EADGBE

     For Dr. Mackie's Studies in Poetry, this assignment was to take an object and build outward into a metaphor for life in general.

Those dull guitar strings lost their stress,

it’s no wonder the sound’s a mess –

optimum performance comes only with tension,

so there’s no need for such apprehension;

challenges stretch them, but that’s by design,

it’s the same thing with bones –

they grow stronger through cracks in the fault lines.

We’re all playing down a few pieces in this game of chess,

let’s just face it – much as we’d like it to,

life can’t be a permanent recess.