Old Roomie Poem by Nika McGuin

I love the line SOFT SLEEPER, FARE THEE WELL. I realize this poem is tongue-in-cheek with the formal Elizabethan language a humorous contrast to the ordinary events. But that overall tone of whimsy doesn't mean there can't be a note of heartfelt sentiment too. I find myself in the position of the roomie who has trouble waking up. I envy people who can get up early and be bright and cheerful like yourself.I used to apologize to my twin sister the night before because I knew I would greet her smiling Good Morning! with a grunt - it's all I could muster.

nika, i just read your bio and i see what you meant by mixing types of english, including shakesperean....doth, for example. i don't remember if, in the other poem i read, you did what you did here: only capitalizing the first letter in each STANZA (and the personal pronoun, i) . i kind of like it. i almost always use capitalization the way i was taught to use it when writing prose. [[you may notice that i don't do it when typing messages/comments on the computer; not usually anyway]] i know most poems seem to have each line start with a capital; i don't care so much for that. i didn't have trouble following your poem (once i decided the two mines were both ok (kind of nice actually, used near one another) . sometimes i DO have trouble reading/interpreting poems which lack prose-style punctuation, especially when it allows for more than one way to read a set of lines. i like this description of an early morning roommate situation, and i liked the rhyming. perhaps the roommate who sleeps in will turn out like me, a guy who quite college his senior year, but nonetheless managed to succeed well enough in life. i hope so! i hope the one who does the besting does at least as well. bri :)