Thursday, August 20, 2009

fear





ivan woke up
he was in a strange room
he wasn't afraid

this was surprising
especially to himself
because ivan was afraid of everything

but in this strange room
he felt no fear

baba yaga entered the room
ivan wasn't afraid

"is everything all right?" she asked
"yes," ivan answered casually
"except that

i would like a canary
instead of a parrot

i do not care for its inane jabbering
and would prefer a sweetly warbling canary"

she looked him in the eye
"that is not possible"

"i think it is very possible"
ivan stared back boldly

"no"

ivan blinked
he felt all his fears

returning

like snakes waking up
in the sun
or ice cubes melting
in a glass of lemonade

the old woman closed the door
and poor ivan collapsed whimpering

on the floor
as the parrot squawked happily

and kept up its chatter
all through the afternoon
as ivan expired

/

after a while
the witch returned

and replaced the parrot
with a canary




5 comments:

human being said...

this made me cry... bitterly...

how words can be real... when a heart speaks with them...


thanks for the cathartic tears...

timmy said...

thanks, hb

glad to see this site is now "safe"

hope to hear more from you - as i'm sure all your friends do

Jon said...

terse... only word that comes to mind here...

you've really got quite a way with words...

thanks for sharing with us...

Mariana Soffer said...

Beautifull poem, but also a sad one.
No wonder the parrot was afraid, it has an intruition that was correct regarding the humans intentions about himself, the problem with fear is when is does not correlate with reality, when is a big fantasy that makes your life unhappy, but not when it warns about the perils you may encouter.

Take care, writte more often my friend.

Harlequin said...

as usual you have managed to convey deep and troubling engagements in this cryptic and ( I have to agree with Jon, here,) terse language.
I think you work with this strategy well ... there is a nobility about it that blends so well with your poetic...
thanks