High Heels For An Almond is a poem I wrote that plays a bit of a game of telephone between two very different speakers, so you'll want to watch the rhythm shift as they pass the microphone back and forth. It's an absurdist delight!

There are 27 stanzas of varying lengths and purposes. My narrator speaks four times, twelve lines per section, divided into neat four-line stanzas. They stick to a crisp pattern where the first three lines have seven syllables and a quick, bouncy da DUM da da da DUM da feel, while the fourth line drops to five syllables. But whenever the zebra takes over the story, all those tidy rules completely vanish! The zebra speaks 3 times having 5 stanzas which alternate 4 lines then 8 lines, spewing out gusts of fourteen to sixteen syllable lines. It's a bit of a metrical puzzle, but if you relax into the zebra's long, rolling campfire-story cadence as it responds to the narrator you'll enjoy the whole. The poem has the stressed syllables presented in bold - when reading make sure to say the bold word (or part of a word) strongly, with emphasis, and with hope and high heels in mind, you'll pick up most of the rhythm quickly.

The structure of this poem provides for 7 chapters.