Stamped Future

I bought from the antiquarian

The Portrait of Dorian Gray

with rancid leaves like stamps

in an ancient collection

 

I ran home scampering

it was smelling like jasmines

at the corners

on the labyrinth streets

hidden in the big city

in my dress flounces

 

after the first chapter it started to rain

I was reading the ragged book

under the lamp shade

with dead butterflies

nibbling like a mouse

memories from the future

 

a gray cat in a window

was seeing beyond curtains

my thoughts

like snails with sinusitis

crawling on the moist asphalt

without hearing a thing

 

sometimes the world is

a mirror

with shriveled silver

Reviews

[Shin ( formerly known a..]

I read a bit of my past in this poem. The experience of Dorian, dead butterflies and gray cats are very familiar and you expressed it well. The emptiness that we encounter in this experience feels infinite in size.... that is why we fill it with faith. You are not alone.

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

Thank you very much Shin, I am happy you found here something like a resounding box.

[Shin ( formerly known as ) Bidayah]

The bigger and harder something is, that's when its easier to say something about it without fear of being wrong. Thanks for the offer of the resounding box. It would be nice to remember the sweet innocence of our youth once again.

[Nautili]

I never read Wilde's novel, perhaps I shall. it is an interesting premise. I loved your metaphor of your thoughts silently leaving a trail, a great line. And the world can mirror our own shallowness and quest for beauty-but our souls can indeed be old and shriveled and hideous. I guess to grow old gracefully and with beauty, we need to love our own soul-with all its imperfections and inconsistencies.

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

Thanks for your review :). I must contradict you a little, I don't think that shallowness or quest for beauty can be mirrored by the world. My metaphor about the mirror was about going beyond appearances, not about a shriveled soul. In fact everyone is a mirror for others. I agree with you, self esteem is necessary. We also need to love other people in order to grow old gracefully and very few can achieve that. I don't advise you to read that novel, it is a little nightmarish, this is why I wrote this poem. But it is considered good by some critiques.

[Sam Gregory]

You expressed this well in a this well penned write, keep up the good work :)

[Cristina Moldoveanu]

Thanks :)

[Dr. Wood ?]

yeah, I agree, very expressive...I love the reference to dead butterflies...IIn fact most of it was quite wonderful