She is gone

[sweetnightmare]

Twirling like a dizzy ballerina

In a smear of water color

Pointed toes in silky grace tied slippers

Balancing on a needle

Crying out into the dark night.

Flowing white skirts rippling in the spin

Ribbons tied loosely in her hair

The melody played on a broken piano

Lost in the crowd of wonderers

Spinning faster now

Tighter circles

Speeding heart beats

Adrenalin pumping

Don’t stop! Don’t stop!

Then in the moment of triumph

Collapsing on the floor

A wounded flower

Petals fading into Black Death

Dry heaves from overwhelming effort

Blood dripping into a puddle

Staining the white fabric

Eyes open and gazing at the ceiling

Romeo’s dagger with red ruby stones

Glistening in the dim light

On the floor a last dream is there

Only as the crowd screams for an encore

Do they notice the dance is done?

And no more can she dance for them

For she is gone!

Edited March 26, 2005 by sweetnightmare

[Quincunx]

A post against the hazards of reading from the bottom upwards:

 

On the first pass of this thread, I started reading from the bottom upwards--can't explain why--and hit the unadorned gothic note first. "Ho-hum", I thought, and skimmed the rest. Today, I read the poem properly and enjoyed it much more, and was able to coast over the bumps as they came:

 

'Pebbles fading into Black Death'--doesn't fit with the rest of the imagery, because it is completely abstract while the rest are images of what's happening on the stage. If you meant it to be falling droplets of blood, removing the Black Death and making them red will work, or tie it into the following lines--

 

'Blood dripping into a puddle/Staining the white fabric'--I misintrepeted this. Because it came after the dry heaves and I didn't have the image of falling droplets of blood, I saw it as dance-exertion bleeding soaking ballerina slippers. The lines themselves are fine, but you may need to slightly change the line order of the physical details.

 

Don't move anything before 'A wounded flower'. I did pause on 'wonderers', because it's an unusual word that looks like 'wanderers', but the word itself is fine. 'On the floor a last dream is there' and following is also fine, and closes the poem nicely once I realized what happened on stage. Once again: with everything read in the proper order, only the half-line about Black Death is discordant.

[sweetnightmare]

I thank you for your thoughts they do mean so much..but i wonder if you read the line right that you are speaking of..... it is ..."Petals fading into black death" sorry for my spelling errors !

 

Thank you !! Please readers leave more comments !!!

[Shadow of the Butterfly]

Very inspirational. I could see everything quite clearly. Well done.