From this month's Vogue

Jul 06, 2006 12:53

Fashion Fantasies article -

The old woman who lived in a shoe - Carol Anne Duffy

I started off in a slipper, glass
handsome prince etc, true love,
all fitted me like a hand in glove,
but the tale went pear-shaped,
hopes dashed, every plate in the place
smashed.

So I moved out with my new-born babe
to a lace-up, brown, battened down
on the right side of town, decent school,
nobody's fool, slept in the toe, bathed
in the tongue, ironed, polished, baked,
kept mum.

Went up in the world when a red high heel
in its own green field gave me time and space
(my girl on a gap year overseas)
to write or paint, to sculpt, compose, did none
of those, junk food, telly, lost the plot, moved
to a welly.

Two wasted years. Tears. Cheap beers. Regrets.
Debts. Parents died. Cried and sighed. Ferreted
in childhood's sandal, orphaned, vandal. Inherited
the family's loot. Sunk the lot in a leather boot
which I ran as a wine-bar, showed no profit,
hopped it.

Then dossed in a Doc with a dyke who was kind,
but not my kind, so split, stayed friends, then
went round the bend when toy boy cruel,
tried to kill myself in a mule, failed, abseiled out
down a leather lace, saved face, felt saner, chilled
in a trainer.

Grandchildren came, so moved to a brogue
in a tree-lined road, devoted, doted, watched
them grow, but felt myself get older, slow, thickened,
sickened, bones like matchsticks, hair like snow, dry rot
in the sole and the tongue and the toe. RIP. Farewell. Adieu.
There was
an old woman
who lived
in a shoe.

The actual verses were transformed into shoe shapes - buckled, laced, flat, high-heeled.

Clever!

BB last night was very upsetting.

tv, poem, bigbrother

Previous post Next post
Up