The throat’s convulsion
makes no sound
as the vocal chords are cut
and the subject’s closed
with time’s sutures.
The fortune teller
has said her sooth
til the water’s clouded over
stagnant with repetition
fallen on deaf ears.
There are no scales of justice
on the snakeboy’s skin
no happy ending
in the bearded woman’s heart.
Just the squeaky wheel of chance
turning in the gritty wind.
I know illusion when I see it:
wrought with mirrors and gaslight,
the figure behind the red plush curtain.
And yet it was such a sweet trick
I could not look away.
At dawn I can see the tent is threadbare,
the costumes stained and worn.
And I am not the pretty girl
on the silver horse.
I know all that.
I am the swallower of swords.
Very lovely, and oddly resonant as I’ve had a three month run of swords in my cards, swords in my life, swords in my reading and writing 😉
Kinda creepy how they follow you around huh? A bit like Mona Lisa’s eyes. heheh But sharper.
I seldom share my poetry, it is often more intimate than anything else I write, so I admire courageous writers who do. I won’t cheapen your words or your valor by commenting on my take of this, or by explaining the emotional imagery it painted. What I will tell you is that I read it five separate times, and while the brush strokes and colors remained the same, the canvas changed with each reading.
what a lovely compliment. I don’t think there can ever be a better one. Thank you for reading many ways.
That’s so cool Remittance Girl… The first part is so perfect! It describes exactly how I fell at the moment. I like the picture too. The quilt and the swords both creates a sensation of misplace…
However I don’t like “bearded woman’s”, “the red plush curtain”, “the tent” and “I am the swallower of swords” in the end. I am really sorry but I fell the obligation to say that. I don’t like because it evokes the same things again, only to steal the force behind the other verses and the classical aspect of the picture, the “in between” of this set. But that it’s just my personal opinion inside a crap comment
written in terrible English.
Yours,
Ortiz
Don’t apologize at all. They are perfectly valid criticisms. Only, I’m puzzled about the quilt. There was a quilt?
Ack…okay, you are looking at the picture. Hmmm. I should really take the picture away. It’s not all that relevant to the poem.
RG,
What is it about swords that inspire?
Thank you,
-TFP
The sword is obviously phallic, and was used as often to give life while defending, as it was used for offense. It is also the only archaic weapon created only for the battlefield. Spears and bows have hunting applications, axes and knives also have other uses. It was a weapon of the elite. A sword was very time consuming and expensive to craft. All other weapons were cheaper, so despite our Hollywood image of ancient battles, very few soldiers went to war weilding a sword. It’s appeal as a romantic symbol of a gentleman of station, and as a symbol of his very manhood, can not be overly stressed. At a time when full plate armor rendered the sword’s effectiveness almost nill, the fighter having to rely on a lucerne hammer or other such weapon to pierce the thick armor of the fellow knight, both combatants still carried the valued sword. Today, it is also a symbol of a past, one for which we might yearn to return. We often view the past within a haze of how we wish it was, not necessarily its reality. We imagine it was a more simple time, when men were men and women were women, and we needed not have any more diversity nor defition than those. We imagine that the stalwart weilder of the sword was noble. His or her use of that weapon was in the more simple time, when all wrongs could be righted, all social ills and woes banished, with the quick and simple stroke of a sword. None of us wishes to return to ignorance and intolerance and violence, but the sword is still a symbol of earthy desires, the willingness to combat and champion just causes, and also something undefined, something regal.
Wow, I’m glad you got all that out of the poem.
Well, not the history. The feeling and tone, the lament and desire, yes. Those definately came from the poem.
Glad I asked…excellent answer!