Did I Say What I Said You Said

Did I say What I said You said

You said looking a little forlorn
						a little redundant
	the contradicting crosses in your eyelashes
   thrusting forth the brazen prophet in you for the day
                                                                       only
	no country nor community at your command
								bashfully
 
       What is this life ?  Once you’re dead you’re gone
							gone forever !
some coarse stele   the five a three or perhaps a nine
	raven rot working into the rubbed-out stone
long the frangipani branches drifting with the tide
   severed from the scarred bones

What you said I could have
the wooden broad sword of your scouring words
	scathing my back      my nape stung
   awakening the nakedness of futile words
								fixing memory
   vain memory   some lines here or there
	some thoughts culled out of your hands
		how might I eject sense empty the void of your accusing pain
				 your desolation 
                       retain   
 keep only the one possible denotation of the moment

						Whose ancestral voices
linger in my thoughts   in yours
		stray strands of concepts      trapped 
in subliminal dimensions     caught just a while
in the slanting light cutting through your escaping inturned eye
     interstitial arrows darting through undead time
		
Will my time age out of time
				in the dead of time

conflict between those who beget you
conflict between those who assess you

Is there lack of those who’d hate you enough to love your enemies
		come back a reformed reformist and 
make the comeback 
                              what you want

No one opts out   for
even gone  some remember  the 
harsh things you said  the hurtful things you did   and
         all the things you should have but did not


					Or do you depart in disgust
	 at all this fuss over nothing
		the grating chores of shoring up your image
                  the unbending pride made you the arch-enemy
		the fear too late of mending your name
	         the fumbling efforts to repair for those you cared
	         the coffee serré with four cubes let your body go
		the rubbing spasms in stolen moments
all heinous crimes and more

Better be dead  you said
    than remember the Dead
and wondered why you tolerated living so vilely
	in fear  unfree   a prisoner of your own will

I too may look back over my shoulder and see
     a gaping vast expanse
        and look for words  teeming words
  in lieu of you
			a curlicue crescent balancing on a lame branch 
in limbo 

June 7, 1996 (from the collection - re-worked- longhand notes, 1999)
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris,  2016
Copyright © | Year Posted 2016

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Kelley Avatar
March 19, 2016 at 8:13 PM
Beautiful write!! Xx
Wignesan Avatar
March 20, 2016 at 4:37 AM
So are you, if you don't mind the compliment! I'm not kidding. Thanks a lot for taking the trouble to visit. As for me, I don't have much time - well, none at all - to do the PoetrySoup thing. Hope the Spring brings along fresh bright hopes and vistas: don't we need it all after the long wet dreary darknesses. Bye Bye for now. Wignesan
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