Skip to main content

Fairytale Games

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #227. 


I was sick that week, 
muffled and sore-throated.
We tore those pages 
out of Mom's British magazines 
in a frenzy of making up 
a game of fairy chess:
tile floors full of supermodels,
expensive dogs, perfume bottles,
gardens, and real royalty.
No jumping, no war. 
Just tense tea times,
lost gardens and wise dogs
leading to the Ball.
Would you find your way
with a tux-suited man
or a tartan-collared dog? 
I don't remember the rules,
the music, the endless tissues...
just Mom handing over the scissors
and watching me carve pictures
into fairytale games.

-- Chrissa

Comments

  1. HelenSeptember 10, 2022 at 1:52 PM

    Precious poetry, Chrissa. My sisters and I played paper dolls endlessly, no British mags to clip. Your imagination knows no bounds .. Fairy chess indeed. A fairy tale.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carrie Van HornSeptember 10, 2022 at 2:13 PM

    Such a wonderful memory Chrissa! So beautiful it is now a lovely and magical poem. My mother used to make handkerchief dolls. She would draw on the face with pen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. JimSeptember 10, 2022 at 6:54 PM

    Little kids loved to make things, then imagine what they are. Or vise versa.
    I learned that we should never ask what or who it is, that may give the signal
    that everything needs to be ordered and names.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gillena CoxSeptember 11, 2022 at 6:03 AM

    Wonderful memory Chrissa. We need those so much
    Happy you dropped by my blog today

    Much💛love

    ReplyDelete
  5. rallentandaSeptember 11, 2022 at 8:00 AM

    Very creative childhood games....they are invaluable !

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rosemary Nissen-WadeSeptember 11, 2022 at 6:45 PM

    A lovely memory and a beautifully oblique way øf referring to the prompt/s.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ms_liliSeptember 12, 2022 at 9:30 AM

    Fun game. I'm still doing it with my collage.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Susie ClevengerSeptember 12, 2022 at 1:42 PM

    Oh I love this...fairytale chess. Your poem is delightfully visual.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Once Upon a Future Past

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #204 . It's too far in the afternoon, I thought but evening ran behind me dragons, demons, and the sleeping world; afraid to turn, to wake me. Power needs its horror stories, its ghosts. It's too far in the afternoon, I thought but evening followed close; a fantasy of goodness, where the gold is always covering bones. Power needs its fairy tales, its witches. It's too far in the afternoon, I thought but evening treads my hem, like an army from the dragon's teeth and all the lies therein. -- Chrissa
14 comments
Read more

On Bad Days

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #186 . Sorry. Probably best to skip this one. On bad days I argue with the void: it is empty; I call it full of nothing made pathological; therefore it obsesses to possess mass, to be something arguing with the universe but shouting in the mirror black as starlit backdrop, as stars that fall deeper and deeper into time until they  drag everything into the void and are empty, wrung out of needing to have an argument and then we look at each other, deep in the black fallen forever of our gaze.  I wasn't going to post this week. But that probably doesn't matter...because here is a post. This has been a weird week and, in the midst of much more important things, my NaNo project just [temporarily] self-destructed. There will be a return to that project and I'm already sharpening the knives for it. Just need to let a little off-topic anger abate so that everyone doesn't get flamethrowers and a crazy 80's soundtrack. AAAAAAAAEEEEEIIIIIIIIIII!...
12 comments
Read more

Need

  Sharing with this week's The Sunday Muse #184 . Come celebrate Halloween with verse and The Muse.  I don't think the lantern needed the day; I needed the night: Lit and close and dark and smelling of faraway fires. I needed the smoky flicker that darkened the late-season field I needed the thin linen dress someone else's jacket hides; I needed the nested shadow; not blue, clear sight. It's already a spooky weekend: one window wedged itself just open enough for the breeze to moan beneath, James heard a drone last night (according to him, circling and circling the neighborhood without lights), and our sometimes neighbors have started to set up their backyard for whatever festivities they're planning for Halloween weekend. So...tomorrow (Halloween) will be a good day to read through the books picked up at the local author Spooktacular hosted by a used bookstore not far from here and to say a few final prayers before NaNo begins. Also, celebrating another zine draft r...
13 comments
Read more