Month 5:25 “Fanfare for Seven Flutes”

FANFARE FOR SEVEN FLUTES  [revision #5]

Piccolos & flutes silver curved alto, tabled. Patient for the turn from Argentinian

Dance  to Fanfare when the woman in black  walks left pauses lays down her instrument, reaches for another: silent flawless icicles,  frozen until put to fingertips. Placed to lips they melt, turn my snowbanks to fuscia, violet, marigold, rose.

by Therese L. Broderick

NOTES:  I wrote this poem after attending a stunning flute concert in honor of Parents Weekend at my daughter’s college. On the day of the concert, October 29th, an untimely storm was covering campus trees with snow and ice.  Against the white snow, the vibrant autumn colors of remaining leaves — red, orange, yellow, green — looked so festive that they reminded me of the magical Fanfare piece of music played by the flutists.

Month 5:24 “Tin Doll House”

TIN DOLL HOUSE [version #6]

The rectangular floor was tin, with litho rugs.
The rectangular ceiling was tin, with litho bulbs.
The two square sides were tin, with litho window shades.
One long facade was detached so the girl could play.

          She slid a toy playpen through all the rooms of tin,
          whispering to her magic pet, quartered within.

The rectangular floor was tin, with litho rugs.
The rectangular ceiling was tin, with litho bulbs.
The two square sides were tin, with litho window shades.
One long facade was detached so the girl could play.

          She played all summer with the doll house, alone.
          She banished the dolls who had come with the home.

.
 by Therese L. Broderick

NOTES:  I wrote this poem in response to a prompt from a poetry workshop I’m attending this fall. The prompt was to write a 14-line poem (sonnet-like) about a room, devoting lines to each of the four walls, to the ceiling, and to the floor. An early version of this poem followed the prompt, but then I departed from it. As a child in the 1960’s, I played with a tin doll house. The scene in this poem does not replicate, exactly, any scene I remember from childhood.  Browsing the Internet this week, I found pictures and descriptions of vintage tin litho doll houses.  A remote influence on this poem may be the “Little Box” poems of Vasko Popa. This version of the poem benefits from the input of five other poets.