Vertigo
My mind is a blizzard in a snow globe
The drifts pile up
Sometimes they lean to one side
The leaks are inevitable
when they melt
I bump into door frames
and hold on to walls
I avoid unplanned moves
Crash but don’t fall
It probably started when I fainted
and hit my head on the gym floor
It knocked out my pigment
and set the stage for darkness
when I was thirteen-years old
The doctor told me
‘people pay a lot of money
for a white streak like that’
but I missed my brown eyebrow
and sunscreen caused my face to swell
Sometimes the mix-up
helps me speak like a poet
when words come in dizzying display
They land in unexpected order
like square pegs don’t fit in round holes
It might have started when I was four-years old
when my father read The Snow Queen to me
He never finished the story
about a sister in search of her brother
Her red shoes floated down the river
I’ve been looking for them ever since
Vertigo is not an Alfred Hitchcock thriller
Not as bad as a glass shard lodged in your eye
It’s more like trying to stay warm in the cold
while searching for ways to describe snow
______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United
October 28th, 2022 12:19 am
It’s more like trying to stay warm in the cold
while searching for ways to describe snow…
This is a knockout of a poem… the description of feelings and the final verse. Wow!
October 28th, 2022 12:57 am
Oh my goodness, I hope this is not you. I also have your verse two symptoms (I bump into door frames and hold on to walls . . . “; I use a cane for my long walks. I blame it on my ears, the little gyro inside being out of kilter. Haven’t seen a doctor about that yet, probably November late or December.
..
October 28th, 2022 1:31 am
Your mind works well enough to describe it very tellingly! I love the allusions to the various stories – even while hoping you remain upright.
October 28th, 2022 11:29 am
I like how you’ve merged merged a fairy tale feel to something like vertigo, and use that as a way to underscore it’s severity not downplay it. Beautifully done.
October 28th, 2022 2:15 pm
You are quite brilliant … dizzy and all.
October 28th, 2022 7:02 pm
I can’t stop staring at the red shoes, bobbing in my mind’s river…
Also, what Rosemary said!
October 29th, 2022 11:32 am
I like the mystical flare of this, the melding of both realism and fairy tale!
October 30th, 2022 12:06 pm
I love how you weave all those past stories into that last line.
Trying to describe snow when you are cold …
October 30th, 2022 12:54 pm
I found myself in the second stanza. Do you know me?! And last stanza, of course, wrapping it up in a succinct way. Enjoyed!
October 30th, 2022 10:41 pm
My mom read me the snow queen when I was a child. Love this
November 3rd, 2022 3:14 pm
I love how you come full circle, the snow globe to describing snow. Wowza, what a beautiful poem, Colleen!
November 3rd, 2022 5:07 pm
I didn’t even notice that connection of snow from the first to the end, but it felt right in the stream of consciousness.