The Shrieking Sisters

Do silence them
Do prick the mortal flesh
Spin a web in what they bleed
And chain them to the garden gate

Maidens of the high teas
Casting a tower of pollution
The thick smoke clinging to the inside
Of a cautious lung, a war of attrition

Taking to the top, with their chains
Like ghosts in padlocks, haunting
A society plucked back into industrial revolution
Those banshee women, screaming, the shrieking sisters

The races, a parade of clockwork
Creatures in their satellite hats
Screeching heavy volumes above the roar
All of my wealth for a flood of golden horses

Garish, those colours, puce and bilious
A degradation of a rainbow, the soap box
On which they stand, force feed those demons
Chain them up and throw away their dignity, virginity

Bombing their way through London
With their Luftwaffe in petticoats and spitfires
Shooting like stars downward, terrorism
But we must remember those shrieking sisters

For they had the strength to fight
Those shrieking sisters had the right idea
Copyright © | Year Posted 2009

Poem

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Bickerstaffe Avatar
January 3, 2009 at 12:10 PM
McCullers was an important novelist; she wrote about the American south... her best book in my opinion is 'The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter...' in a short story about alcoholism her final line is '...and sorrow paralleled desire in the immense complexity of love.' Great stuff!
Bickerstaffe Avatar
January 2, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Totally unique... Marvelous language and imagery. Your imagination is all your own; the basis for developing a style of your own... which you clearly have. BRAVO Nathaniel! Best wishes, Keith
Higgins Avatar
January 2, 2009 at 6:31 AM
Powerful write my friend. I love the message in this piece. The poem is filled nice images and i love the fourth stanza...great job!
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