OK, Day 55 is going up after midnight.
I’m sorry.
But I have a really good excuse.
He’s called Ajsing Bajsing.

They always were around when I was young.
Coating the furniture, a layer of fur
Ensured that nothing ever looked brand new.
But it was worth it just to hear that purr
Of blissful happiness when we came home
And no home is complete without a cat,

I thought, “I’ll always have a cat
Or five or six…” The plans we make, when young!
I didn’t know, then, that when I left home
There would be landlords who’d object to fur.
that I’d go months and never hear a purr,
A catless life was something strange and new.

And I would start to yearn and sigh anew
Each time I passed some unfamiliar cat
In someone’s garden. Sometimes they would purr
And rub against my legs. Sometimes the young-
Er ones would follow me. The feel of silky fur
Against my shins would leave me floating home.

But then I always longed to take them home.
To be my cat forever, but I knew
That someone else would miss that ball of fur
And wonder what had happened to their cat.
And that the cat itself, even a young
One wouldn’t settle, wouldn’t even purr

Upon my lap. A lost cat doesn’t purr
It cries and paces, tries to get back home.
The future that I saw when I was young
Of being a crazy cat lady, I knew,
Was slipping through my fingers. So a cat
Was what I needed now – the shade of fur

Was unimportant. Any kind of fur-
Ry little guy would do if he could purr.
And now at last, I’ve got a little cat
And as I write, he’s tearing round my home
Destroying things. and shedding. Ah. I knew
But had forgotten, what they’re like when young!

I have a cat, with blackish-tabby fur.
Quite young, and with an outboard motor purr.
Home’s home when there’s a cat. I always knew.

The back-from-the-dead, fugitive, high-contrast-looks princess finally gets her own say. This week has been fun.

Black hair, red lips and skin as white as snow.
I can’t say I have ever felt at home
With this idea that beauty makes you happy.
My looks my mother left me brought no love
Into my life, instead the queen came after
Me. She even killed me, till the prince

(He’s told me that he really is a prince)
Threw off my coffin lid onto the snow
And somehow brought me back from the hereafter.
I hate to leave my pretty forest home
With my dear seven friends, whom I so love,
But he thinks that with him I could be happy.

Why should a royal wedding make me happy?
Look at my dad and stepmum! Though the prince
Seems sweet enough. I can’t be sure it’s love.
It’s new as fragile blooms, after the snow
Which wilt and fade when taken from their home.
I can’t be certain what this prince is after.

But maybe I should go back with him. After
All, the boys will need the room. I’m happy
That Dopey’s love, the woodsman, found our home
But now there’s ten of us! I and the prince
Could go back to his palace, now the snow
Has melted, and then see if it’s true love.

I won’t get married till I’m sure it’s love.
My dad made that mistake. The queen was after
His throne and power. She was cold as snow.
The woodsman says she died. I can’t be happy,
But I am quite relieved, and so’s the prince.
He wants to go and see my dad at home.

I must admit, I’d like to go back home.
My father’s all alone, no-one to love
I think he’ll get along well with the prince If getting married’s truly what I’m after,
And as the prince’s wife I could be happy,
I’ll give MY child far more than skin like snow.

I think I like the prince. I feel at home
With him. Beneath the melting snow, there’s love
I may just get my happy ever after.

It’s a delicate issue in fairytales, this one. Sometimes a prince gets an urge to kiss a dead chick, and then she comes to life. In the traditional stories, we just…accept this. In modern retellings, it can’t really be ignored. I kinda like the prince. I didn’t want to write him as a creepy necrophiliac. I mean, imagine his disappointment when she woke up!
So I figured he just had a hunch she was actually alive, but was a bit freaked out by his own urge to kiss a girl at her own funeral.

Black hair, red lips and skin as white as snow.
She almost looks as though she were alive,
Encased within her coffin made of glass.
I watch as seven mourners weep and kiss
And comfort one another at her funeral
And in my throat, quite suddenly, I taste

The tang of my own tears. This is a taste
Of tragedy played out on melting snow
I did not think to come upon a funeral
A forest hunt makes me feel more alive.
I’d left my kingdom to avoid the kiss-
Es of a duchess, cold and clear as glass

Who loves to view her beauty in the glass
Who spends her time discussing the new taste
In gowns. I hate the way she tries to kiss
Me, stake her claim. She’s cold as snow.
This pale, dead, girl looks ten times more alive.
I should not think of romance at a funeral.

But I approach, and interrupt the funeral
To view the sleeping maiden through the glass
Surely she sleeps! Surely she is alive!
The seven shake their heads. Say “she has taste
-ed poisoned apples, deadly as the snow
Those crimson lips will neither smile nor kiss

Again.” I plead with them: “oh let me kiss
Her blushing lips!” They scowl. This is her funeral.
I’ve shocked myself. For surely there is no
Excuse. I’ve smashed decorum like a glass.
My strange request is in the poorest taste.
But I can’t shake my hunch that she’s alive.

They glare at me. “How can she be alive,
When death has given her his final
kiss?
An apple seller tempted her to taste
The fruit that sealed the date for this, her funeral
She does not breathe, we’d see it on the glass.
Her breast lies still and silent as the snow.”

To hell with taste! I know that she’s alive!
I throw the coffin to the snow and kiss
Her at her funeral, and she wakes to breaking glass.

Furthering the gay agenda through storytelling, here’s my take on what seven little men would be doing in a cottage…

Black hair, red lips and skin as white as snow
We saw her running down a forest track.
A blanket round her shoulders, frightened eyes.
At first we thought we’d keep out of the way.
She’d run from home, no doubt, for something small.
She’d soon calm down, and go back to the village

But Dopey said she wasn’t from the village.
He’d seen her dainty footprints in the snow
(He said he’d never seen a foot so small)
They led toward the palace. He can track
A spider to its web. She’d run away.
Could not go back; we saw it in her eyes.

But all of us had fled from prying eyes
And wagging tongues, been chased out of the village
And here, deep in the forest, found a way
To live in perfect love, as pure as snow
Three couples, with our stories back on track,
And poor old Dopey: sad, alone, and small.

Though, actually, we’re none of us that small.
Not dwarves, but “fairies”, in our neighbours’ eyes.
So now we live far from the beaten track.
Knowing we’re not accepted in the village
So when this dark haired girl with cheeks like snow
Showed up, we thought we ought to find a way

To find out why she’d had to run away.
Eventually she came upon our small
But tidy cottage, nestled in the snow
She looked at us with disbelieving eyes
And asked if she’d already found the village.
We laughed and told her she was way off track.

She told us then, how she’d come down this track.
How from the queen she’d had to run away
She thought she might seek shelter in the village.
(Our bitter smiles told her the chance was small)
Her woodsman’s blanket caught poor Dopey’s eyes
He snatched it from her, sobbing in the snow.

The village is some five miles down the track
But in this snow, she’ll never find her way.
Though our home’s small, She thanks us with her eyes.

To continue with the perspectives on Snow White, here’s the Woodcutter.

Black hair, red lips and skin as white as snow
I’d often seen her wandering the woods
Trailing ladies in waiting. Seemed to me
She wanted solitude, but then a princess
Is not often permitted to be lonely.
I watched her carefully. She seemed unhappy.

Why would a pampered princess be unhappy?
I should have hated her. But when the snow
Was falling on my hut and I felt lonely
I’d hope she got home safely from the woods.
I didn’t hold a grudge against the princess
Although I doubt she ever thought of me.

The queen, though, she had done a lot for me
She helped me start afresh. I was unhappy
I’d lost my love, no sweet and girlish princess,
Instead a man. They chased him through the snow
When they found out. He fled into the woods.
The queen let me stay here, in secret, lonely.

But it’s the lot of woodsmen to be lonely.
She said that she would hide and shelter me
If I would help her, one day, in the woods.
Today I saw her, and she looked unhappy.
She said. “You must go out into the snow,
And, with your hatchet, disembowel the princess.”

Everyone knew the queen hated the princess
That’s why the girl seemed so depressed and lonely:
She had no comfort but the falling snow.
I knew just what the queen could do to me.
And though the prospect did make me unhappy
I swore to kill the girl, here in the woods.

But when I followed her out to the woods
I found I couldn’t bear to hurt the princess
She knew she was to die, seemed more unhappy
Than really scared. Like me, she’d been so lonely.
I told her, “run. And never mention me.”
And brushed away her footprints in the snow.

I’ll always be unhappy, in the woods
Watching the snow, and thinking of you, Princess,
Do not be lonely. Think, sometimes, of me.