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letters from the dollhouse

photo by Lauren Randolph for One Stop Poetry Sunday Photo Prompt

1.
full moon
again
where are you?
probably dead,
maybe cheating on me

that's what the girls are sayin'
hang 'em all
filthy sluts
they don't know
about us


2.
i'm sleeping
in a dollhouse
our bed's too big
for just me
too little for all my nothing,
nothings

it's okay, but
the walls talk too much
the ceiling
is a two way mirror
with a hairline fracture

3.
your "friends" are macking on me
24/7
crappy card store trinkets,
silk raindrop roses
car wash love song collections
they are tramps.
i am a lady
i keep my legs crossed at the ankles

4.
i saw a homeless guy
on Athens Ave
he had eyes like yours
and
the wild tangled hair of a boar
i missed you, so...
i shaved his head.
they say everyone has a double
pfftt.
it was just my imagination
running with scissors again

5.
i'm knitting you a shroud
shut up.
i really am.
you'll see it when it's finished.
all for you, babe
fun fact:
a doll's legs will twitch
while it's being scalped
but only for just a little bit

6.
so
are you on your way back home?
the dogs are howling,
108 of your friends
are eating us
out of house and home
it's half past yet another
full moon
and my mythological clock
is ticking.
Hit it.

Rene ~ 2013

Comments

  1. rene this is awesome...love the second stanza really kicks it up...ugh what a life...and those dolls the way they talk...they see everything you know...those glassy eyes...scary things...smiles.

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  2. the fourth stanza does it for me. this poem packs a wallop!

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  3. What Brian and Ian said! Wow. Powerful all around, you really upped the ante with this one.

    and my word veri is 'wedbond'. Huh.

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  4. "ahhh but that's just my imagination
    running with scissors again..."

    Awesome. Enough said.

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  5. You will end up giving the shroud to the homeless guy. Just one of a thousand reasons why I love you.

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  6. third stanza is my favorite...like the tramps/lady word juxaposition.

    more great work, rene

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  7. Full of gold nuggets, and chilling.

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  8. Delightful. I never did know where it was going, but quite content to go with it.

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  9. I confess to not having read more than a scatter of your work -- I'll bookmark your site and try to become a more faithful regular, because the voice here is so odd and strong and innocent and feral all at once, a high voice in the inner inner ear which is savaged by events yet undaunted, fighting back with scissors and a doll's blank, unsmirchable rectiitude. This poem fights fire with its own - Brendan

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  10. thanks for keeping Penelope company y'all...I'm much obliged :)

    Seriously, thank you all.

    Rene

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  11. You are not invited to play with Ken and Barbie at my house (even if the poem is a great one)

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  12. I love the "shut up, I really am" and the 108 friends. What a great treatment of the prompt!

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  13. "just my imagination running with scissors again."

    DAMN, Renee...one of the best poems I've read in a long time !!!

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  14. the fourth stanza is so great ...the mythological clock...pulls all the other stanzas through the dollhouse of living...thank you ..bkm

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  15. enjoyed the originality here. some really great lines.

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  16. Great poem, the waiting game, the not knowing, the gossip. I enjoyed reading.

    Anita.

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  17. Far out, especially the "mythological clock" part!

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  18. Somehow missed this Sunday--what a great bunch of zingers in here, and not just shallowly sarcastic, but loaded with real authentic venom. Can't beat it with a stick. Great writing, Rene.

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  19. LOL, love the tone/everything about this. =)

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  20. Wait, have some lines changed since you first put this up?!

    Or did I imagine that?

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  21. @jenny_o, it's not your imagination. My work is always in progress :)

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  22. This is strong, strong, work. And I don't blow smoke. You r imagination and ability to express such delightfully unusual imagery/metaphor in verse is exception. Not a cliche in sight. I also like the almost stream of consciousness/internal monologic tone/style, and the fact that it's in tidy septets. This stanza right here will stay with me a while, I knew it as soon as I read it -

    i sleep in a dollhouse
    our bed's just too big for me
    too little for all my nothing, nothings
    it's okay, but the walls talk too much
    and the ceiling is a two way mirror
    with a hairline fracture >superb

    Many other places that are clever, scathing, deeply poetic, imaginative and humorous too. A lesser poem of this length I would, quite honestly, struggle to get through. Yours carried me along and I smiled for the whole journey.

    By the way, I run a poetry group meant specifically for constructive crit/honest feedback (as it is so lacking everywhere else, it seems, and how can we learn if everyone just tells us how good our work is all the time whatever?). If you're interested in an environment like that to get some straight-up feedback etc, you're welcome. The link is on my blogroll (it's called Facial Expression Poetry Circle).

    Outstanding piece.

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