There we were, all alike in white
little siren-sailors calling ourselves,
faux black hearts beat Alician red
guided still by the stuffies atop our shelves.
Chittering big-eared receiving stations
gathering gossip in the vegetable patch
to take back to our warrens to sort and parse out
which colors clash and which might match.
We lived on pellets but dreamed of rows
of fat tomatoes to pile in a pram.
We had the side-eyes of those good to eat
and batted our lashes at the young huntsman.
_________
for Bjorn at Dverse--"get to know kennings"
Don't forget that the Word Garden Word List stays active through Sunday1
This is a wonderful kenning, which is new to me. Skillfully done, as always.
ReplyDeleteI really found this enjoyable to read, but as I stretch, struggling a little more with my early dementia, I don’t always understand things perfectly, so I’m not exactly sure where you were going, but I thought it was beautiful. ✌🏼🫶🏼
ReplyDeleteThey have the side-eyes of prey, but seem more like the predators, at least how I read it, especially batting their eyes at the young huntsman! The image is creepy, too!
ReplyDeleteThe white rabbit seems to have got herself a crew, Shay. I enjoyed your Alician kennings. I especially love the lines:
ReplyDelete‘We lived on pellets but dreamed of rows
of fat tomatoes to pile in a pram.’
Wow! That first stanza, wide-eyed and child-like, turns later into something so sinister that even the images of vegetable patches and rabbit warrens cannot recover that spurious innocence. I'm thinking bunniculas here!
ReplyDeleteYou've read it exactly as I intended, Dora!
DeleteThose big-eared receiving stations and side-eyes read like they could get your Alicia's in serious trouble!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, that image made me think about rabbits in a new much more sinester way, which made me see where you were going with the metapho of rabbit innocense facing the hunter... abuser-attraction is one thing I cannot really understand.
ReplyDelete