[Marion Shore]

Bed

My bed’s a stage. As children, my friend Maeve
and I played Peter Pan. We jump-bounce-flew
with Tinkerbell, explored a cotton cave,
and hoisted sheets to sail the carpet blue.

My first love read me Shakespeare (Lady Anne
submitted to his Richard). Through the years
I played some shows the Chamberlain would ban,
with rich arrays of extras carrying spears.

These days I specialize in soliloquy.
Through marriage, death, dispersal, or old age,
my fellow-actors are a dwindling cast.
The fairy dust set off my allergy,
the sail became a shroud. My bed’s a stage,
each illness dress-rehearsal for the last.


The first line – "my bed's a stage" – immediately sets the scene, not only riffing on Shakespeare (who will show up in the next act), but evoking the theatrical motif that will be employed throughout the poem to depict various stages of the narrator's life.

Stanza 1 (or should I say Act I?) depicts the narrator and her childhood friend playing Peter Pan, exploring a cotton cave, hoisting sheets to sail the carpet blue – (what child hasn't engaged in this type of play-acting – with the added thrill of that offscreen voice yelling "Go to sleep!" hanging over your head?)

Act II. We find the narrator and her first love, who romantically reads her Shakespeare in bed, she playing lady Anne, submitting to his Richard. Over the years, subsequent "shows" are raunchy enough to invoke the ban of the Chamberlain – and no wonder, with all those extras carrying spears! [Laughter]

Act III. The lights dim. The scene is darker. The cast is dwindling. Harking back to the first act, the fairy dust now sets off her allergy, the sail becomes a shroud. Closing with an echo of the first line, and then that zinger of a closing line!

[The curtain falls.]

[Applause]

This critic raved: a charming, witty, if ultimately dark tragi-comedy.

[Elise Hempel]

I like this one. And how can you not get darker as you progress in age? There's feeling here! My only question is in Line 2 -- should it all be past tense: "jumped-bounced-flew"? Just a small quibble. (Is that redundant?)

[Gail White]

I enjoyed this, but isn't Maeve actually pronounced "Mab"?

[Orwn Acra]

"The fairy dust set off my allergy"

A great line flawed by the singular. Why not "allergies"? And why not "soliloquies"? And why cast the sestet in the past when it is so present to the N.? I am not so thrilled by the last line, which I don't find new or riveting.

[Robert Meyer]

Love the sestet. the recurring beginning half-line is reminiscent of a rondeau.

[Simon Hunt]

I like this one quite a bit! Day 4 is my favorite so far by a wide margin. Still, I wonder if any of these tinkerings would be improvements:

l. 4: "the carpet's blue" to avoid the inversion--or are we riffing on Columbus's 1492 ocean blue and such uses?

ll. 9, 12: "soliloquies, allergies"

l. 10: "and old age"--it's multiple actors for all the reasons listed, right?

l. 13: vary the repetition slightly for interest?

[Susan McLean]

Clever and enjoyable. Unlike the DG, I did not automatically assume the speaker was female. My two best friends when I was five were male. I like the way the first line reappears and the different meanings of "stage," which turn very dark by the end. Gail, I have always heard "Maeve" pronounced to rhyme with "cave." Simon, I hear an echo of "ocean blue" in L4.

Susan

[Edward Zuk]

I took the inversion in line 4 as deliberate:

We sail the ocean blue
And our saucy ship's a beauty;
We're somber men and true,
And attendant to our duty.

This may be my favourite sonnet so far. I'll echo the call for change to "soliloquies" and "allergies."

[Elise Hempel]

I see no need to change anything into the plural. We're talking "soliloquy" as an overall concept. And how do you know that the speaker has more than one allergy?

[Orwn Acra]

Originally Posted by Elise Hempel

I see no need to change anything into the plural. We're talking "soliloquy" as an overall concept. And how do you know that the speaker has more than one allergy?

The poem is fiction. The speaker can have as many allergies as need be. "My allergy" is a bit of awkwardness in what is otherwise the poem's best line. IMNSHO, the rest of the poem is a wee bit tired and cliche.