I'm looking through my poetry book right now and feeling pretty amused. I must've been in a really morbid mood, as I recall.

I wrote this one as a sort of prediction of something that was happening. While I was writing I thought it childish; until I got to the last three lines, which scared me. Well, more the feeling than the words, that is.


Steel Strings

The young Queen
Sits in a darkened room and weaves,
Steel strings that bind, steel strings of mine.
She knows what she can and will achieve,
Steel strings that wind, steel strings that fly.
As they shoot through the air to capture Her prey,
Steel strings that twine, steel strings that find
And the bloods go so well with her red-and-black mind,
Steel strings of mine, steel strings that bind.

Steel strings that fly, steel strings that wind
Steel strings that find steel strings that twine

And the Strings turn upon their queen and strike from behind
Steel strings that lie, steel strings that blind
And they close around her head like so many vines
Steel strings that know no sense of time
And the Strings have triumphed, they are not to be kind
(The queen that quivers and the queen that cries)
As they stab through her heart and tangle up
Making a blood-soaked cocoon, dripping, dripping
Make a black blood-soaked cocoon so strong and fine.

(c) Ling 2002 (at the time)