Day 1# - This poem is taken from my sting at committing to Laurie Halse Anderson's promotion of "WFMAD" (Writing Fifteen Minutes a Day) challenge in August of 2010. You can find her website and her list of prompts at her livejournal, Mad Woman in the Forest. You may also remember her as the author of such books as Speak, Catalyst, Prom, Fever, 1776, Wintergirls and Chains and Forge. She is not only an author whom I admire very much through her edgy writing for teens but also for her historical fiction for younger readers. I had the pleasure of meeting her at last August's American Library Association conference in DC.This poem was also inspired by imagining how assistants would audition for musicians in the days of Harry Houdini and also taken from watching, "The Prestige".
The Turn
Magician’s assistant, just an average pink haired girl, looking for work.
Heard your name recommended through the networks of stage presence.
I do not know your real name but I have heard of your style
And of how you never smile
Unless you can pull the audience in with the use of your teeth and lips. Promises. Practice, Panache. Performance.
I was drawn in by your confidence and your ability to recognize a confident girl, who knows what she wants and goes after it.
My greatest want is you, in so many words, and in so many ways.
I am eager to learn your ways, to work with you, to figure out how one makes magic possible with trust and implied deceit. I know I am not the only one auditioning for this role, but armed with my references and dressed in my best pressed blue crinoline with my best submissive smile I can show you that I can match you on every level of performance.
I will show you tricks you have never seen nor thought possible. This is what my smile is saying. As I prepare for my audition, drawing you in with my grand gestures and willingness to trust you throughout your tests: sawing me in half, drowning me
Instead of sitting, waiting for you to make your decision I will give you a turn. For two can play the part of the magician.
If I can pierce through your smile, your façade, I won’t show my surprise or my efforts to care whether or not in fact I become your lovely lady, your assistant, your partner.
There are many of us out there, but none quite like me. But only if you can part the gossamer curtains of illusion will you be able to see for yourself.
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Day #2
I believe this poem fits well with the themes of this blog, having to do with books. It's inspired by a story that was eventually turned into a film. My goal was to cast the villain in a more sympathetic light while remaining true to his character's instincts. I also have a huge crush for the actor who played this role in the film adaptation of the book. I've asked a lot of people which literary piece they think the poem is based on and I've heard a few good answers including the correct one.
The Vigil
The Princess turns her gaze to look upon the tumultuous sea,
Praying to westerly winds to speed her missing love home.
Each night she wears the path from the castle to the cliffs a little deeper,
Believing every night, that this night will deliver a signal from his ship.
The waves, like her faith, ebb and flow every beacon-less night she endures.
Her only companion the wind and her memories of being enveloped in his love.
Though some believe him lost, she believes his homecoming is merely detained.
She has hope, blind as the night, of one day seeing a beam of light shine across the sea.
Miles away, while the Princess loyally maintains her vigil,
A man keeps his own, awaiting her eventual return.
Winds speedily beckon winter’s chill onward, seeping into his skin as it passes through
Penetrating his meditations within the empty castle’s walls.
In his chamber, he lights candles against the dark.
Meant to serve as a comfort to her, more than him,
should she make her way back before dawn.
This signals, as it always does, that her absence was not missed as much as she.
As a Prince, if only in name, he believes that he too is deserving and capable of love.
But beneath his royally robed exterior, drawing from his most base instinct,
The hunter within indicates not to spend himself in pursuit, but to be still,
and the quarry will approach him in time.
In time, he believes she will care for him as he does for her.
But as more of his nights pass alone, he is aware of his undergrown heart withering
with fear that she will always spurn the hunter’s heart for the love of a dread pirate and
never accept the affections that flesh and blood can offer and a whispering wind cannot.
Despite this fear, and the Prince’s right to be angry and devious, he is not cruel to her.
He knows he cannot, nor does he try to impede her pacing pilgrimage to the cliffs.
Instead, he sends his four fastest ships from port to port to pursue and eradicate her past.
But his faith, as his patient body, grows thin with unfulfilled wanting.
Still he has hope, blind as his foresight that his faith will be assured when
the radiant light from her eyes and the sunlit warmth of her skin entwines with him.
At their corners of the kingdom they conjure their respective fairy tales and pine:
“If only (s)he would come to me,
Then we would be truly happy.”
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