The Yellow Shawl, Page 1 Of 2 Poem by John Bliven Morin

It was a sickly yellow;
Awful colour, I recall,
Not quite green,
Hidious sheen,
Was that shawl.

It offended my poor eyes
Merely to look upon it;
Hellish hue,
Not the blue
Of her bonnet.

I saw that yellow woven
Woolen shawl she wore,
Meeting men;
I knew it then,
She wanted more.

But it wasn’t her behaviour
With the men who thrilled her;
T’was that crawling
Yellow shawl,
Was why I killed her.

When she came home at dawn,
Drunk and laughing, mocking;
Yellow wound
her neck around,
Like a stocking.


Hellish yellow in the lamplight
Was her shawl of greenish ochre;
With its length
And my strength,
Did I choke her.

In the garden late that night,
Buried her, the shawl beside her;
Spent hours
Replanting flowers
There, to hide her.