Poem of the Week

untitled
* i'm in the middle of buying a new house right now and am cleaning and digging through all of my old things. i found this poem folded up in a box... i have an idea what it might be about, although who knows what i was thinking then! by my handwriting i'm certain i wrote it sometime in the late 1990's. i love it. i hope you do too. *

Years ago
I saw three purple ladies
laughing in a cloud-
their white carriage
moving like jets or frisbees.

I was overcome
with madness at nineteen.
I didn't have
cellophane voices in my head
or plaid visions overlapping-
just madness for the
lack of warmth I needed.
I saw jack-o-lanterns
with my face-
a triangle nose
and ultraviolet eyebrows
and teeth in all the right places.
I saw bloodstains
on headboards
and wheelbarrows overturned
in bedrooms
and my mother on tv.
She moved her mouth
at the same speed the cirrus
clouds moved over her head.

And there
the three purple ladies
peered over the edge and
smiled from far above-
Cheshire and dressed in riches.
- Sunday, January 28, 2007

poem of the week archives