6 posts tagged “fairytale retelling”
Donkey Skin - Man's Coat (Work in Progress, based on Donkey Skin Tale in Andrew Lang's Fairy Book, where a father tries to marry his adopted daughter)
Donkey Skin - Man's Coat
(for my husband, Michael)
The mother dies or is absent
Maybe she drinks jug after jug
of cheapest table wine
The daughter hides in her royal chamber
cloistered in silk bed clothes
the curtains drawn
or perhaps she sits in her closet
pretending to be Amelia Earhart
in the darkness, seeing sky
The mother is laid in a grave fresh
or stops bathing
to avoid his loathsome touch
The daughter is fresh in morning
in black hat and dress
or perhaps fresh as morning in cotton
Her father weds her, bad as the Bay of Biscay
With old man ice hands he probes
to find his own boy self, lanky and pale
wedded to his own gray father
once upon the time
when he held innocence like an egg
Thus a chain of souls goes back to Lot
in certain families
a rank disease, tenacious as Virginia Creeper
The daughter, apoplectic
unable to move marmoreal limbs
or to speak
Even her own name
is a Shibboleth she cannot pronounce
gravel on her tongue
She is to blame
for her hair was unbound
for she slept naked at nine
like a white fleshen arrow
She skins a donkey
wraps herself in putrefaction
wearing death and ferocity.
Maybe she shaves her head and dons
her fathers old wool coat
with its moth balls
and is called sir or beast in 7-11
She hides herself
till one comes with courage
reaching fingers through the hide's opening
to translate her snarls and growls
to poetry
and lead her naked to the waters
Lucy Simpson
Seattle
5/2008
The Blue Light
(based on a Grimms fairytale where an old wounded soldier is booted out of the kings personal
guard and finds the house of a witch, where he makes away with a blue light. He eventually
becomes king and marries the daughter of the king.)
Sometimes a blue light leads you home
through the darkest owl-screeching woods
to the castle you've dreamed of
to the princess whose arms
hang paler than snow
The blue light is a bit of a star
with which you must be careful
lest it explode in interstellar gas
and take all life
the mouse in the wheat
and the king at his table
to become blue light
drifting in the ocean of space
that also is a dream from your childhood
Lucy Simpson
Seattle
5/12/2008
The Merits of the Frog Man
would you wed the frog
to have your own gold ball back
and more besides?
for wells are very deep
and other gold must lie
at the murky bottom
he must be very rich this frog
and determined
to have you be his
you are told of the story
of how an old waddler
blossomed into a youth
with arms like dinner rolls
strung together
and breath like plum wine
not this sour weight
beside you in the night
slathering you with kisses
and slime
you keep waiting for
the promised transformation
which does not come
his cold amphibious fingers
find you in the bed
and his sticky tongue
leaps from his lips
to taste you
as well as to devour
the fly buzzing overhead
no more bug problems
and plenty of riches
still you must learn to appreciate
this creature
more female than you
after years in a well
which is a cold womb
you must love that he asks
so little of you
and knows his place
below you even as he fingers
your skin
frog slime is good for the complexion
and he looks at you
with absolute devotion
in his watery algae-colored eyes
he croaks you songs
for the merest smile
that if understood
would put the bards
to shame
he can survive on such
mere delicacies
as your laughter
and your gloved hand
he's learned not to expect
love and passion
not at his froggy age
Lucy Simpson
Seattle
5/2008
the old woman cursed you
each night the moon
in miniature chokes you
as it is born from your lips
your hand, half asleep
slides coin under pillow
it is your usurper right
inside all flutters
in dismay
in bone
a singing comes out your throat
when you least expect it
and you wrap yourself in your cloak
of a rag-a-tag magic
wishing to be elsewhere
but you
cannot escape
the heart you thieved
held fast as it is
leech-like
upon your own
Lucy Simpson
Seattle
4/2008
the dead suitors won't let go
twelve tossing girls
dream of descent
worry their feet in beds
unable to sleep or rise
all night's a party
whirl of lights
twirl of satins
rustle of petticoats
all day is dull
they hang, limp
pliable pose-able lovelies
sad faces over flowering collars
pinched in like puppies
they grow old these maids
each one mourns a dead love
who
nightly
drags
her
down
to danse macabre
to eat his pomegranate
to lie in his stony berth
Lucy Simpson
Seattle
4/2008
apples, two fairytale femme fatales
do you believe my story ended?
coffined in glass
poisoned fruit lodged in throat
sorrow given me by second mother
giant ruby stopping words
o she was beautiful
magnificent
tall as a tree
with eyes of sky
and lips of summer cherries
o how she dandled me
fondled me her fond one
lapping the good milk of my skin
how she loved me
my turpentine sweets
often I was rescued from her
by good men
with rough hands and big hearts
who only craved a kiss
an absolution from my lips
sometimes I am not saved
there is no prince
and I cannot shout
as dirt rains down
upon the lid
in another life I live
to become her
grow into her jaundiced
familiarity
fingers clasp a cigarette
curled apple peel nails
sipping absinthe
my slow green death
and another girl paler than snow
comes along
with eyes like morning
light of her soul uncloaking my nakedness
and I open the decadence of my heart
to fold her in
with love and hate
the twisted roots of the same tree
I pass on the apple
to her whom I love
I try to suck out some of the poison
for I cannot bear it
Lucy Simpson
Seattle
2/2008