Fifteen Pebbles

[~Sophia~]

Fifteen Pebbles - by Lidia Laidlaw pen name ~Sophia~

There is no answer for this. Only a
bored cat’s mauling of a songbird.

If all I ever do is recoil from
this little crime called nature

I risk nothing. But I’ve got to risk it all,
risk everything. Weigh the world in stones
not cotton candy.

The backlash of fifty lashes to the skin of
my fifteen year old back. That first night
alone in the barn (fifteen miles from
Elvira Gulch's home)

I was the owl that startled the swallow and
the fifteen bats zigging, zigging.

Sometimes now - for no reason - my hands
fly through my hair. Lash back.

[ampoule]

Lovely. I sit here wondering of the question that gave rise to this poem. I'm probably way, way off, but I feel a sense of something hidden and delicious. At least that always makes me run my fingers through my hair. I'm a pollyanna so that 'weigh the world in stones, not cotton candy' really whipped me. Love it. So many images...that bored cat, wow. I know I don't get it but I feel it.

[~Sophia~]

Hola ampoule! Thanks for reading and commenting. I'd like to wait a bit and see if anyone else comments with their "take away" from the poem before disclosing. http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/808.gif

[Silas Thorne]

Not sure what to write, but maybe it's better that I comment on it than not.
Maybe I'm not clever enough to take this one in. Was it about someone losing their virginity at 15? The bored cat's mauling of a songbird suggested this to me. A little confused. Were the lashes punishment for it?
Don't know who Elvira Gulch is, and not sure why I should need to look it up to understand a poem.
I love the beautiful language, but I don't think I can get through it to the meaning. The significance of the fifteen stones throughout the poem seems to have been lost on me anyway.
And why fifty lashes when all the other numbers are fifteen?

I'm really impressed by the image:

Only a
bored cat’s mauling of a songbird.

and love your wordplay, particularly in the first half of the poem though.

That's what I got anyway. I did read it several times.

[~Sophia~]

Thanks for reading it and commenting Silas! I've PM'd you and ampoule.

[a_little_wisp]

Fifteen Pebbles

There is no answer for this. Only a
bored cat’s mauling of a songbird.

If all I ever do is recoil from
this little crime called nature

I risk nothing. But I’ve got to risk it all,
risk everything. Weigh the world in stones
not cotton candy.

The backlash of fifty lashes to the skin of
my fifteen year old back. That first night
alone in the barn (fifteen miles from
Elvira Gulch's home)

I was the owl that startled the swallow and
the fifteen bats zigging, zigging.

Sometimes now - for no reason - my hands
fly through my hair. Lash back.

I agree with Silas - the image of "Only a bored cat's mauling of a songbird" is wonderfully vivid. And terrifying, especially when woven in with the rest of the poem. It does make me think of brutal rape, at first, but then ... you say the 'backlash of fifty lashes' - perhaps the narrator here was abused (and not by a man, by the mention of Elvira Gulch) and then went out to defy the world.

Lash back - lashing back at the world

Or

The term the narrator uses for remembering something from a time when they were young, and did something foolish - took a risk - and was punished for it.

These words:


If all I ever do is recoil from
this little crime called nature

I risk nothing. But I’ve got to risk it all,
risk everything. Weigh the world in stones
not cotton candy.

- are my favorite, and very, very weighty. God, it's like... wanting to throw yourself head first into the world, experience all and everything, raw and heavy ...

Sophia, as usual -

Good stuff.

[~Sophia~]

but then ... you say the 'backlash of fifty lashes' - perhaps the narrator here was abused (and not by a man, by the mention of Elvira Gulch) and then went out to defy the world.

Hey Wispy, you know me too well. How the "crime of nature" ties back to the cat mauling the bird is in the cruel acts of hurting and/or killing without purpose. For pleasure or sport. Like a hunter that shoots a deer and only takes the head.


Lash back - lashing back at the world

Not the whole world. Just child abuse/abusers.

Thanks darlin... love's ya.