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After the fever
by Paganini Jones
early
she wondered
why some were made for laughter
but she was made
for this
she wandered
across cluttered tablecloths
searching for water
or an orange
once she discovered
a cupboard
in the wood
dusty with books
exploring endlessly
there were new rooms
and once,
a secret stairway to a whole new floor
she noticed a costume
hung on the bedrail,
the pattern swelling and shrinking
as it breathed
other times
she drifted up to the clouds
light hot on her skin
and the ground distant,
like faded crayon
afterwards
he still roared and banged
making himself important and big,
proving his existance
to himself
she didn't mind,
knowing she was on a journey.
the noise
was like telegraph poles
flickering past a window,
like bridges and tunnels
over the track,
a predictable, inevitable pattern
to be noticed
or not
She learned to live in the spaces between,
looking smaller and smaller
to find more space
more
silence.
once seeing a diagram of an atom
she marvelled not at electrons
but at the emptiness between;
the hollowness of matter.
They said she was touched,
spaced out,
had her head in the clouds.
one said her face glowed
like an angel
but she laughed.
"A trick of the light."
preferring to live
with her head in the clouds
sometimes when nobody watched
she floated
09/02/2010 Author's Note:
Not quite a draft as I have lived with this poem for days without putting pen to paper. But possibly not finished either. Comments bad and good all appreciated
Posted on 09/02/2010
Copyright © 2025 Paganini Jones
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Charlie Morgan on 09/02/10 at 10:17 AM ...a haunting lil' diatribe[not really] of a woman goimg sane...a seriousness, yet lilting in [seemingly] in childhood memories. |
| Posted by Kristina Woodhill on 09/02/10 at 08:27 PM Quite masterful in its imagery, it takes me from the atomic level to the clouds, and I love just the one hinting stanza about "him". My Pick.. Thank you. |
| Posted by Linda Fuller on 09/03/10 at 11:58 PM I like your intriguing first stanza and the dreamlike quality of this. Particularly like "...the noise was like telegraph poles
flickering past a window, like bridges and tunnels over the track, a predictable, inevitable pattern to be noticed or not..." (makes more sense with the lines immediately before and after, of course). For me, the last two (and maybe three) stanzas are not as strong as the preceding stanzas. Good work. |
| Posted by Jim Benz on 09/05/10 at 04:54 PM Maybe because it's is so close to my own little dysfunctional life, but I found this poem captivating - especially that final line. Very much like a dream I had the other night. I really don't know what I'd change, or how much further you can go with it. At least on one read, I like it as is. |
| Posted by Charles E Minshall on 09/06/10 at 07:27 PM I like this one Jonsey. Well done. My Grandmothers last name was Jones...CharMin |
| Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 09/08/10 at 11:55 AM I am fascinated by the progression in this highly exploratory and curious ode which eggs and reconstitutes in me the feeling, the magic which is poetry. |
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