Penelope is not your Friend

By Jane Hyphen

Fri, 01 May 2020
  • 1326 reads
4 comments
 

 

Penelope is not your friend

Look deep in her eyes

There’s a hair pin bend

And a hellion blotch

An open slit in the darkest spot

To the sheerest drop

Which ends at the crypt

Where she keeps the script

Of the heinous ways 

That you’ll meet your end

 

She’s a fairy tale

Sweet, innocent and frail 

Her fine, slender hands

Translucent and pale

But she’ll squeeze your life

Til the dreams fall out

She’ll stamp them down

In her dirtiest spot

Leave you only with reality

Reality’s bad with Penelope

 

She is the queen

Of the dark art hearts

She glides like a shark

Hides a razor blade

In a passing remark

To cut you later on

You can bleed on your own

Those wounds might mend

Until Penelope’s home

With her salty tongue

A stinging pain that drains

Penelope is not your friend

 

 

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by Di_Hard on

This is how I imagine being in a bobsleigh, exhilarating and liberating, with the potential for terrible injury if the person it is about finds you out. Particularly liked

"she’ll squeeze your life

Til the dreams fall out"

and

"Hides a razor blade

In a passing remark

To cut you later on

You can bleed on your own"

 

Reminds me of cherished (what I thought was) praise only later on realising it was not.

The jangly sometimes rhymes are good too. Unreliable, then they come again like a stone working its way about in your shoe

 

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thanks Di, jangly rhymes are the result of too much sitting still. I think we could all do with being jangled around a little. Those people who give back-handed compliments, I don't know how they have the gall to do it, it's so horrible. Thanks for your comment. Hope you're surviving lockdown.

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

My reaction was 'Poor Penelope'. A bit like realising the unhappiness and friendlessness of most bullies. I remember realising from what my primary school son was saying that the children were egging this bully in their midst on, and I knew something of his disfunctional family background. I saw a booklet recently, 'Help for the bullied and the bullies'.

But, yes, words can be very cruel, and girls use them on each other where boys use punches.

Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Hi Rhiannon, thanks for your comment. Bullies always seem to be the result of peculiar parenting, the ripple effects on society are quite significant. I think thesedays the lines are a little blurred when it comes to differentiating the ways boys are girls handle conflict at school, from what I've heard some of the girls are throwing punches and the boys can be as twisted with their words as girls.