One of my most favoritest things in the world is poetry. It’s a beautiful art that paints its message with words rather than paint and molds its masterpiece with thougt rather than clay.
I love flowery poems that take themselves a little too seriously and I love limericks that don’t take anything at all seriously. Their only desire is to produce a smile – nice goal in life!
I guess the ones I love the most are the ones that make you think. The ones that cause your mind to stir, asking itself questions. Like, “What was the author trying to say?,” “What did I get out of that?,” etc. A poem that’s entertaining to read, lyrical in its delivery, AND brings about a couple of thought provoking questions is one of the great wonders of the world.
Below is one such poem: “Snow White and the Seven Deadly Sins” - wonderfully written by R.S. Gwynn. I posted it on another one of my blogs a few months back and have gotten A LOT of feedback on it. People want to know more about the author, what.my interpretation is of the poem, what Snow White was thinking, and so on!
I believe…make that know the poem and author are worthy of another audience – so here it is:
by R.S. Gwynn
Good Catholic girl, she didn’t mind the cleaning.
All of her household chores, at first, were small
And hardly labors one could find demeaning.
One’s duty was one’s refuge, after all.
And if she had her doubts at certain moments
And once confessed them to the Father, she
Was instantly referred to texts in Romans
And Peter’s First Epistle, chapter III.
Years passed. More sinful every day, the Seven
Breakfasted,grabbed their pitchforks, donned their horns
And sped to contravene the hopes of heaven,
Sowing the neighbors’ lawns with tares and thorns.
She set to work. Pride’s hundred looking-glasses
Ogled her dimly, smeared with prints of lips;
Lust’s magazines lay strewn–bare T’s and asses
And flyers for “devices”–chains, cuffs, whips.
Gluttony’s empties covered half the table,
Mingling with Avarice’s cards and chips,
And she’d been told to sew a Bill Blass label
In the green blazer Envy’d bought at Gyp’s.
She knelt to the cold master bathroom floor as
If a petitioner before the Pope,
Retrieving several pairs of Sloth’s soiled drawers,
A sweat-sock and a cake of hairy soap.
Then, as she wiped the Windex from the mirror,
She noticed, and the vision made her cry,
How much she’d grayed and paled, and how much clearer
Festered the bruise of Wrath beneath her eye.
“No poisoned apple needed for this Princess,”
She murmured, making X’s with her thumb.
A car door slammed, bringing her to her senses:
Ho-hum. Ho-hum. It’s home from work we come.
And she was out the window in a second,
In time to see a Handsome Prince, of course,
Who, spying her distressed condition, beckoned
For her to mount (What else?) his snow-white horse.
Impeccably he spoke. His smile was glowing.
So debonair! So charming! And so Male.
She took one step, reversed, and without slowing
Beat it to St. Anne’s where she took the veil.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
hey, i love this poem. some of it is kinda ambiguous though.
i would like to know your interpretation of it.
line 15, the correct poem, as it was intended by the author, says “bare t’s and a’s” not “bare t’s.” if she wanted it to say t’s she would have said t’s.
Yes, dear.
It’s a little thing called decorum and tact. The words have been edited because some of my advertisers do not like language they consider unfitting for all audiences. So, my hope has always been that the average reader will be able to pick up on what is intended and not be an a- about it.
Dalton,
The author is a male not a female. His name is R.S. Gwynn.