- Non-Erotic Poetry
- The Way the Story Ended
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Click hereI struck the first match
when thunder cracked
me apart. I crouched
in a corner of my stomach,
squeezed tight against
a cyclone of inevitable
gravity.
Grandmother returned then
ten years dead, but unchanged,
to steady her cloudy eyes
on my blind mountain
of pain: the dawn of my son.
His damp little palm
grasped the crooked shadow
of her fingers until
every ghost curled
from his ancient gaze,
even those I never knew
wavered in smokey memories
I don't have. Ashes
sixty years old scattered
a benediction of comfort
before the flame died.
I waited frozen years
of solitude until
I lit the second match.
I burned the house down.
This isn't a fairy tale.
I wasn't a snow queen
or a gingerbread witch
although the boy and girl
could not escape.
I did
stumbling
from the icy forest,
leaving everything behind
but a trail of breadcrumbs,
too scared to look back
at the crashing trees.
There are no matches left.
My flash of fury is banked
in a void where snow is falling,
falling and I can't
understand why I feel so warm,
cosseted in ever after, melted
on the tin soldier's heart.
- COMMENTS
KRover 18 years agoThis poem gave me goosebumps.
Somehow, for some reason, it echoed and brought to the surface something I wrote last night to a friend: "..it became oh so obvious that each moment is created out of the moment that preceeded it, and that I create myself in response to and interaction with my experiences, moment to moment. And it became oh so obvious that my responses are often conditioned by habit, by training, by the systems I have created, so that in my daily life, I am not really living today, I am experiencing a slight reconfiguration of the past."
Sometimes an ending is also a beginning, when we learn to accept that the past creates the present, but does not live in it.
TheRainManover 18 years agoPure and simple, this just reads well.
I'll leave it at that.
Tathagataover 18 years agomany reasons why this works so well.
One is,it's a different voice for you.
It's a bit cynical, it's angry, but peaceful and resigned and strong.
In short, it's very real and true and it gets into your marrow and demands a second and third read.
Great phrasing, excellent line breaks make the rhythm unconventional but smooth.
Almost too smooth as you read through you find yourself wanting to stop but you can't, so you read it again.
IMO one of the best things I've seen from you.
Keep working from that place you've found, mine it for all it's worth, and make sure you share it.
wildsweetoneover 18 years agoyou are one of the poets in whose work i find continuing enjoyment during many reads. i'm so glad you still share your writing here. thank you :) i love the way you use language.
wso
annaswirlsover 18 years agoI love how you have
"I burned the house down"
set aside. It makes the line SO powerful, as it should be.
My question: do you think the extra spacing around "I did" detracts from the power of the burning the house down line?
Classic Angeline, carefully painted, smooth images...
:)
anna
