Tags
an homage to Alfred Hitchcock, Elaine Stirling, exorcising miserable, fun with homonyms, Halloween poem, humourous verse, life is what you make it, narrative poetry, serial poetry, spooky verse, tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, wordplay
The first two episodes may be read here and here.
~~~
A bed of gilt
with posters soaring
to a vast and vaulted
ceiling lay dead
center in the room
where ghost of ages
had assigned me
for the night, and all
across the counterpane
(that’s bedspread, fyi,
for some of us) in red
and black embroidered
letters spelt, DO NOT,
DO NOT, DO NOT
SLEEP HERE.
Then where? If not
upon a bed of guilt…
I looked around, aware
that U had silently crept
in, laid low a golden
age, deposed a bower
of repose. For what?
God dang! I knew,
if nothing else, this wasn’t
new to me, this house,
a host stuck in some
marmelade of misery.
I had been happy
once, quite sure of it,
and fought hard every
day to drag the feeling
back to front ahead
of me and might have
too, except for U and I—
Eeks!
I thought I’d heard
a noise, some skittering
of clause along my toes.
I leaped onto the bed.
There was no other
furniture apart from
chains forged to the
wall with manacles
and shackles spiked
for hands and feet, a
sign between them
reading, YOU ARE MORE
THAN WELCOME ALWAYS
TO SLEEP HERE!
—the hell?
These were my choices
then: recline upon a bed
of gold that told me no,
or lock myself against
a wall that welcomed but
would never let me rest.
I pondered what the ghost
of ages would expect
from me, a tattered soul,
convinced that I am
battered by great
forces and that love
at best, is fiction
passing, restless…
and the more my
thoughts collided ‘gainst
the had and would
and could and should,
a headboard, iron, gold
I felt, perhaps from sheer
exhaustion, a relinquishing.
A gaslight near the window
winked and winked again—
aha!—reminding me that
everywhere there’s two
there’s three, a thought,
unthought, and—
Off the bed I dove
and through the window
climbed and wondered,
tangled in the vines, if
what I’d viewed below
and thought I’d
dreamed was real.
In clear response, a
lion roared. A bull, he
pawed the flower bed
and snorted in circadian
disturbance—these are
not nocturnal creatures—
and the ghost of ages
woke me with a start
and said, you snored
again, sweetheart.
“I did?”
No. That would
be a tawdry end
to think that all we’ve
been through was
a dream, for life is
not a dream, it is a
poem-song, a play
of rhyme and light
a slant, a metered
pause of U and I who
sometimes act, quite
needlessly, as though
we’re poor and
wandering.
Beware, for at the
crossroads of the habit
of self-sorrowing awaits
a ghost. His name
is Ages Past.
Happy Halloween!
~~~
© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Oceantics 
What a journey this one is!
Here at the end of all three parts I keep thinking the word “blossomed” – which is strange for a Halloween-honoring piece of work. But that is what it felt like. Yesterday, when I read the second installment, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. (Dru is so expert at discerning in the moment…). Then today, when I went back and read all three pieces, I felt the blossoming of my own awareness as well as an understanding of what was conveyed and the champion way you conveyed it.
There is something about perceiving I am ” poor and wandering” at the crossroads that is (for me) like sitting at the end of yesterday’s second installment. Perhaps I’m not realizing “the blossoming” is just one block ahead, even though everyone around me is caught up in Halloween.
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You’ve said it beautifully, Creative, thank you, that we don’t realize the “blossoming” is a block ahead, and so the crossroads feels, if nothing else, familiar, for as long as we think there is only either/or. I appreciate your describing the uncertainty at the end of Part II. I had the same feeling until the moment I placed pen to paper this a.m. for Part III.
I am in awe of Dickens and other 19th century authors who honed their skills writing serial fiction for magazines, and I have to tell you, it is the best exercise for trusting the creative process. You don’t wait until it’s all unfolded to write; you write what you can, trusting black holes and vague signs like, “It’ll be 3 parts.” Something won’t give us the rest until we’ve committed.
Yes, Dru is definitely an expert discerner… a poet and poetic barometer. I rely on his antennae (he might call it a b.s. meter) far more than I would ever admit. 😉
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In the spirit of your finally finely twisted tale Elaine and the tangled vines its dangled for our U’s and I’s to grasp and gasp I submit for your consideration:
Relief At the Book Maker’s Grave
“Ages Past” read the letters on the stone
Near as I could see them in the gloom
There before me on that vaulted tomb
“Here rests a Book Maker’s curved spine
Cursed be he who disturbs the sleep supine
Of this, my old dust jacket of blood and bone.”
Fog swirled ahead of me as I’d made haste
Down the deserted path—I badly had to pee
It was dark in there, I knew that none could see
And so I did proceed, but when I looked up again
Cold shivers rocked my spine, much to my chagrin
The writing on the stone now read “Pages Paste.”
To quickly exit there I did my best
With out a pause to read the rest!
D. Russel Micnhimer 10-27-2013
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Holy cow, Russel, that is wickedly funny…took me a few minutes, and then I guffawed. The fun sounds of the letters of the alphabet really are underdeveloped. I’m happy to know about the old bat’s final resting place and what he did while he was alive. Book maker, relief…oh my goodness, the word plays. Thank you!
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