I’m Digging a Tunnel to Friday

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I'm Digging a Tunnel to Friday by Kenn Nesbitt

I’m digging a tunnel to Friday.
I started on Monday this week.
I wanted to skip to the weekend.
The method I found is unique.

I thought it would take me an hour—
at most just a couple of days—
to shovel a shortcut to Friday
and sidestep the midweek malaise.

I dug through the dullness of Monday.
With Tuesday I chopped through the fog.
I bypassed the boredom of Wednesday.
For Thursday I skirted the slog.

My tunnel did just what I wanted.
It seems I had made it just right.
It slipped past the worrisome weekdays
and popped out before Friday night.

But though I was proud of my tunnel,
and pleased with my clever technique,
I don’t recommend that you try it.
The digging took more than a week.

— Kenn Nesbitt

Reading Level: Grade 4
Topics: Imaginary Poems, Wacky Weirdness
Poetic Techniques: Alliteration, Assonance, Imagery, Irony, Narrative Poems
Word Count: 139

About This Poem

Some of my strangest poem ideas arrive just as I’m drifting off to sleep. That’s when this one appeared. Instead of trying to remember it until morning, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and jotted it down before I could forget it.

What surprised me wasn’t the idea itself, but the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the next several days. I’ve often said that the best movies are the ones you’re still thinking about a day or two after you’ve seen them, while the forgettable ones disappear from your mind almost immediately. I sometimes wonder if the same is true of ideas for poems. If one keeps coming back to me, and still makes me smile days later, maybe that’s a sign it’s worth exploring, or, dare I say, digging a little more.

Oh, and if you liked this poem, here are a few more you’re sure to “dig”:

Worksheet

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