Toads and Diamonds

The dark sister

"Well, then," said the Fairy, "since you have so
little breeding, I give you for a gift that at every word
you speak there shall come out of your mouth a snake
or a toad."

It doesn't keep me silent.
I've found men like
the word distend. Will buy me
a drink just to see the snake
open my mouth
and thank them.

The light sister

"I will give you for a gift," continued the Fairy,
"that, at every word you speak, there shall come
out of your mouth a jewel."

Stiff and heavy from my tongue
they tumble: words arranged
as neat as crystal. After
the spell, the only thing that changed
is that the prince wants my mouth
open. I envy my sister --
in beds, in bars -- at least her words
are lively.

__________

The epigrams are from "Toads and Diamonds," one of the Perrault Fairy Tales collected in Lang's Fairy Books.
__________
I'm dissastified with this poem; I am unmoved by it, though it's clever enough, and well-put together. On the other hand, there's not much in but cleverness, and anger -- desire to subvert the original tale. I said the other day that I try to be lead by compassion when I write, and perhaps that's why I don't like this one -- it's not compassionate.

Or perhaps it's just too one-note. Desmond Egan taught me that poetry, like music, should contain at least the over- and undertones of other emotions -- and I'm not sure this one does.

That is also, perhaps, why I'm not crazy about my Poems for Maria Goretti. And not yet satisfied with Delilah, though I do think that one is going somewhere. (One of my workshoppers comments on her "bitchy self-justification" -- which is not really what I wanted. The discovery, at the end of the poem, that he loves her, with as little reason as God loves him, and that that is the conduit of power -- maybe it's too complex to do in three lines, but I still hope to manage it.)