A farthing...

climb'd the trick staircase to austerity

  empty headed steps off lapsed history

genuflecting a blind-eyed anamnesis

  consummated 'tween held poetic breaths

acerbity's aftertaste sharpened teeth

   sardonic causticity bleeds irony's ink

    soft bullet assault to back of the head

French braille written of Greek tragedy

    scraping ashes to resuscitate the flame

      hypocritically ingenious turn of affairs

          pen'd a sixpence worth two cents

   a bloody farthing for posterity's inheritance

Author's Note

Reviews

[redzone]

Hi Frieda, I think I am confusaled after reading several times (even looking up meaning of anamnese). But I felt hurt, pain, confusion, and even hatred oozing from the different lines and images penned with irony's ink.

Several lines made me wince, acerbity aftertaste sharpened teeth / sardonic causticity bleeds irony's ink" for example.. Frieda, you know how to make us feel that knife twisting in our backs. It's a strength of your poetry.. but what I also came away with was the idea that as much as we may say otherwise we hypocritically never learn and our words are worth little, perhaps even a farthing is giving us too much.

I struggled with this poem Frieda, for many emotional reasons, but glad I did, even if I totally misunderstood.... one of the best things about poetry is to lead people to a larger than life reality as it traveses through an assortment of analogy, metaphor and fantasy, etc. And a really good poet leads us by the hand into this reality... ~~redzone

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A delicate and scornful piece that reads perfectly, well done, good read.

[Lyn Anderson]

This has quite a bitter pith to it -- loss, anger, some frustration -- some historical past rewrite attempts on someone else's part, perhaps? Confused on eye'd tho -- doesn't seem to require the apostrophe. Did you leave that just for me?

[Frieda P]

Just for you hon...ha silly carelessness, dang, busted again! Thanks KL....