Dance at the Grade-School Gym
Little-girl-she
Little-girl-she
One day Little-girl-she went out to
walk with her mother. For some reason
they walked right down the middle of the street;
Now don’t you go too far ahead! warned Mommy-she
On ahead went Little-girl-she,
sometimes looking back, making sure that Mommy-she
was still there (“too far” nagging,)
and Mommy-she was still there every
time, until one time, one time she was not: Little-Girl-She
knew, then and there, that she had gone too far,
too far …
Back
down
the
street
she
stared …
Back
down
the
street
she
ran …
but when she got back to the spot,
nothing was there, nothing but a manhole
staring right back up at her, a manhole with
no lid; a manhole with nothing but pipe ends staring
up at her – little holes; pipe ends filled the mouths
of the manholes: ugly little mouths, like a thousand
manholes gaping …
Little-girl-she stood still and bent,
and then she ran round and round,
and then she zigzagged every way
from manhole to manhole, from here to there,
from what to where,
connecting the manholes … connecting the dots
and when she had connected all the dots
all the manholes …
there stood a gigantic zigzaggedy Mommy-she
and Little-girl-she screamed, screamed at Mommy-she
Why?
Why did you do leave me?
Why?
Then she fell into her Mommy-she’s arms.
Table of Contents
Click hyperlinks to view individual works by category. Or simply scroll down to view the entire site — posted in random order.
Writer: Walt Fellman
Serious Poems
Beaches of Normandy
The After-Rain (or: Gutter Talk)
Boredom
Little-Girl-She
Floes of Mind
The Tom
No More Songs Today
Taula-Paula D.
New Orleans Maw
in RELIEF
The Catch
Taffy and Joshua
The Deeming
Nightlings
The Distance to Yesterday
Humorous Poems
Benjamin in Bed
Dance in the Grade-School Gym
Grade-A Trouble
That Maple Tree Thing
Something Something
Lucky Kid
Cryin’ up a Sto’m
The LoveSong of Window and Shade
Children’s Stories
The River that Ran Away
Educational Limericks
Christmas, by Jingle
The Hang
EVENTS
The Rise and Fall of Edison High School
Jenny JenJen
The After-Rain (or: Gutter Talk)
Boredom
No More Songs Today
No More Songs Today
Unguarded song-thoughts,
currents run below
carrying to me, as water, a bubble
playing at my mind,
lifting a bobbing, near-conscious
dream-thought: a creature
emerging at line’s end:
“I see your Face before me …”
Visible now:
at once risen,
flirting,
soon to submerge.
Visible now!
“What Lonely Hours
the Evening Shadows Bring …”
and I am seized, rocked
awake by my own surging deep:
that Voice!
come-hither-waves
beguiling: waves
that Vanish
on the dark side, where
Shadows sing —
and hours endure.
The torch I carry,
the songs that lurk,
I fear
and act on cue
to plug it with a cork, a bottle
bobbing like a buoy, stopping-up
the strains within —
And as I do I say
No more Voices!
No more songs today!
