This Is Not Poetry
This is not poetry
It is the rattle of a copper coin
falling through the ribcage of a cathedral—
a hollow sound that has never learned a hymn.
It is the salt-crust gathering
on the lip of a rain-forgotten glass,
the quiet residue of a thirst
that no longer remembers its own name.
Do not come searching for metaphor.
There is no disguise here.
Only the blunt geometry of a bruised knee,
the exact, indifferent weight of a key
that has outlived every door in this city.
It is the static between stations,
where the ghosts of dead singers
grope for the shape of a vowel
and fail, again and again,
into silence.
This is not wisdom, slow and sweet.
It is the cold engine of morning,
reluctant, unpersuaded,
turning over nothing but itself.
It is the ache sealed in the grain of an old chair
that still carries the memory of wind,
and the long pause that follows
when you understand the mirror
has never been yours—
it looks past you,
through you,
to the blank wall that has always been waiting.
If there is a spark here,
it is only friction wearing down its own bones.
If there is meaning,
it arrives by accident—
a brief alignment of light
on something that was never meant to be seen.
But this is not poetry!
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