four generations on standby | a poem

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girl in a window frame

between winter and violence

nature and man

Mother, help me out of this

nightgown, I need to survive

my mother needs to survive

this

you

I’m already there

I’m not here yet

and yet

and now

Mother, crawl, Mother, careful

walk over the roof

find the open window

she called her one day or night

the one time she opened up

shortly before her death

and said her biggest regret was

that she didn’t manage to murder her

say your prayers, Mother

everything fell into her

forever

buried

inside, deeply, irrevocably, silence

and I’d rattle and make noise

but no

nothing

no more

compartmentalised

four generations

on standby

“The Lady of Shalott” by Walter Crane (1845-1915)

Published by Croque-Melpomene

Author of "Within Paravent Walls". Pentalingual Idealist. Hypercreative homebody. Self-exorcising Poetess. Creator of "Croque-Melpomene" & "Les Femmes de la Décadence". I hold a Master of Arts Degree in English Literature, Film and Visual Culture (Dissertation: The Decadent in Love with his Psychopomp: Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice' and Adrian Lyne's 'Lolita') and a Master of Letters by Research in English Literature, Film and Visual Culture (Thesis: Romanticising Decadence and Aestheticising Death: Women as Projection Bodies and Mimetic Identities in Zola’s 'Thérèse Raquin', Schnitzler’s 'Dream Story', Süskind’s 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer' and Eugenides’ 'The Virgin Suicides').

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