Stephe Watson | + Follow Poet |
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Tornadoubt

Your words, which seem to be my words,
are but footprints on the fen floor of
the white page, echoes of wand'ring lyric loping.

And if, perhaps, the P's that B have blessed,
they click, they crunch, they sweetly rot underlip.

Tearing words from mind, squeezing through that jealous heartspace.
Tearing follows, wetting page after page, piling into a formless stream.
They clatter upon the mocking whiteness, an array in disarray.
A shattered and graphic mythography, mud clots on tile
after a hike.  Why do not my hot words summon Leidenfrost?

I love words, no...I love meaning.
I love meaning, I don't love
the promise of words' bringing of
meaning.

It is National Poetry Month and Shakespeare.
died today.*  The first time he died today was
four hundred years ago.  I am set to write and read
'publicly' (which spellcheck insists and my heart 
does not insist is better writ as 'public ally') some
'poetry' while dancers carve the air, in response to,
in love with, in relation to, hand/heart drawn trees 
which have drawn, well-
wishers to wine 'n cheese' 'n chit 'n chat
an opening.  A gallery.

But Prince died last night.
The artist formerly known as Prince Rogers Nelson,
and formerly known as a symbol,
and now formerly known as Prince. He died.
The symbol has gone and I don't know what it means.
The words are here behind my teeth, within my fingertips,
astride my heart, tickling that lump in my throat.

It is Earth Day, too.  I'm supposed to say some words and make
them meaningful.  And make them sing.  And ring in the hearts as though
my ditherings are one tine of a tuning fork and the other is the spirits
of those dearly beloved, gathered here.  Our coils unshuffled, for in our
sleep of life what dreams may come.  But we stand upon, today, both 
the funeral's grounds and the corpse to be.  The Earth.  We are meant
to celebrate her life as she withers.  Strangled, starved, and trampled.  And I?

I can't.
I just...
cant.  



-ShhDragon 



*He died today but every day we don't give birth to him with our tongue, on the stages of our heart, he remains a fetid, rotting, beautiful corpse.  ’Lo four hundred years ago he died, but every day he isn't summoned, isn't animated, he remains dead.  The fact of anniversary is our failing, our repeated failings, to bring forth what might be dead.

Copyright © Stephe Watson | Year Posted 2017

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