Poet Confessor
I
You are far from a whisper;
surviving where echoes
fall between cracks in the floor,
where the pulse of phantom tangibles
beats only in your hands, loving
no more, no less, no one.
Witch doctors finger your spine,
and ignore your soul. Run
from their sagacity, the lectures
of apposition; take ink
for internalized pain.
Your images and my next breath,
collide, disappear into memory,
leaving a concrete stain on the page.
II
You sit there, slanted
in a prayer-like pose,
divining harsh penance
for the innocent paper you hold;
as if ink were holy water
flushed through your veins,
and your pen, an instrument
of ablution for troubled days.
Silent petitions, numbered in reams,
beg to lift your mind from your knees.
III
There are times I wish
you had never picked up a pen,
never wrote words that go deeper
than the language of superficial friends
who shop the glossy pages of magazines
for caricatures to suit themselves in,
who avoid passion to save their footwear.
Those chums, who kiss the air and not your cheeks,
are ones you can live without for weeks,
and months and years.
I wish you weren't a poet, whose thoughts I h(f)ear...
Copyright © Maggie Flanaganwilkie | Year Posted 2005
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