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52 Pickup
by Bruce W NiedtWhat brought this fragile house down?
Perhaps it was the king,
his secrets like the sword behind his head,
or the queen, holding an unexplained rose.
Maybe it was the jack, leering in the queens direction,
or the joker, with his wild disregard for structure.
It could have been the ace, trumping them all,
as everything cascaded to disorder.
Perhaps it trembled on trusts shaky table,
or fluttered apart in the wind of infidelity.
Whatever the cause, it will take some time
to build this house again, maybe never
as high as it once was. Or one could
shuffle what is left, and start a game of solitaire.
02/12/2005 Author's Note: [The interesting thing about this poem is that it just fell naturally into a kind of loose, free-verse sonnet form - it ended up at 14 lines, and some of the lines are even in pentameter. There's even a bit of a "turn" after line eight. And it all seemed to develop subconsciously! The poetic process is often a mysterious thing....]
[First published in Edison Literary Review #4, Fall 2005.]
Posted on 02/12/2005
Copyright © 2024 Bruce W Niedt
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Mary Ellen Smith on 02/13/05 at 01:01 AM oooooooooooo...excellent poem! |
| Posted by Sarah Graves on 02/14/05 at 02:34 AM Oh, I love this! Something really magical about it, that seems to put a little piece of joy in my heart. Exceptional work, once again Bruce. :) |
| Posted by Sarah Graves on 02/14/05 at 02:35 AM It's going in my favorites too :) |
| Posted by Leslye Writer on 11/05/11 at 11:39 PM ....ending with solitaire made me stop breathing for a second..I didn't expect it. I will put it on my favorites. It's like a card trick, magic. |
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