Child’s Garden of Curses (Bed in Summer)
for R.L.S.- who powered my childhood
Last Winter we were masked at night
Yellow sweats by computer light.
Last summer the same dreary way,
Deprived of sun throughout the day.
I close my eyes and still I see
Some people coughing soon to leave,
I hear the tread of marching feet,
Coffins like sharks through dismal streets.
And does it not seem hard to you,
Face down and choking under blue,
Sheet still wrapped in my bed by day,
Afraid of people, afraid to play.
9 thoughts on "Child’s Garden of Curses (Bed in Summer)"
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– I grew up with Robert Louis Stevenson, and needed to get this one out of my system. We will return to your regularly scheduled post-pomo collages on the morrow.
Yas! Exactly this! I think I have Children’s Garden Of Verses in the car???
Interesting poem. The line ….”coffins like sharks through dismal streets” is brilliant. I wish I’d written that line!
Thank you!
End rhyme is hard but you did a good job with it; nice sendup to a legend.
Thank you!
Darkly rhymed.
Hits me like a placatingly sweet and cloying nursery rhyme whispered over skipped ropes.
Love it. Especially the sharks.
Big fan of RSL and a fan of this poem.
I lived for RSL’s poems, as a child. Remember,”The Land of Counterpane,” as well as ,”Bed In Summer!”
This is a brutal, brilliant juxtaposition.