The door slammed shut
With sound and fury
Rattling windows in their frames.
A gulf of silence
Swallowed the angry words,
Swallowed the I-hate-you-s
And love grew worried.
The silence grew
Filling corners
And her chair
And her hiding place under the stair
And love waited
Until
Plucking a lantern
From a hook on the wall
And wrapping a cloak tight
Over her shawl,
Love ventured out
Into the winter woods
Where the bears roamed wild
And the winds whined,
After the child
Who had stormed away
Stamping
And refusing to eat
The porridge that
Love set before her.
28th July 2015
(First Published in a Hightown Writers Anthology A Book of Delights 2016)
3 comments:
I love this Liz
What a great take on the Goldilocks story!
The Great Apostrophe Debate reared its head when this poem was a 'test' post on the private Feedback site. See below:
2. John Ayres-Smith says:
21 March 2025 at 5:24 pmEdit
Well LIz – here we are again!
Firstly – my old hobby-horse – PLEASE apostrophe.
TITLE (!) not Goldilocks Mother but Goldilock’s Mother (the mother of Goldilocks).
I could go line by line with my critique but what’s the point? I have almost zero to say except …
That poem is thoroughly beautiful and I get it completely. I often think when you read your poems that I am listening to a truly professional poet.
Thank you – so enjoyed it.
Reply
1. suziepearson says:
24 March 2025 at 3:18 pmEdit
thanks for carrying on with feedback – it’s great to get into a habit whilst we’re testing the site!
Apostrophe wise – I just need to check with Liz there’s no weird formatting issues with the title field (so NOT user error but software error)
And I also think that in this case as Goldilocks is the full name (not Goldilock), then it would need to be either Goldilocks’ or Goldilocks’s
What a load of goldilocks!! 😃
Reply
1. Suzie says:
24 March 2025 at 6:48 pmEdit
I actually DID add this one for Liz…. so the apostrophe issues are mine!
Poor copy and paste job on my part!
Reply
3. Liz says:
25 March 2025 at 1:29 pmEdit
Thanks Suzie – true, an apostrophe would be grammatically correct ‘Goldilocks’ Mother’ probably but there is quite a debate about whether it’s acceptable in modern usage to altogether drop the apostrophe in titles e.g. fliers for a school would probably be title ‘Parents Evening’ rather than the correct ‘Parents’ Evening’. Ditto for many other titles and company names. The jury’s out.
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