Maggie Flanaganwilkie Poet Free verse

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...

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