While working on getting the kids down, a few lines kept floating back and forth in my mind, and I liked the trend. The problem is trying to assign non-obvious and not frivolous meanings to phrases that have lovely scenic value, but little emotional pull. That's interesting right there - our last writing group topic was about the power of description - AND balancing it - not so much your reader loses their insomnia problem, but not so little that the characters lack grounding in a believable world.
So, friends, I came up with three short verses that may or not be obvious, have meaning, or have interesting content. It is intentionally obscure - in my annoying way, it will again probably take three poems to divulge the full subject. Plagiarists be damned, if anyone is going to try to publish this dreck as their own, well, I hope they like rejection slips. Version one of a poem about, quite simply, someone who is cursed.
Singular clusters of feathers
Shift, rustle, stir
Quietly, repeatedly,
In a corner of the orchid room.
The last seventy-two minutes
Of setting sunlight grace these pale walls
With ochre, amber, and deepening rose.
There are other tickings -
Like a countdown -
and murmurs
I’m trying to ignore.
One red fingernail shivering against
Cloudy glass
Betray the effort -
Betray the collapse.
And nightly, nightly
I’m heavy and light
With snowy visage
And shattered appetite.
(a postscript of sorts. I removed about 50 stupid and useless words from the horror story, and put in 105 better ones, after writing this poem. Not bad for 45 minutes total, but I will be happier when I come up with either version two of a more coherent poem, or the second piece that will make this one make sense.
Happy, er, well, I mean, interesting reading!
And, of course, sweet dreams :-)
S.
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