EMEKA GOC Ogaraku Poet Free verse

The Art of Saying Nothing

The Art of Saying Nothing

Gather the soft clay while you can,
the junk mail, the tissue paper, the living speech of man.
Be utterly open to the frozen winter landscape,
to the buttercup, the faded blue, the magic flight, the shape.

At first it is a lumpy loom, a box of random words,
a snowman flying wordless with the melancholic birds.
Layer the torn washi tape, let common accents fall,
poetry is the art of saying nothing much at all.

Then take the chisel to the stone to free the hidden face,
cut away the lazy phrase, the ghost of time and space.
The mystery is the absence, the silence left behind,
the lines that shine like stars inside the borders of the mind.

No rigid rules to shackle verse, just listen to the air,
read the beating line aloud and strip the sculpture bare.
For gifts are not the reason that we block the text in blue
we only do it for the rhythm, pushing, pulling through.

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Alison A Smith October 2, 2026 at 6:51 PM A lovely ars poetica: tactile, playful, and quietly profound. The shifting images—from soft clay and washi tape to chisel and stone—make the act of composing feel both delightfully messy and rigorously shaped. I especially enjoyed the paradox at its heart: poetry “saying nothing much” while allowing silence, rhythm, and the spaces between words to carry so much meaning.