I wrote this for you
then I tore it up and it
became water
and the water fed a tree
who grew and was chopped
by the wood cutter
and felled, it turned to pulp then paper
and re-wrote my words
with the ink of a passing squid
who didn’t so much belch as cry
at the reticent nature of humans
who will spend a life time trying
to say how they feel
tying themselves in knots
and Anquish’s best colors
just to get closer
to something approximating
feeling
Feeling is not words
The feel is of the body
Of the skin
Of the muscles
Of the guts
Of the breath
And the beating of the heart
The words come after
We search for them
We invent them
We string them together
Driven, will we or nil we
To try to communicate
What words never quite can
Another superb collection – I loved ‘we string them together / driven, will we or nil we / to try to communicate’ – superb
Thanks. It feels that way, not just with poetry (but strongly there) but whenever one human hopes to break through some existential aloneness to tell another their reality. Maybe that’s why we invented language in the first place. And from the therapist’s chair we have both seen and felt the struggle of some to articulate the overwhelming. Driven, we are indeed, we poets, when the Muse takes hold. BTW, while working on the collection and considering how may there are in response to yours, you might qualify as a muse.
Love the passing squid. I need to move closer to an ocean.
Beautiful and deep.
A perpetual struggle to convey what is so difficult to say
It took me a lifetime to “speak”. This is a powerful piece, Candy! <3
Then I’m a lucky sod indeed and anything I can do to support YOU I would willingly do and then some …
And mercifully short! 😉 xo (thank you sweetheart)
Ah dearest Jude thank you so much xo
If you find somewhere affordable LMK I do too! ;0 xo
<3 Always, Candy! 🙂
It goes round and round like it’s supposed to. Along those lines, one of the things I want ot include in “The Comment Poems: Encounters with contagious poets” (the official title of the collection as of now) is where the commented upon poems can be found in print if they are, or soon will be in that form. So far, I’ve found 2 by Christine Ray which are in SMITTEN. After all, some reader might be inspired to buy a book. I am including the links to the original posts. There is a way to go yet to get this thing put together (Table of contents, introduction, etc yet to be written), so there is time to work on that possible bibliography.
Very much my pleasure.