The wizened crone understands bee medicine
Her friends are honey bees and bumblebees.
They have given her a special formula
Unshared with any other humans
She gives it to an adventurer
He discovers a new country.
She sells it to a rapist.
He falls down dead.
It helps good people get stronger
It gives seekers what they need
But those who hurt others do not do well with it
The old crone continues doling out the medicine.
Loving the results.
the old crone’s dome boiled
skull scalding, full of trouble and toil
oily face, razorburn neck
my eyes the type to scan
salamander like
darting here to there
wondering where to next
where to next?
I tire of the comfort in
mom’s crockpot, I'm hungry
for another bite of syringes
in the soil
slippery like a leech, i suck
blood because its richer than what
I'm loyal to
needlepoints outnumber the steps
I cant walk a mile in these shoes
another affair with the fairy dust
apothecary that swindles all
all i have left is the
nothing that i have to lose
The older woman is seasoned, sassy and secretive, just ask Ms Mim
She can unleash her confidences, but she has learned to keep them
Knowing when to keep quiet, is learned in the hardest of ways
But the experienced crone realizes it makes for much better days
An withered crone in a park
where the young play.
Her eyes are deep set
but the blue within them is clear.
Her flesh clings to crooked bones,
yet she is a vision
there among the youthful,
a message for all those
who will overcome.
She’s foreshadowing, an augury
that we all must, in the end,
survive ourselves
with a formidable and life well lived.
There she is, she’s grown beyond root and branch,
at peace despite the incontinence of an unlooked for
wisdom.
And there I am,
of a sudden snagged by her knurled spell
as if she were the Virgin Mary, and I
a stumbling beast wandering through her world.
I want to keep my silence
let only my hot breath snort
but there, on a creaky bench a crone radiates,
as a young girl would
holding her newborn joyfully up to the heavens.
I surface from my reverie, my mood rocketing upwards
to a roofless place where the ages, are all still babes
rocking in a shining crib.
Shoulders back and head high I stroll past her.
“Good morrow mother,” I say with a light-head
(the archaic phrase seems appropriate, as if now
were already tomorrow).
“Good morrow good beast, will you witness”?
“I shall,” I reply,
“for am I not almost an angel, part conjurer,
part diviner, part beatific daemon,
a human thing, growing to be ever ageless?”
Together we both laugh out loud
as children may do.
They never know what a crone like me will do
I have news for them
I never know myself
Sometimes God has me do things that make no sense
I am wondering “Where did that idea come from?”
especially when it works beautifully.
Forgetting for two seconds
that I have never ever
been in charge of me.
I can read your mind she says
she is a crone, old and wizened
Arrogant and haughty, aloof, opinionated
But not magical or empathetic
She is not my idea of goodness
I paste a frozen smile on my face
which she is not wise enough to read or understand
and go another direction
Please let me be a tiny drone today.
Hovering at a house far away.
In Omaha at a quarter ‘til two.
I’ll see my grandchildren, that’s what I’ll do!
I’ll buzz past their heads and give them a wave.
All six will laugh, giggle, rant, wiggle and rave.
Hello Space Grandma! Please land and stay!
I am a crone drone, I’ll yell, then I’ll fly away.
The haggardly crone defiantly stood on Lone Tree Hill.
So valiant that she gave the newly born cat a chill.
Daring the north wind to blow her around or down,
There were no other witches or warlocks anywhere around.
I wanted to be your familiar, the tiny cat said.
How can I be your sidekick if you are going to be dead?
The wizened hag cackled, and stood hillside bound.
She would train this scared-y cat to feel safe and sound.
One legged evil brownie with a lopsided top hat
Was tired of crab legged crone thinking she was all that
Her feather and sword gave her instant jurisdiction
Her thought her followers fell under some addiction.
Her flag-waving ways were annoying to Buggy B Biff
She smelled like a cadaver for he had caught a whiff.
She was beyond ugly with twelve ruffled hideous boots
He put on his spurs, gun belts, and plaid bagpipe flutes.
She was stirring up the women. He saw his own wife!
Who was screeching and screaming, holding a silver knife.
He crept up slowly to Creelah, the crab-legged crone.
All he wanted her to do was to leave the women alone.
Bam! The trigger was pulled before he even realized.
He had shot the old skeleton dead, he quickly surmised.
The women stampeded the stage, and kicked him to death.
The last thought he had was, I should not have taken the meth.
She’s a crone, I think, judging her dour disposition and prissy ways.
Discover by accident she is twelve years my junior!
Her face is pasty withered; worn, super freckled
Her neck not unlike the wrinkles of an elephant’s legs
How old is she? I query again, for I disbelieve
Anyone could look this hideous at this particular age.
I looked fantastic at that age; I can tell you.
Super fantastic, maybe even quad-super-fantastic.
I cannot take my eyes off her neck; does she not have a scarf?
If my neck looked half that bad, I would wear a thick black dog collar.
Her laugh is irritatingly baby-like, a silly chime-like birdsong laugh.
Surly she could have learned a better laugh by this age.
What’s going on? My husband asks, watching me watch her.
She is only fifty-five I tell him. So?
He does not get it, being a man.
So look at her. He wisely wanders away.
That night I walked by the mirror still scoffing.
The mirror called me back.
I looked at my neck and reached for a dog collar.
That was not enough, so I put on my executioner’s hood also.
Old crone breathed the smell of death insane with gladness
I accuse you, she yelled, pointing to those who thought her dead.
Cowards, they had sailed away after proving her innocence.
Her family was horrified, because now it meant she was a witch.
They screamed and ran away, leaving her behind. She cared not.
I ACCUSE YOU! She screamed at the men on board the ship
Her anger was a bellow across the water. A wise woman came to her.
She put her arm around her and led her to her haven in the forest.
"What is wrong with my people?" the girl asked.
"They know not, what they do," the crone said, her face was harsh
But her soul was kind. The girl sobbed herself to sleep that night.
Left in the forest with a stranger, for her family was too afraid to
Allow here back into the family. Afraid of her witchcraft.
The crone taught her how to garden, gather seeds, fix poultices.
She learned to love the forest animals, the fox, and the squirrel.
She learned what she needed to survive, which was much
As she was alone now, shunned by her family's terror of witches.
spotted grandma's hands
lovingly helping others
handed down softly
Nothing savored Nothing cherished
Chewing wood, spitting silk
Hating every creeping moment
till darkness lowers and laps at my toes
Blessed darkness gives me a cave
where I may retreat from all hateful, glossy life -
oblivion with eyes wide open
Monumental sorrow grinds my guts to dust
Hopelessness, a perversion that licks my ear
and whispers obscene melodies.
An ache to take out the tools
used to mark my hatred on myself
Hope is a lie believed by fools and sinners
That baked desert called my mind spits dust on dreams.
Trapped by iron bars bleeding despair
my face is a pale moon of desolation
peering out on savage scenes of normalcy.
Fingers tremble on the keyboard
longing to smash its plastic against my head.
Some say how sweet and gentle I am
I can’t wait to escape and laugh at their gullibility. . .
had I an ax I would chop off my haunting countenance
and hide the pieces in brown paper bags
flung into back yards around the town
Am I sweet and gentle as they say
but refuse the treacle of the words
Or have I acted upon the stage so well
I have become what I loathe to be
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.