The Inside Story

The clock has ticked, the wheel is spun,
A breathless chase long back begun,
Alas, one hopes it’s not yet late,
Mere chance has not decided fate.

Pale clenched lips are now forced apart,
A stifled cry signals the start,
Entrance dark, a cavernous maw,
Writhing serpent lies on the floor.

It thrusts and coils in throes wild,
But by deft move it is beguiled,
There’s a curved arch, where stand two guards,
Behind pillar, they watch and ward.

Convulsive swallow, a forced lunge,
None shall yet this rescue expunge,
Pushed past narrow wet tunnel, dark,
There is no light, nary a spark.

Beyond, there’s a sudden churning,
Discomfort, an acid burning,
Yet one goes on in search of prey
To win this battle, come what may.

Stomach empties, bile-stained retching,
Vile green spews forth, it’s not fetching,
Capture, the fiend still eludes,
Purulent trail behind extrudes,

Signs of many valiant deaths,
Fights that lasted beyond mere breaths.
My capsule begins now to break -
Disintegrating, and I shake.

My molecules begin to crawl
Into crevices, be they so small,
The microbe met its match at last
When drugs entered, its die was cast.

The chase over, we are both dust,
Ending the Op - Bacteria Bust,
Fever abates, no further thought
Of the one who brought this about.

Day 6 Prompt: Breathless chase, a comedy write.

Quatrains in aabb rhyming pattern and eight syllable lines without meter.



Having already written of a chase more than once in this contest I thought I’d take you through the inside workings (literally) of a drug chasing some bacteria. The seeming metaphors thus become literal descriptions of the mouth and oesophagus, stomach, etc.