Friday, February 6, 2015

Straw into gold


Can you spin
straw into gold,
straw into gold, a boast
becomes a lie, a lie
becomes a request,
becomes a promise,
becomes an agony

the tales we spin
golden
the straw we spin
golden, or not

watching as he spins
madly, the wheel turning,
a game of roulette played
and forgotten until
the croupier demands his due

unless the name is forthcoming
unless the name is known and spoken
speaking the name dispels enchantment
naming the one breaks the hold

just a name, spinning fool’s gold
back to straw

TweetspeakPoetry this week has a poetry prompt: take a fairy tale, and write a poem from the perspective of one of the characters. If you know this story, can you guess which character’s perspective I used?


Illustration of Rumpelstiltskin by Walter Crane for the 1886 edition of Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm.

1 comment:

Doug Spurling said...

Thanks Glynn, this made me think of:

1 Cor.…11For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.…