today a woman went mad in the supermarket pigeon eyes flapping a whirrrr like card decks shivering into place not staring quite onlookers understated as grey weather through the feathers and coughing nobody knew what to do the pink skin of panic it was in the cereal aisle colourful boxes boasting fibre, energy and plastic toys or cards to collect but nothing about compassion for a woman undone loose as a shoelace hair crimped like ticker tape and she yelled louder than the canned music in the aisle next door “You can’t fly today, my sweet because the clouds are full hard with evaporated steel and the forked up gas remains of every dying thing every blood cell dehydrated in the sun every skin sheet, flaked to breaking every morsel of living thereness sucked upward for the rain” but then like her words had freed us from silence somebody put an arm around her shoulder and held her wings in close and I thought I heard them say Mamma is coming Mamma is coming I really hoped she would and here am I cooking dinner and telling you because I found grey feathers like omens in the celery Does it scare you?
Written for Go Dog Go Cafe Week Two Brave and Reckless Using the book title “Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket”
I can imagine it happening.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Me too
LikeLiked by 2 people
This had me reading really quickly because I wanted a happy ending for the poor woman. On a second more leisurely reading, the imagery starting with the pink skin of panic and continuing in a similar vein is simply terrific. I’m trying to say, I really enjoyed this. 😂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Hobbo! 😊
LikeLiked by 2 people
👍
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! This is a wonderful surreal story. And as for you last line… yes, a little.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Bob! I’m not sure if I’ll leave the last line. I added it very impetuously just seconds before posting.
LikeLike
I get it. I’m always rethinking/changing what I’ve written.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Amazed by the way you take us to the ‘life’s turmoil on pause’ we see in the supermarket aisle. This what it would be like when it happens and the mask falls. Brilliant!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much, Ulle!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a wow wormie 🙂 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks!! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
My neighbour has occasionally psychotic episodes just like that. We always take her kids in when she’s in hospital. It just comes on without warning. The mind is a trickster.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I imagine it would be quite terrifying
LikeLiked by 1 person
She has absolutely no recollection of it when it happens.
LikeLiked by 1 person
the title drew me; I’ve ordered a book at the library whose title is the same as your first line; watching someone unravel in a public place is a terrifying experience; your lady’s rant is as oerfervid in Howard Beale’s in ‘Network’ ; loved the last stanza 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Huh. I guess that is the book that the first line came from… a prompt from Go Dog Go Cafe to use any of a series of book titles in or as the title for a poem
LikeLiked by 1 person
it’s a great line: I can’t wait to read the book: it’s a collection of short stories; the book is named after one of them
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love this! I invite you to submit your prompt responses for publication on Brave and Reckless (https://braveandrecklessblog.com/) by emailing them to me at her.red.pen.wordsmithing@gmail.com with a short bio.
LikeLiked by 1 person