Ode to a Sinister Dr. Seuss



I read your poem, Mr. Frost, and boy, I really gotta hand it to you,
I found myself suddenly lost in a flurry of red and blue, and violet too,
like Lucifer and Michael, like oil and water, like blood and toil, like fire and ice,
and I was looking at one thing but seeing everything else.
Like Satan, that trident-bearing, sharp-angled, flame-bright politician, cackling
jerkily on Cartoon Network, while Porky the Pig leaps away from the crackling
tongues that lick at his suspiciously devil-like hooves, and Lucifer, lackluster
 and white, choking on one head and two asses and stuck in a frozen lake.
I saw a thousand ways to die, not really die, because I’m still alive, but I saw
    all the ways I lost my life, and all of them were through fire or ice.
Oh, fire. It’s hard not to be trite about good old fire, its dazzling light
     like a starry night, or its red-orange pulsing like blood in a fight,
its breathtaking, startling, sizzling heat like the furious flood of sudden desire,
    the desire to shred and shriek and kill and pile the bones on a burning pyre.
I saw the screams raze our mutual space, making it sparse and raw
    and smoldering, like coals on our tongues, the curses that claw
at us, catfight they’ll say like it’s nothing at all, and they’re right and they’re wrong,
    because after the hundredth or millionth time, it shouldn’t feel
so raw and so wrong. Isn’t that what Einstein told us? Well go to hell,
    Einstein, you don’t know a damn thing, you have no right to tell
me that I’m insane, that I’m crazy for trying, for wanting a change,
    for fighting through the constant pain, because don’t they say
no pain no gain? I’d rather feel something than nothing at all, and there I go with another cliché,
    but hey. Where there’s fire there’s friction, and all families have that.
And ice, that whispering wind that kills any kindling flame, that cringing
    cold that seeps through door frames, freezing knobs and hinges
so they moan like the outcasts, the lepers, the ones on the fringes
    of society, the ones kept miserable and at bay by frosty shoulders.
I never thought I’d feel like a leper, I’m young and my flesh is lush
    and pink, but few things hurt worse than the lingering hush
that’s somehow louder than the burning words. I’d take those words
    a hundred times, I’d beg for the hate that I’ve so often heard,
at least I’d hear something besides my own heart, a stuttering beating that’s lost its meaning.
When I close my eyes and see nothing but black
where I used to see love and can’t find a way back through the blinding white
    of snow and ice, the chill of indifference makes dying seem nice.
How telling, Mr. Frost, your name, something that’s one thing but something else,
    that Robert is German for bright fame, that fame can flicker like any flame,
that brightness and burning are one and the same, but your surname
    is simple and very tame and more straightforward in its claim.
Nah, that’s just coincidence, I say, but I stop and I wonder anyway,
    I wonder if maybe you’ve lain where I lay
in the no-man’s land of how to die, how to hear your heart sigh
    and want to die because both are painful, fire and ice.

About this poem

I wrote this poem in the style of Barbara Hamby in response to Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice." It expresses my feelings about a family's hot temper and icy silence.

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Written on January 01, 2013

Submitted by caroline.claffey on March 15, 2022

Modified on April 14, 2023

3:00 min read
53

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABCDDEFGBHHEEIGJKLLMNOPDQQROOSTDUHBCVVVNNWB
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 3,268
Words 600
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 44

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