Porcelain

A poem about a haunted doll.

In the attic’s amber dark she sits
her ringlets fading into grey
on her pale face the barest crack splits
a sliver of black through that hollow shade

She stares with silent painted eyes
with a dark still gaze
some mornings that crack looks wrong
like a smile she won’t betray.

The children’s children lock the door at night
before they lie their restless heads to sleep
but sometimes in the quiet hours
they hear the slow whisper of footsteps creep

Don't meet her gaze too long�"
she counts the breaths you leave in here,
she remembers the steps you take,
and watches you before you wake.

In the dark her eyes disappear,
and leave her face strangely bare �"
a pale mask with two empty holes
and something old and patient watching there.

The light dwindles.
The house goes still.

She sits on the shelf.
Watching.
Waiting.
Smiling

Reviews

[JayG]

There’s a lot more to metrical poetry then tossing a rhyme in here and there, when convenient. Metrical poetry has a fixed and repeating structure, with the rhyme acting as an accent, and beat-keeper.

• “on her pale face the barest crack splits?” In Yoda-speak your need to rhyme has resulted.

Try this: Jump over to Amazon and read the excerpt from Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled.

It’s a brilliant analysis of the flow of language in speech and poetry.

[DavidGeo]

This feels like something Peter Thiel would write. You are frightening me.