Welcome to the safe house.
No one will find you here.
The ambulance is like a big rolling cotton ball, isn't it?
The siren has been modified to sound like a waterfall.
Please do not share this location with spouses or children--yours or not.
Their tread on the white front steps would jar the keyboard of your recovery.
Meet helpers Jenny and George in their clean gray smocks.
Yes, it's hard to tell which is which!
Many guests forget them even as they stand there smiling.
In the parlor we have an electric fireplace
and framed Kincades on the eggshell walls.
We ask that you leave your red hats and rainbows with Susie at the door.
A few teensy tiny rules:
no weapons
no newspapers
no Facebook
no over-exertion
no stimulants
no sex
no drama
no poetry.
In a week or two, the nightmares should stop,
along with any disquieting longings or regrets.
Non-attachment is our way.
You may even levitate, like a balloon.
If you get confused, just follow the white tape on the beige tile.
It can be difficult--even for staff! --to tell the bedrooms from the morgue.
_________
for What's Going On? "Safe".
Music: the Pretenders Every Day Is Like Sunday
The Word Garden Word List is still HERE through Sunday!
Gah, those closing lines pack a punch. I smiled at "leave your red hats and rainbows at the door." The safe house does not sound very safe - and who could stay in a place without poetry? I love your response to the prompt.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, Shay! This definitely sounds like a theme for a horror movie, a genre I will never watch.. With all of your details, I can just picture it. If this is a 'safe house,' I will take my chances on the 'outside.' Thanks for your imaginative take on the prompt.
ReplyDeleteThere is no safe place, just opposite traumas! Powerful!
ReplyDelete"Non-attachment is our way.
ReplyDeleteYou may even levitate, like a balloon."...That would be quite an experience! But the close? Ouch!!
An interesting take on the prompt. :)
Some equate safety with an absence of conflict or complexity. And so they allow themselves to be sedated into a place of nothing at all...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThe latest new name threw me off for a day but now I know who you are.
DeleteWhat a beautiful poem. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteSeems to have the ingredients required for a nightmare movie...safe houses are usually anything but....quite sinister...
ReplyDeleteNow why did this make me want to say, "safer dead than sorry"?! Help before the "gray smocks" get me! Your imagery and satire are right on target, Shay. And no, life is not "safe."
ReplyDeleteSometimes one has to give up more than one is bargaining for in the search for some sort of safety, even this beige and white safety of the protection of trance. I love each little jewel-like phrase that studs this poem with glimmer and shine--the white cotton puffball of an ambulance, the framed Kincaides--no further elaboration is needed to picture what's here--and that most telling phrase, "..the keyboard of your recovery." as if healing was something you tap out on a form, perhaps...this is one of your best, Shay, and speaks even to a brain like mine mired in the poetic doldrums.
ReplyDeleteI love how you're able to tell a whole tale with such brevity and choice words. From the ominous:
ReplyDelete"Welcome to the safe house.
No one will find you here."
to "Non-attachment is our way.
You may even levitate, like a balloon."
Such menace behind the reassurance! But of course there is, you wrote it :-)