You love me to be beautiful.
God's gifts announced from lips
composed in carmine, and smile
that faintly dimples. Blue bo-peep eyes
with soft smudged kohl, appealing.
There's always something silky
wrapped closely round this female form
cool first touch and warming in the hand

beware the flare  
combusting flame and smoke

a harridan
breaks out
Parrot mouthed, all curse
and cuss, screech toned
as fingernails drawn
bit by bit
down
slate.
Black-holed and blazing irises
see red.
With bedknot hair
I'll fling and shout a tumult
stamp dust from wooden floors
finish this furore
by flying
at the unhinged door

27 thoughts on “Brouhaha”

1. I really love the way you describe the contrast between the outer female appearance and the inner cacophonic turmoil in the second stanza…

   1. dissonance needs its opposite! thanks for this prompt which had me struggling to undo all poetic tendencies

2. This is gorgeously rendered, Laura! 💝 I especially like; “Parrot mouthed, all curse and cuss, screech toned,” the contrast here works wonders in depicting the two opposite sides of a woman.

   1. certainly the extreme opposite but nothing like reality 😉

3. Lucious to Lilith is brewed in the stanzas! Some jagged teeth come out in #2. – Brendan

   1. that would make a brilliant book title Brendan – ‘Luscious to Lilith’ – just need to fill it!

4. Haha! I was waiting for something to come flying at me after your soft first lines..and you did not disappoint! Well that ol’ charmer John Wayne did dare utter in some forgettable line “I like you even more in your wrath”….he had no idea what he was talking about…

   1. did he say that in a film say to Maureen O Hara? As a child, she was my icon and perhaps appeared here with her flaming hair and flashing eyes of temper.

      1. Haha! Actually maybe it was her, in The Quiet Man

5. I could feel it coming by the third or fourth line but the second stanza was a wondrous cackle of hiss and spit. Triffic

   1. thanks Peter for enjoying this she-devil display

6. One could not write two more opposing stanzas; incredibly well done. That second stanza is frightening, macabre and angry. As a kid, it was always the female monsters that frightened me the most, banshee, harpy, witch, vampire, succubus, silkie and murderous madwomen.

   1. many thanks Glenn – I had no other way of trialling dissonance other than going for its opposite. I wonder – is a female monster the most fearful perhaps because the most unexpected?

7. What a glorious transformation and shift of character. From soft and appealing to a harridan, cursing and cussing with bedknot hair. I love this brouhaha….

   1. she is awesome but not a pretty sight 😉

8. I love the extremes in your poem … angel and devil she is.

   1. thank you Helen

9. Sounds like she knows all of her extremes well. (K)

   1. pure imagination!!

10. Your poem goes so perfectly with my study of beauty today. I think beauty encompasses both the cool and warm you describe. I loved the descriptive “parrot mouthed, all curse and cuss.”

    1. beauty is certainly serene Maria and so I looked for its dissonant opposite

11. I love this character Laura! Look out, here comes a flying dish 😦

    1. yes – duck!

12. Femme fatale for sure (pardon her French)!

    1. definitely fatal Lynn 😉

13. Brilliant, Laura! The outside belies the inside. Love, ‘bedknot hair’.

    1. many thanks Sara –

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