Three women stand in a line facing the prisoner;
Waiting to take vengeance upon him,
Ready to get their retribution for his cruelties against them.
The third is like a lioness; growls rumbling from her throat, claws slashing at the ground;
The people around her holding her back, being the only reason
Her teeth and claws have not yet torn apart her target.
The second is like a mouse; quiet and nimble-
Certain of her actions when the time comes to act.
She knows she will get her justice, and she is content to wait and watch the suffering.
The first is a mere child, standing shoulders shorted than the others;
But like them she has been wronged by the prisoner,
And she likewise has been given this chance for vengeance.
“Point your finger at the one you hate,” the guards say.
Sarcasms drips from their words; to insult both the prisoner and his victims-
But none seem to notice, or perhaps just the haggard prisoner himself;
too beaten to care.
Without a moment’s delay, the third unleashes all of her rage into
The condemning finger she points directly at the prisoner;
The finger carrying the vengeful wrath of her claws; invisibly slashing unseen virtues.
The first tries to mimic the actions of the third.
This child knows a bitterness unlike the others;
A bitterness that can only come from innocence.
But I stand behind the child, like a guardian watching over her;
Invisible to all but perhaps the child herself.
And though the child struggles to point her condemning finger,
I grab her hands and hold her back.
She struggles; squirming and crying out;
Desperately wanting to condemn the prisoner to his just punishment;
Desperately wanting to have her vengeance like the third;
Desperately thinking that vengeance will cure the pain.
But the child is innocent.
She cannot see that she is equally as guilty as the prisoner;
That each of the women shares a common guilt with the accused.
As the child struggles in my grasp, the second woman points her sharp finger,
Not at the prisoner as everyone expected, but at the spectator on the wall,
A man who has been leaning there the whole time, watching it all gleefully-
Vengeance sparkling in his eyes.
~Anahbird~
September 9, 2005
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2 comments:
Wow. I like it. What did the accused man do? And who is the man on the wall?
Well.... originally this was based on a dream, of course with modifications to make it fit the poem.. though I may turn it into a story eventually... if I figure out the details myself.
I don't know what the accused man did; any sort of a number of betrayals of his word, I'm sure to the extent that those accusing him felt betrayed by him.
The man on the wall, is representative of the "eye of the storm character". He is the person who has been behind the scenes manipulating the cercumstances and playing with these people to see just how they would react and to trick them into doing what he wants... Or perhaps he is like the Count's "enemy" in the Count of Monte Cristo (enemy of the prisoner who wants vengence on the prisoner for some petty crime and uses to women to get his vengence).
I like to write stories (and poems) with many possible meanings and interpretations. That makes it so more people can connect with them. At least with this poem, there is no one correct interpretation of it.
;-)
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