Day 16:
I hope at least one person will understand my Winnie-the-Pooh reference title…but alas, as it says, this will be my final post for a little while. I need time to revise and complete my final project, but hopefully afterward, in summer, I’ll come back and keep writing!
The first poem I gave you all was Ungenerous, about the reason I write. This new one is along the same lines, concerning how I feel about reading my work out loud…enjoy! I love you all!
Indian Giver
When I write,
or read what I’ve written down
while pressed close to
a screechy mic
smelling of coffee breath and stale saliva
in a shadowy cafe
filled with smoke
and breathing,
I attach a little part of my heart
onto each syllable,
seasoning it with understanding
and a pinch of soul;
I let it linger
in their great blinking eyes
long enough that they feel
as if we are one…
and snatch it away
before they decide to keep it forever.
Because if I am careless
and leave that fragment of me
to fester within their ribcage
like an open wound,
it’s that much less I have left inside myself
to piece together
these long, long chains
of dangling words
which may briefly act
as someone else’s lifeline
and when I draw it close to me again
so that it coils around
the very core of me where
there is not a heart
but an alpine swift
who flaps his tapered wings
to send waves of pinetree air through my veins
and trills through his sleek throat
and makes me dream,
(but I digress)
When I draw that chain in
I know it will either
slip through the listener’s fingers
and abandon them to their own smothering confusion,
or lead them to dry land
so that they can gasp in comprehension
and the enlightenment
they imagine they’ve gained from my poetry.
I let them fantasize about
how I wrote those lines
solely for them,
so long as I get the stanzas back,
regain the sentences
and line breaks
to reconnect with those torn-off corners of my thoughts
and be complete again.
(c) 2011 Marie KR
Speak A Better Word 