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Poetry
Each Other's Poison
By shirley_keeldar
31 March 2006
Inspired by Grimms' The Wolf and the Fox and a manipulative steppenwolf who tried to possess me...



Every night the wolf threatened to eat me if I did not do his bidding.

'Red-fox, go fetch me something to eat',
'Red-fox, turn over that I may kiss your mouth',
'Red-fox, give me your breast that I may bite it til it bleeds'.

His demands were ever-increasing
Ever worsening.
He took&took
And his blood lust knew no bounds.

What could I do?

I pandered to him, I adored him; I left him.
I left him fat with my love, too fat to move.
He devoured me but I was no good for him,
His arteries glutinous by my sticky artificial love;
I made the loss of me the death of him.

Reviews
*shudders*
Written by amboline (183 comments posted) 3rd April 2006
I'm an absolute sucker for modern re-workings of classic fairy tales. This is chilling. Grotesque sexuality oozes from every line, which is exactly the way that fairy tales like this were originally told - and you've brought it bang up to date with controlled modern language, and little hints at contemporary problems (the heart disease allusion in the penultimate line is particularly good). 
 
A couple of minor details: not all of the lines flow well when read aloud (that penultimate line has too many syllables, and a few too many sounds that are heavy on the tongue), and "He took and took" in line 7 is a bit weak - it's very abstract compared with the imagery in the rest of the poem. 
 
But on the whole this is extremely effective. It recalls for me the more warped bits of Angela Carter or Jeanette Winterson...
wow thanks...
Written by shirley_keeldar (67 comments posted) 2nd May 2006
...thats the biggest compliment you could have given me! Very encouraging for a newbie! :grin

Written by austheke (35 comments posted) 5th May 2007
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i'm scared. but hey, it's good. very... different... but good anyways. i'm too tired to make a good comment. so i'l leave off with "it's good.".

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