15 Words or Less Thursday: Happy Chef

Wake up your poetry brains with 15 Words or Less (guidelines here)! Please note: I won’t be available to comment on this week’s poems. I hope you’ll still have fun participating, though!

Photo: Laura Purdie Salas

On our way home from our drum corps show last night in Mankato, MN, (where I got to see my writer friend Terri DeGezelle) we stopped at Happy Chef, an all-night diner we ate at last year, too. Cinnamon French toast–yum. Anyway, this 20-foot-tall statue struck me as quite creepy, and from inside the restaurant, looking out the window, it looked like the Happy Chef was giving everyone the finger! Outside, it was obvious he wasn’t. But he still creeped me out a bit.

This picture makes me think of:

1. A knife-wielding homicidal maniac.
2. How smiling statues always look wrong. (And I don’t like the Mona Lisa, either.)
3. All the interesting and bizarre statues you see outside restaurants in small towns or rural areas across the country.

Here’s my poem first draft!

Prisoner
Frozen smile
Statued chill
Joy cannot
Be bound–held still

Eternal mirth:
Bitter pill
–Laura Purdie Salas

What does this picture make YOU think of? Whatever enters your mind, jot a quick 15 words or less poem and share it in the comments! Remember, your poem doesn’t have to describe the actual picture. Feel free to comment on each others’ poems and tell what your favorite part is:>)