, wanted him to come right in the

Nick of time before the doctors increased her drugs or told her they’d have to

Operate, to remove the part of her brain that hadn’t responded when they

Pumped her full of electricity, hoping to shock her system and

Quell the outbursts of paranoid ranting and endless sobbing. It

Rankled Zoe that these doctors wanted to change her; they’d rather she

Slip into a deep and peaceful coma than have to

Tangle with her insights and prophecies. They didn’t know how the thoughts

Undulated in her head, how they came in big waves and then would

Veer from joy to fear to hope to despair, and how she spoke the truth. Then before she could


Wiggle free, they took her to that room again, acted like they were just going to take

X Rays or maybe even another scan of her brain, but she saw through it and

Yelped , softly this time, and cried, “No, no, no no no”. They wanted to calm her so they

Zapped her for the third time that week and jolted her into a dreamless sleep.




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