"dismal" poems
Dear God, whoever, whatever, wherever you are- can you see me?
Can you see the terror in my eyes?
This day I wakened gripped in fear.
Can you see me behind the lies?
False is my smile, real is my tear
That trails my cheek the stain remains
The mask each day I don at morn
No soul beholds the blinding pain
For not shall I allow one's scorn
Dear God can you hear me?
My screams are stifled by the sound
Of winds I turn to carry me
Away from dismal strife abound
I turn my back one step to flee
When I speak, my voice not mine
Tis what you wish that you will hear
That life is good and all is fine
Expression when my soul can't bear
Soliloquy for me alone
With words that bring me to my knees
I shake with chill deep to the bone
Despair I pray that no one sees
Dear God, can you feel me?
I know my heart beats within
Yet how I wish that it would cease
Perhaps no longer that I shall sin
And finally gain a sense of peace
I wish to hate you for you have made me
Look how I've grown with this weak shell
Assembled pieces faithlessly
The cracks run deep, dear God, pray tell
Can you see my tears and hear my cries?
Or feel the knife plunged deep within
My heart, my soul, my mind defies
Hope, joy, and love, my harshest sin
Are you there, my God, or no!
Why have you made me thus?
Alas, no one shall know my woe
To will my body back to dust
Tis all my own, this place I made
No one to blame only myself
Goodbye, farewell and so I bade
Sorrow, oh flame! My life engulf!
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 11:41 AM UTC
“You are worth more than the marigolds”
I am assured by my loving mother as a child
I believe her because the beauty in everything flow’rs and flourishes
when you’re young
The world is yours to take, everyone is yours to meet, everything is yours to do;
and I believe her.
“You are worth more than the marigolds”
My first friend at school proclaims,
and I believe them.
We’ve tackled ***** training and preschool, now onto the playground and phonics!
We run and run together, taking the world like we’ve
whispered once before;
and I believe them.
“You are worth more than the marigolds”
The middle school test scores announce,
and I believe them.
Primary school is in the past and I’m ready for responsibility!
I put on makeup to feel pretty, care about my grades more than the teachers believe and flash my smile to the boys who spit “compliments” at my feet;
and I believe them.
“You are worth more than the marigolds”
but.. I don’t believe them anymore.
I’ve gained just enough confidence to smile at everyone in the halls in case they are having a bad day.
Suddenly my youthful euphoric vision is graffitied with hateful words and violence.
I run and constantly chase the innocence of the world,
being surrounded by darkness.
My self esteem has hit an all time low. Why is the world this way?
My friends and I chase what we used to believe and end up in deep holes;
and I don’t believe them anymore.
“You are worth more than the marigolds”
And it doesn’t matter.
I have lost all hope of finding that beauty.
My heart is an aching mess of “I love you”’s
But all I hear is “you are meaningless”
Slowly these phrases of deep hate sear into my soul
I hear them every day and every night
You are meaningless
You are not worthy
You could not possibly be good enough
Until I wake up one dismal morning to realize that I have been defined by the ones around me.
“You are worth more than the marigolds”
..and enough!
Because even my friends who say I’m worth something turn around and sneer at others like they can’t too be loved.
Because while the world screams “I hate people” I whisper
“but I don’t”.
But that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things
because we’ll find someone who loves us, right?
No.
Our words between just us mean nothing if we spin around and
spit in others’ faces.
And we know we hurt because we’ve been hurt but we don’t stop, none of us stop.
I dream of a world that screams a vulnerable
“I love you”
out into the world instead of a pulsing
“I hate you”
And a world that remembers that we are all worthy of love and not only the kind that makes you blush.
“You are worth more than the marigolds”
The phrase I’ve heard since I was in my mother’s gentle hold
can only mean so much when you think you’re crumpled.
Stashed away until you’re needed
always feeling so defeated
but the truth
not told enough
to our weakened souls
We are all worth more than the marigolds
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 11:15 PM UTC
Are you out there my Friend.? ? Somewhere The Wind is blowing..? Where your footprints are gone as soon as left. No one to know. No one Knowing.?
Are you in the Wind? ? A voice, distant, lost in the swirl of snow and Autumn leaves.? Your way Home...unknown.
The next step taken, but down what path.? Will it lead through this wood, or wander Forever this Dismal forest of Bramble and Thorn? Your clothes ragged, tattered, torn.No shelter in sight. No sheltering insight.
Crows with eyes bright. Plucking at your sleeves and dress. Catching your skin with talons that gleam, bleeding you like a priest with a fleem. Leaving you wounded and hurt., weary and wary.
If you would stand still but a moment., cease your struggling and stumbling. Just listen, you'll hear my voice
On the Wind.
Calling you Home.
Safe within the walls and warmth of my arms.
Jan 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017 at 12:32 AM UTC
What a city I murmur to myself looking at its map.
We approached the city known as Dis,
with its vast army and its burdened citizens.
At last we reached the moats
dug deep around the dismal city.
What destroys the poetry of a city?
Automobiles destroy it,
and they destroy more than the poetry.
Dante and Virgil chased by 7 or 8 dangerous devils
Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, ***** . . .
Our heroes reduced from metaphysical philosophers
interested in god and what man has done to man
to improvising primitive tools for survival.
Hope abandoned, we rate our chances of expiring
in the nuclear fire – excellent –
during the decline of western civilization.
On the other hand, I hope
our current problems are only temporary
and it’s just a matter of time before
the public ignores the 24-hour news cycle.
Bad news sells but the good life’s all around us.
One feels love and devotion
even for the 60 million who voted for our opponent.
Vaclav Havel said with a wisdom well beyond brilliance:
“Either we have hope within us or we don’t.
It is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not dependent
on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation.
It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart
that transcends the world as it’s immediately experienced.
It is not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense
no matter how it turns out.”
It resembles grief. But it's not quite grief. I'll give you grief.
Certain days planned to be eventful I look forward to for weeks.
Let the peaceful transfer of power proceed. The sorrow and the pity.
Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth.
When the laws are kept, how proudly the city stands!
When the laws are broken, what of the city then?
We are moving through some allegory between a City of Hope,
where history has been abolished, and a City of History,
where hope can be slipped in only as contraband.
Failing to achieve understanding, we're searching
outer space for an entity to unite us as humanity.
That person, or city, is consciousness.
Two ancient female poets are a revelation,
the clarity of their complaints: lost lover, lost city.
Our enemy eventually becomes our brother,
his misery lifted by coming to her city.
Apr 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2018 at 9:23 AM UTC
Society has good intentions Bureaucracy is like a friend
5 years ago - other furies other losses -
America's
trying to control the uncontrollable Forest fires, Vice
The essential smile In the essential sleep Of the children Of the essential mind
I'm
all thru playing the American
Now I'm going to live a good quiet life
The
world should be built for foot walkers
Oily
rivers Of spiney Nevady
I
am Jake Cake
Rake
Write like Blake
The
horse is not pleased Sight of his
gorgeous finery
in the dust Its silken
nostrils
did disgust
Cats
arent kind Kiddies anent sweet
April
in Nevada - Investigating Dismal Cheyenne Where the war parties
In fields
of straw
Aimed over oxen At Indian Chiefs
In wild headdress Pouring thru
the gap
In Wyoming plain
To make the settlers
Eat more dust than dust
was eaten In the States From East at Seacoast Where wagons made up To dreadful
Plains
Of clazer vup
Saltry
settlers
Anxious to ********** The Mongol Sea (I'm too tired in Cheyenne -
No sleep in 4 nights now, & 2 to go)
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Warning: Use dis list in context.
You decide on which side you fall.
disappear
disregard
disaster
displace
disqualify
disrepair
disturb
dissipate
disability
dispose
dismal
distribute
distrust
disturb
discriminate
discuss
disdain
disguise
dishearten
disinherit
disown
disparage
disagree
disgruntle
disclose
discolour
dispute
disarm
discover
disassemble
disadvantage
disallow
dispossess
discontent
discontinue
disrespect
disincline
discomfort
disrepute
dishonest
disillusion
dishonor
dismiss
disobey
disjoin
disappoint
discipline
discord
discern
discrete
disfigure
disconnect
disapprove
discharge
disbar
disease
discord
disfavor
disengage
disassociate
discipline
discount
disembody
displace
dissaray
disembowel
discombobulate
discredit
discourse
disentangle
disenfranchise
disembark
discard
disburse
disbelief
discover
disable
disagree
disintegrate
dismay
dispense
dislodge
disclaimer
disapprove
dissatisfy
disrupt
dispel
dislike
dismantle
disloyal
disbatch
disrobe
disperse
display
disaprove
disciple
disavow
disconcert
disinfect
disorder
dismal
dismember
displease
dissemble
disunity
dislocate
distort
distrust
distress
dissolute
disassociate
distill
discect (?)
distemper
distain
distasteful
distraught
dissolve
dissonant
dissuade
And dis isn't de end.
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 12:06 PM UTC
All those laughters
Are not always real
All those faces in a park,
Wrinkled and weary,
Laugh in a circle,
Devoid of happiness,
No sign of a crinkle,
Eyes without light,
Devoid of life.
Their happy sadness echoes,
On the streets, in apartements,
The dismal vibes reach us
Yet they emanate the fake sentiments.
Stoop a little and evesdrop that circle,
They deceive emotions, black and purple,
All you hear is a shouting troop,
We know the truth of a laughing group.
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 11:36 PM UTC
Up and lead the dance of Fate!
Lift the song that mortals hate!
Tell what rights are ours on earth,
Over all of human birth.
Swift of foot to avenge are we!
He whose hands are clean and pure,
Naught our wrath to dread hath he;
Calm his cloudless days endure.
But the man that seeks to hide
Like him (1), his gore-bedewèd hands,
Witnesses to them that died,
The blood avengers at his side,
The Furies' troop forever stands.
O'er our victim come begin!
Come, the incantation sing,
Frantic all and maddening,
To the heart a brand of fire,
The Furies' hymn,
That which claims the senses dim,
Tuneless to the gentle lyre,
Withering the soul within.
The pride of all of human birth,
All glorious in the eye of day,
Dishonored slowly melts away,
Trod down and trampled to the earth,
Whene'er our dark-stoled troop advances,
Whene'er our feet lead on the dismal dances.
For light our footsteps are,
And perfect is our might,
Awful remembrances of guilt and crime,
Implacable to mortal prayer,
Far from the gods, unhonored, and heaven's light,
We hold our voiceless dwellings dread,
All unapproached by living or by dead.
What mortal feels not awe,
Nor trembles at our name,
Hearing our fate-appointed power sublime,
Fixed by the eternal law.
For old our office, and our fame,
Might never yet of its due honors fail,
Though 'neath the earth our realm in unsunned regions pale.
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She stands at a cross roads, looking from left to right, trying to decide which path to take
She turns to the left, where she sees a dark and dismal sky, where the path breaks up into tiny shards of gravel
She then turns to the right, where she sees a pleasant blue sky marked with wispy white clouds, where the path transforms into even blocks of cobblestone
Could she, struck with life's hardships, caught in life's desolation, choose the path which will lead her home?
Her eyes drift to and fro, summing up both paths, attempting to decide on just one
Should she choose a path of dark or light, tragedy or happiness, cloudiness or sunshine?
Her mind confused, she kneels on the ground, folds her arms, and sends a message from her heart to the One who will guide her home.
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 10:12 PM UTC
Without you it's so dismal,
I tell you, it's not blissful!
But still bae, it's a drizzle,
With you here in the middle,
Oh my, It's still a fist full!
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 8:12 AM UTC
Mysterious, mist-kissed hills dismiss my dismal disdain
For Life’s strivings in the ivy wired mire.
Budding blossoms embrace my burgeoning bliss-filled *****
As my soul soars into the seething skies.
My wings are beating with breathless wonder,
My imagination sends me to a destination
Beyond discrimination, defying appellation,
But not exclamation, at this elevation.
Smooth pools of cool blue hue contrast with cliffs
That overhang the huddled houses
Of the hillside village
On the way to who knows where.
The mists are shifting, ever drifting
Hiding everything
Except the mountain tops.
A new dimension might await us
Always moving as
Our journey never stops.
Paul Butters
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 5:16 PM UTC
Take a look
At this decade's eternal light.
Youth, beauty, happiness.
In theory.
Is that how it was for our parents?
Top tags on this website
#depression #suicide #heartbreak
Are grandma's photo albums fairytales
Or has something changed
Without shame
Unmarked blame
Just a change
Perseverance died
At the doorstep of sarcastic self-deprecation,
Cool-to-be-lame facades,
Glorified depression, growing vines on glowing laptop walls
With a generation, fetal position, ripped jeans and eyeliner, inside
Self proclaimed ****
If you say it first
Those twisted lips of others
Won't press on such a fresh wound
And here we lose the metaphor
Cut yourself
So everyone else
Is picking at scabs
No one would hurt another
Who hurts themselves
Unless they're an ***
So the words are silenced
Are you stronger? Happier? Healthier?
And so we can always be safe
In our self loathing
Until puppy eyes and perfect pictures
Leave us hungry
Hurt by the people who don't mind being *****
Gaining assets, stealing rights from under
Our droopy dismal noses snapshot
Caption: **** up, let down, repeat. Hate me.
-politicians and companies will bash your head on rock bottom
Looking up in disbelief at chemical burns from Big Mac's
We'll look back down to pout about our pain.
The only way to save ourselves?
Perseverance
Positivity
Hope
Though I conveyed none of those emotions in this poem.
**** me.
I'm a hypocrite. But my point still stands.
Perhaps even stronger.
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 2:34 AM UTC
As reckless as it seemed,
He is becoming the man of my dreams.
I see him in the bright areas of the dismal gray.
I see his eyes flicker when we lay.
And they go off to a special place,
We title it unspeakable.
And when it's spoken, love will be our token ...
Intertwining this rhyme with the blurriest of things in my mind
The ones more clear will soon come out dear
But from here, please take that I'm sincere
And you're a passion sign lighting up when strangers drive slowly and those who drive dangerously. I wave and point to show how important you are. I'm the most consistent visitor.
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 10:27 AM UTC
Alas!
They so bittersweetly croon in mine ear,
“Thou art as lovely as that morbid Queen Persephone!”
Have I been such a fool, cruel and extreme?
My hollow footsteps do fall here
Bringing forth wintry winds of death.
Alas!
They so eagerly whisper in thine ear,
“Thy lover art as lovely as that dreadful Queen Persephone!”
Hast thou been such a fool, sightless and mad?
Failed to listen for my light steps,
And forgot to feel winter’s dismal chill.
Alas!
They so desperately murmur in our ear,
“Thy love affair is as fair as that of the wraithlike Hades and Persephone!”
Have we been such fools, violent and severe?
Our footsteps resonate here forevermore,
The Lilies from our garden washed pitifully upon the Plutonian shore.
Apr 24, 2011
Apr 24, 2011 at 10:48 PM UTC
I walk alone,
Turning aimlessly left and right,
Feeling the cold from the rain seep through to my dismal heart.
Hot tears stream down my grief stricken face,
Contorting in and out of melancholy shapes,
Allowing my pitiful sobs to seep out.
My chest is tight with my broken heart,
Burning with every shaky breathe taken,
Surprisingly resisting the urge to cave in all together.
The world is bland,
Every color seems to have faded to shades of black and grey,
Doleful rain falling aimlessly to the ground.
Cheerful people sing in the rain,
Dance through the streets,
Jump in the forming puddles.
But me?
I walk on,
Sensing the cold swishing of my feet in my soaking shoes,
Craving to be unnoticed and left with my dismal heart.
Sep 8, 2016
Sep 8, 2016 at 10:43 AM UTC
As the growing world unraveled
And I began the dismal ascension of maturity
I stumbled out the fog of childhood
And there you were:
Advice to head and educate
A Battlecry and a Mandate.
Faith; in things to happen yet
Strength in knowledge- hope in regret;
Stories expressing casually:
Evils impartiality. and
tales of golden fantasies
How no drug is ever stronger than me.
These few phrases I imagine, you see
Into dreams only I can keep.
from start until the seventh day
Waking hour's dreamless sleep.
**Oh how you cushion the destruction-
the entrancement of seduction
to paint to play to grow to teach
Expression extending as I reach**.
Mar 29, 2019
Mar 29, 2019 at 3:28 AM UTC
Are dismal days headed our way?
Or could the blue
Carnival part the grey?
Fluttering red ribbons of the red carnival.
Warm blood
That welcomed in
The oncoming flood.
Spinning whites
The back of your eyes
The toothless grin of a cackling clown
A white carnival of white lies
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 1:14 AM UTC
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE—out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters—lone and dead,
Their still waters—still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,—
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,—
By the mountains—near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—
By the gray woods,—by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp,—
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,—
By each spot the most unholy—
In each nook most melancholy,—
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the past—
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by—
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
’Tis a peaceful, soothing region—
For the spirit that walks in shadow
’Tis—oh, ’tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not—dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only.
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be.
If all were as happy as we;
And mutual fear brings peace;
Till the selfish loves increase.
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.
He sits down with holy fears.
And waters the ground with tears:
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.
Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Caterpillar and Fly
Feed on the Mystery.
And it bears the fruit of Deceit.
Ruddy and sweet to eat:
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.
The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain
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Her words fell
Like the limbs of a
Dandelion
Departed;
Once a breath per
Echoed meme
And come another dream
With every
Feather’s frolic.
The lips within this
Captured moment
Flutter and fall,
Dismal and drunk,
Like the butterfly prior winter;
An excuse,
And she deserved better.
So to, I’ve learned to meander
One
Simple
Breath,
Be it the gasp, “final,”
Parallel and the very same
She’d blow and blow and
Scatter seed with.
And I’d love her
Just as much,
If only years ago,
But now carry forth,
Lash atop knowing “flee,”
Merely inched
And adjusted winds.
It’s a “later”
Sort of tale atop tongue,
And idea coined “alive,”
Albeit moments before born,
So much closer to
“Never-end,”
Resonant, if only –
Her dandelion’s dream
And soon to be later patches
Green;
Come the grass,
Come the amnesia,
Come the cold,
Oh girl!
Come the day we both knew
I’d leave.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 10:14 AM UTC
...
Mystery;
Such that you were to me
But nervously I swayed in your direction
Curious;
I couldn't help but catch
my breath as you spoke of this
dismal city and your photography
So caught
in your wishes to escape
back to your summer adventures
to the hustle and bustle of Tokyo and Seoul;
it was then you felt such anonymity
So it was then you had felt free.
I look to you again,
piecing you in these things that you
dare share with me; so easily,
eagerly.
Quiet now, you look to me but
I apologize, I didn't know quite
where to begin.
Mist and fluttering snow
Clouding over our concrete city,
We walked below the looming
Buildings until pausing,
to take a picture of me.
It seemed, in this hour, it was
only us who
chose to walk through these
deserted snowed-in streets
You suggested something then,
offering to take me up to the top
of the sleekest buildings,
to your rooftop sanctuaries I longed
to see
until it was only in my view-
small specks of life below me
where I could only see my sodden shoes
dangle down
to nothingness, to air, weightlessly as I
taste the mist upon my shoulders and
frozen hair.
In awe I would laugh
at the beautiful sight before me- to
Skyscrapers that cut above clouds
in the glint of the sun reflecting back to
our eyes, and
our cheeks who also felt the bite of
winter's winds.
Shivering,
Soaked in hair and feet
and
Again I turned to face you
but here,
with glittering eyes,
... wondered where
You would then choose to
take me
on our second date?
P.K.
Nov 2, 2014
Nov 2, 2014 at 3:31 PM UTC
I see a flash
A sight to behold
The work of an immortal sculptor
Walking straight in elegant pride
Worth of a princess of the sun
Firmly transfixed in her twelve
Moving into the emptiness of an invalid society
Her innocence screaming
In an unchallenged clarity
And only twelve moons
The framework of her modeling salivates
Wolves in men
Who’s been exposed to the virus
Emerging from the bush land of their desires
To seek their vengeance in a fanatical hatred
And poor me the princess
With the *** lunacy roaming the streets,
Sanity of abstinence is the greatest challenge.
Swung from poverty to adolescence
A pendulum of fates
Hunger at home for the family
And her homestead a moonscape of desolation
The two hundred shillings does the trick
She trades out her innocence
And virginity too; a girls pride
And alongside the legal tender
Comes the virus
The minute monster
Savoring a society of huge minds.
There is the tuberculosis
In a hospital ward
Full of undug graves and shrines unnamed.
Drawn into the vacuum of her fate
Eyes wide open in dismal finality
The princess
Lie in freeze frame of death
A pyramid of events
Molded out of her last several terrible seconds
Lamentation for the society
A dull eulogy for our girls.
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 5:19 AM UTC
a smiley face is happy a smiley face is glad
never ever dismal never ever sad
full of happiness bringing such delight
making life worth while making life so bright.
so wear a smiley face each and everyday
this will make you happy keep the blues away
make your life worth while and worth living for
take away the sadness and smile again once more
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 10:53 AM UTC
I house thunder inside of these bones.
I contain lightning inside my heart.
I contain raindrops in my veins.
I am the storm.
But, do not worry dear plebeians, I do not strike on dark days of gray,
Only on dark days of pain.
I pour down on the suffering, to wash away all of their troubles.
And I'd rather have a lifetime of saving rain than a constantly-glowing sun.
Because the Sun is just too dim compared to the fire that burns inside of me.
Jun 22, 2016
Jun 22, 2016 at 2:01 AM UTC
Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?
Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.
In the hurricane, when father's twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
'Thor is angry; boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don't care!'
But those ladies broke the panes.
When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.
Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother.
I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.
Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born.
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.
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