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Anne Wilkinson - A Cautionary Tale
Dec. 2nd, 2013 06:46 pm... we had sold our death ... for the sum of £70:18:6d and lent our fear... on interest of £3:100d per month, so we did not care about death and we did not fear again. - From The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
She met a lion face to face
As she went walking
Up to her hips in grass
On the wild savannah.
So close they stood they touched
If she put out her thumb
Or he his soft ferocious paw.
She bore no weight of fear,
For only yesterday
She'd leased it to a rich man, poor
In that commodity.
Without her terror she was free
From the alarming smell
That irritates a lion
And makes him lash his tail.
And so he yawned, and stretched
On the long stemmed grasses,
And in the pouring sun
She sat beside his royalty
And sang to him a tale of moon.
Before he rose to go
He opened wide his jaw
And took between his teeth
Her wishing bone, as if to say,
I could, you know.
A rich man had her caution
So she laughed; cool,
In the lion's ear, her pretty breath.
What happened next happens
To every maiden fair
Who lends he fear
But forgets to sell her death:
The lion ate her up, and down
To the smallest crumb.
Lord have mercy upon
Her sweet white bones. Amen.
Just in case you thought 'Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Anthology' was my sole source of weirdly judgemental poetry, here's an offering from the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. (I really like some of the imagery and line-breaking in this one, though...)
She met a lion face to face
As she went walking
Up to her hips in grass
On the wild savannah.
So close they stood they touched
If she put out her thumb
Or he his soft ferocious paw.
She bore no weight of fear,
For only yesterday
She'd leased it to a rich man, poor
In that commodity.
Without her terror she was free
From the alarming smell
That irritates a lion
And makes him lash his tail.
And so he yawned, and stretched
On the long stemmed grasses,
And in the pouring sun
She sat beside his royalty
And sang to him a tale of moon.
Before he rose to go
He opened wide his jaw
And took between his teeth
Her wishing bone, as if to say,
I could, you know.
A rich man had her caution
So she laughed; cool,
In the lion's ear, her pretty breath.
What happened next happens
To every maiden fair
Who lends he fear
But forgets to sell her death:
The lion ate her up, and down
To the smallest crumb.
Lord have mercy upon
Her sweet white bones. Amen.
Just in case you thought 'Eighteenth Century Women Poets: An Anthology' was my sole source of weirdly judgemental poetry, here's an offering from the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. (I really like some of the imagery and line-breaking in this one, though...)