Marie's Song Poem by Tom Billsborough

Clouds evaporate my shadow.
Ancestral portraits rise
Gilded shallow ghosts
From stair-wells, corridors and halls.
Fine statues also
Cast in bronze or hewn
from marble, pretentiously eternal.

But these belong to him
Not me. My relatives andfriends
Appear alone within the confines
Of a compact photo album,
Rectangular graves for both the living
And the dead, excluded from me
By his derision and a weird ancestral
Pride in what was just
A brief commercial history,
Largely built upon the backs of slaves,
Who, saddled with his name,
Suffered sharp lash and shame
For the sweet taste of sugar,
Their ancient culture crushed,
As though a nest of ants, their blood
Embedded in this noble structure.


Ifeel their harshest pain,
The loss of true identity.
He wants me to himself,
That's his perpetual refrain.
Not mine. I only want
My being back, my intuition,
Before this gradual self-erosion
Is frozen in a portrait
Grazing with these others
In tomorrow's pastures,
Or prize bloom to decorate a room
Or marionette to reinforce
His ego-centric
And coercive firm control
Mymaster puppeteer.

What paralysis of will
Creates the endless nightmare?
The dark man,mythic predator.
Who chases me through glades
As I look back in terror,
Shedding golden tears
Relentless falling leaves
To leave me naked as the Fall's
Surrender. And will surrender
Endthis agony of recall?

But here I am alone
And draw a cartoon image
Of my late tormentor.

He sports a heavy beard.Black?
Or is it blue? No!
That'smyth. This isa bloodless violence.
I see him now with his psychotic smile
Contrastedwith his knobbly knees
And mini Bridal gown
Swept down behind to brimming
Train andposy clutched
In grubby manic hands.
He looks less threatening now,
in fact ridiculous in this posture
As the perfect bearded bride!


I smile at my creation, secrete
It in my pocket, my Vasilisa,
As my protective doll
Intuitive as the source of laughter.
I even dare direct my gaze
Towardsthe Meissen Ware,
Priceless as it stands but not
As broken crockery! Do I dare?
Oh, do I dare
To smash it into smithereens?
Only in my dreams for now,
One step at a time...
Yes, one step at a time...