CanLit Poets
Andromeda the Princess
by Alan R. Wilson
The nearest galaxy of comparable size to our own is the Great Nebula in Andromeda, located approximately 2 million light years from us.
—Robert Jastrow, Red Giants and White Dwarfs
Once more the barber has clipped my hair too short.
Wind worries my lobes, runs long fingers over crop,
blows from my forehead cut oddments of floss
like the gossamer of a drawing room window.
A savage glitter imbues that room: instruments (brass)
of torturous design, a dwarf, misshapen by pain, chained
to a fire-grate, and bound facedown on a catafalque,
a woman sobbing, her youthful haunches starred
with rubies of blood. On the far side of the room,
by a silvered speculum, a casement opens on an alien sky.
There are scorched buttes, a line of impossible hills,
and something manlike that scratches through rock
as a giant spiral, a rising Charybdis of stars and gas,
ignites the landscape like a monstrous moon.
Questions & Answers
What inspired "Andromeda the Princess"?
A bad haircut.
What poetic techniques did you use in "Andromeda the Princess"?
The tradition of the sonnet with science and Greek mythology thrown in as seasoning.
More poems by Alan R. Wilson:
"Andromeda the Princess" originally appeared in Canadian Literature #170-171: Nature / Culture (Autumn/Winter 2001)
MLA: Wilson, Alan R.. CanLit Poets: "Andromeda the Princess" by Alan R. Wilson. canlit.ca. Canadian Literature, 15 Aug. 2008. Web. 8 Sept. 2010.
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