Two Poems
A Foreign Hotel
I woke up in a strange, slanted room.
Pigeons wept and rocked on the window sill;
I wasn't sure what the problem was.
Gargoyles kept their eyes fixed on the roof
while pigeons smeared them with excrement.
The windows were open in between
iron bars. With one hand outside,
I could feel cool rain. I touched some drops
to my lips; they were bitter. I gagged.
Downstairs, the walls were raw stone.
The concierge was an austere figure
who said I had not checked into this hotel--
he expressed no puzzlement--nevertheless,
I could not leave. You can't be serious,
I thought. How did this happen to me?
You had choices, he said.
Early Memory Of Hearing Colours, Holding A Cockroach
I was warned about madness as an infant,
had it from the mouths of demons themselves:
green tongues flicked up the bars that caged
me, unnatural, like neon fire. I recognized the strange
power before I could speak; I understood their language.
My world spun black and white clowns above
me; tiny, misshapen mirrors spread the green glimmers,
all the jack-in-the-box energy about to pop at any moment.
Climb from your crib, into a different world--get out, we'll
help, we know the way. You crave brightness; we can give you more, green
light. We will always, always be here, now as a whisper, now a rush of wind
that dies. And rises nearer. Until one day the sulphur-damp breath on my neck never leaves:
I want to go back now and shake that infant myself--tell her take the advice, get out, get out
--kill her myself. Save her, myself.
But that baby in my memory singing such starry sound things to herself, stroking
the armoured insect in one hand like a loved one: she doesn't fear that fear. The world's
hurt is still outside her. Her parents come and go, oblivious, and she smiles and notices
everything. And how can I blame her, really? When the jack has yet to spring the box, when
I still walk through the green cast shadows, trusting it all.
Angela Parker is interested in memory and its reconstruction and the strangeness of life that can make one feel displaced even in familiar surroundings. The possibilities in darkness excite her. Also, she has an MFA from Chatham University in poetry.