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ANNE KELLAS
- You hung out a curtain of flames
-
- You hung out a curtain of flames from
your window,
- a white flag calling for help
- a red flag saying Stop me, a
yellow flag saying Fever
- mad colours saying Hear me
- your silent house on fire saying Notice
- I am living in vain
- my life's used up
- I have no purpose.
- Take me with you to your mountain in
the sky
- where the clouds grow stronger than
moonlight.
- Don't leave me here in the suburbs
- where I'll rot like the leaves on the
thick carpet of grass.
-
- You shook your carpet of flames from your
window
- in defiance of the firemen.
- You sent the thin sparks to dance in the
air
- like slow ballerinas.
- You liked it when they swarmed
- you came alive and said, Look,
- I am burning, I am going up fast
- just like a house on fire.
- But it moved slower than you hoped, more
deliberately.
- It sleepwalked its way up the passage,
- it stopped at your bedroom door
- where you'd walled yourself in.
- Nowhere to hide.
- You let it in.
- Invited it to go through your papers
- and then you showed it the door.
- It stood on the porch and lit up the
balcony.
- Here's where we played
- that famous scene. So what
- muttered the fire.
-
- You ran ahead and it
- followed. You guessed right and it
- spread. Just kept on burning.
- Like a house on fire.
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