Monday, June 09, 2014

Back Story Breakfast For The Emperor's New Clothes

[to my Grandmother]

the peacock visions preen: sheer emerald,

turquise, gold paint dribbled dream
down the chins of the boo-less
(don't eat so slow, dear)
with a thousand eyes blinking
losing the contest

if  you'll stare hard enough, long enough

piercing through the sheen.
so the child at her oatmeal heard

her Grandmother; pouring the cream

like a lake into the bowl lit with
islands of pure marigold butter.

-study hard to know the angel music

beginning with the first measure
she twirled the piano stool that afternoon

and opened the Steinway lid

as if it were gold.
-oh, sweet Pandora!
here's hope for you
in a dark-turned world
for the topsy turvy,

the witless and the scurvy days ahead;

though you are dressed in rainbow fashion now,
with a green bolero, thinking it's all candy
and the music box.

so passed the cherishing cherry pie days.

and every empty jar filled to the brim
with the wild honeysuckle.

till the festival day in the Square

where the scammed king stood:
exposed to the cold and a little more, the
rounded o; the child cherry lips composing

to disclose a fine truth spoken plainly

in a voice that carried over the confetti snows:

O

He has nothing on

mary angela douglas 9 june 2014


Note on the poem: of course this is my mini-Stanislavski

piano exercise on the very real fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, "The Emperor's New Clothes."



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