[stylist] House of Cards

[Lynda Lambert]

Finally, I am trying to go back to your poem and see what is there. Here is where I am at with it. 


Begins in third person - someone is telling the story about "she" who was sheltered  and innocent, or in denial of her situation -  living in a dangerous place that was about to collapse her entire world.  

In the third stanza she is described as alone - yet, soon we see that we are made aware that there are "others" who are there, and others who know dark secrets. They are called "evil" and have overtaken innocence, and brought destruction or an end to earlier times when she felt safe and happy - but she was deceived and never truly was safe or happy. All appearances of domestic order are collapsing at this point.

The journey continues with "she" trying to recapture things from the past - yet they are illusive. She "picks" at things, rooting about in the destruction - laughter is usually a joyful idea, but not here. Here, laughter is really a kind of mocking feeling that we get. Something that is buried deep down inside, yet being revealed.

And, then we get to a change towards the end.  Questions are asked, not particularly to the reader, but questions one might ask oneself when being introspective. The questions bring us deeper inside her thoughts as she is turning over the questions, and she seems to be turning around slowly, away from the destruction we have been viewing.

Finally, we have the passage of time, when "time" is descrived as a being - with "muscles."  Time seems to be flesh and blood, and brings with "it" some distance.  While time has human qualities, it is still neutral, and genderless. It is an "it."

In the concluding tercet, we are still in the past tense, as we have been throughout the telling of the story. But there is a new awareness and a knowing here, that leads the reader to have a glimmer of hope in a situation that seems to have been on-going for a very long time.  There is no real changes that we can tell in the outward situations, yet, we do have a gentle moving towards awareness that did not exist when the poem began.

I hope this is helpful to you! I enjoyed this poem very much and it is really successful. You have given it a flow and an elegance that is hard to do with this form often times. There is nothing forced here, and the parts all contribute to the whole of this poem. Because the poem is written in past tense and third person, there is a distance that we have. We have a God's eye view of the person we are reading about. We view her from the distance as we read her story.

Well done!  Lynda







Once upon another time she lived
In a fragile house of cards.  She  knew
Only that she was sheltered, never heard
The winds of change that  silently
Blew against the coated-paper walls
Of her blissful existence,  until it crumpled.

She remained quiet, not discussing her situation with anyone - what would happen if she had shared the secrets she was hiding inside the structure of false appearances? 



She found herself alone amid the crumpled
Ruins of the life she had  known, no longer lived
Behind the sanctity of sacred walls
Which kept its  secrets.   Innocence knew
It would die in shame, silently
Lying in  the ruins of her being. Unheard.

The Knave had claimed he heard
No denial or admonition and she  crumpled,
Allowing the lifeless cards to fall silently
One by one.   In darkness lived
The Kings and Queens.  Only Innocence knew
Evil  had shattered the paper walls.

She picked through discarded walls
Searching for treasured Innocence but  heard
Only silence.  Laughter, she knew,
Lay buried in the life now crumpled
And yet she survived.  She  lived
To carry the secrets within her silently.

And time, in its fashion, ticked silently
Within her soul.  She  woke one day to find walls
Of Faith where debris once lived.
Was that the  whisper of promise heard
>From beneath the dreams crumpled?
Could she  regain the life she once knew?

Again, time flexed its knowing muscle for it knew
That some things must  be borne silently
And without reprieve.  The life lost in the  crumpled
Ruins would not return to thrive within the walls
Of yesterday.  Truth's hammer clearly heard
As it rang through dreams not  lived.

And in her soul she knew, that no longer would walls
Stand by silently,  ignoring the whispers heard
While the house crumpled, burying what once  lived.


C March 2004

Lynda Lambert
104 River Road
Ellwood City, PA 16117

724 758 4979

My Blog:  http://www.walkingbyinnervision.blogspot.com
My Website:  http://lyndalambert.com