Act one had just begun
the day we first met
I didn't know the die was cast
and the stage was set
act two what was I to do
you stole my heart and soul
couldn't guess the part was mine
I would play the leading role
act three I'm on cloud nine
I was there walking on air
it was beyond my wildest dreams
an answer to a prayer
act four who could ask for more
on my marks didn't miss a cue
before the fall of the final curtain call
it was a fairy tale come true
but now there's rain on the window
or tears in my eyes
don't know if it's due
to all those cloudy skies
between the two I can't tell
since you said goodbye
can't unring that bell
but who's holding the handbasket handle
now my whole world has gone to hell
the genie is out of the bottle life is so humdrum
and I don't really care for the man I have become
My life or so I thought was smooth-cruising
did all I could do to keep it going that way
then one day it all went downhill fast
what more can I say
our love so I believed was never-ending
the happy couple in a fairy tale come true
when the story ended my friend
who knew what else I could do
if she was sad I didn't see she didn't speak
not a word was said
if things were bad it didn't show
so how was I to know
her love for me was stone cold dead
then she left me and when she walked out
I wanted to scream wanted to shout
but I could only whisper to myself,
“Well what the hell was that all about?”
All I'm left with is take note
now she's no longer here nor there
sunlight reflecting off specks and motes
of memory dust floating in the air
Torn book out of sight,
she’s in fairy tale dream land
on butterfly flight.
Half-burnt candle on steel stand
lights her radiant face grand.
When I was a girl, I watched the 1982 movie "The Last Unicorn" with my sister in the early 2000s. My sister and I sat on the beige living room carpet. Growing up, beige carpets and white walls were expected in apartments. On the TV, soft rock flows beneath the animated picture. An ethereal unicorn stood poised before the blue sky and hills. The fairy tale painted the white and beige real world. I loved that movie despite preferring pegasuses over unicorns, and wished to craft my own fairy tales. Fairy tales where the beautiful heroine possesses brown skin, brown eyes, and coiled ebony hair. A childish wish, a thoughtful adult could make true. As an adult, I've thought fairy tales through, and it's not just enough for the beautiful heroine to inspire brown and black girls like I was. I've read The Last Unicorn novel a decade past adolescence. The film is a dream swaying to soft rock on the black sea of memory. The Last Unicorn was aware of its fairy tale nature, like an adult reopening the fairy tale book with a cracked spine. Familiar but new to wiser eyes. The unicorn leads the way for me to write a fairy tale not for the girl I was, but for the woman I've become.
Fairy-tale maiden
skipping along
love-charm laden
a kiss in her song
hair golden amber
gentle waves of glamor
a diamond glowing
‘neath sparkling stars
her legend growing
near and far
Toiled Cinderella
Grooms tighten the corset lace
Graced by birds and bees
Puffed up reddish face
Steps lead to loosing the shoe
Facing the music
Once upon a time long gone …
The reigning queen let out a yawn,
And stood up from her regal throne
To trample down the hall alone
She ripped the crown from out her hair
And flung it out the window there,
It tumbled down the castle wall …
No knight or king did hear it fall
And off the ground it did bounce
The crown rolled out into a flounce,
Tumbling down into the moat
And thankfully it did not float
A queen no more and yet she smiled
Chuckling, whooping and skipping wild,
Saying goodbye to the castle rafter …
She'd found her happily ever after.
Love is strange
Oh so strange
One day strong
And then dead
Oh so dead
Left alone
Oh so alone
So you say
I’ll never love again
Can’t say I blame you
My old friend
For the same thing
Happened to me
And my tears
Still know no end
Just like me
You’ll never be the same
A reminder of
Love’s cruel game
So drink up
And hear my tale
Of a love so strong
And now so gone
Why does it hurt
To love
Why must it
Be so
Why can’t love
Be simple
Why can’t love
Be true
Why can’t love
Be forever
Why can’t love
Hold through
To love is to hurt
Love is pain
Why is it so
Why is it true
Love is not simple
Love is not free
Not like the fairy tales
For you or for me
She came to a peaceful, shimmering pond
and took out her pearl-handled witches wand.
"Make me beautiful as the swan who slides
on your calm surface as she smoothly glides."
Since that day, at toll booths she doesn't pay,
and, at intersections, gets the right of way.
jabed in frilied thawn
a witch blugued the trees
with her a wabled thag
did tread
and mollied at her knees
frool frool
the witch that dawn
opockied beebs and bubs
to seeb a charm
on the morrow’s morn
to make her beautolub
then to slame
the wabled thag
who drooved a dan
with her
and he to seeb
some of the charm
wable he lover
and so that morn
agleeded frash
the charm bethrankled
down
the witch, the thag
melorphorized
and both lived life
unfrowned
Sweet as sugar daisy,
it’s that opening line.
Wild strawberry energy,
it’s that very first couplet.
Fairy tales start with poetry,
a quest for a thousand and one.
The ebb and flow of that journey,
follow along relax and recline
this is the viridescent princess’s story..
Once upon a time
over the hills and far away,
near the sea there lived
a viridescent princess.
She gazed at the waves
which seemed to appear so royal.
Still, they have freedom
that grace the scullery maids.
Rushing to the edge
stopping short of going forward.
The story of life.
Her crown seemed to possess her.
Forced to become rogue,
battle the storm below the sea.
Go off on a quest,
exit as a true leader.
Create a culture,
surf underwater mountains.
Happily ever after,
over the hills and far away.
complicated book
hibernated, with its bear
on loose, checking in
mundane existence
both selfish - different ways
two hearts not yet one
the world divided
N.I.C.E is not - it is evil
science’s talking head
book makes my head spin
not my usual genre
just keep turning page
satisfying end
this trilogy on steroids
hence, skipped the first two
and not on purpose
but the story holds its own
adult fairy tale
When the princess kissed the frog on the lips,
her heart burst in three painful double skips.
Then she sank to the floor,
dead as a nail in a door.
Yep ~ that's how they do fall sometimes ~ these chips.
I, too, have been to the land of Oz,
where everything is
that never was,
where nothing is never
anyone's sole endeavor,
and where whatever is
is never just because.
When I arrived in the land of Oz,
I met a guy who claimed he wasn't who he was.
And neither was he who he'd been.
So, I was very confused when he did begin
to explain why he thought I was his next of kin.
Winky claimed she spent the night with the Wizard of Oz,
who graciously invited her to partake of his noz.
But she declined, saying, “Oh, Mr. Oz!
I can't do that ~ because~
I'll never again be the same as I was.
The way it is it never was
in that funky land we know as Oz,
where girls are girls and boys and boys,
and girls play with their dinky toys
to condemnation or applause.
One day in the Land of Oz,
I got hit in the back of the head by a big bag of fuzz.
And this is the first thing the doctor said,
when I woke up in an Oz hospital bed:
"At least now we know what getting hit in the head by a big bag of fuzz does."
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