Notes About The Poem

Words We Cannot Escape



“Words We Cannot Escape”

Words we can no longer speak

we tap dance over keys 
bruised blackly numb
Winter palette in hand 
Autumn now gone 

across white-washed notes fixated on stark enclosed walls 
the scent of old Lavender swimming in its vanilla escapes us
each word appears miraculously in form 
a zealous charcoal footprint smouldering across a blank page, 

we ardently try not to follow the others, 
the try too hards - along their numerous paths
stranded without lanterns 
they speak in strange babbling tongues 

the peculiar sounds are the echoes of their words 
kept in empty jars full of lost smiles and expletives,
here they place their homeless purpose 
within their vacant epithets, promises and prayers - 

they place them reverently here, 
in this Bedlam place -

they maintain their upward inflections
their ever-ready smiling emptiness speaks 
trying their best to win accords 
with fully committed asylum strangers

but they know better, and so do we -
one step across the line drawn,

their communal ant lines broken
the act is met with strict contrition
the ununique expel the once upwardly cherished 
odd paragons, as unwanted and abnormal discards -

the lacerated division becomes the norm;

we smile, like a wraith inside, silently, 
like a rag being rung out irreverently
we are left hanging, bleeding out over the rails, unpegged
in the blisterng breeze without reciprocal meaning

the result, bloodless and brutalised inside 
invisible tears, no crocodiles, they are coolly removed,
the unsaid speak silently like coward poets,
hearts forever falling like words reigning

into a bucket full of lost empty dreams

words 
we can no longer speak
are words we cannot escape;
like a drug, words replace everything

in Bedlam, we make friends of monsters
we eternally breathe them in, their sharp teeth on leads
their cancer spreads, like vampires they are, 
intravenously without resistance, invited in 

windows open no one home
becomes the norm,
as if in a stark hospital bed,
we are cannula fed. 

Bedlam becomes us


Candide Diderot. ‘25





“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing…”
(Ode To The West Wind/Percy Bysshe Shelley)



“The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable!  …

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem’d a vision; I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.”
(Ode To The West Wind/Percy Bysshe Shelley)






“I write. I write a lot. A. LOT. There are times I am half  blind with a sentence ricocheting off the walls of my stupid, cant be shut off to save my life, brain. I am miserable until I get it down on paper. Punch it up a bit. Usually cross out half of it. And then breathe. Relax. Only to do it all again..... But I just thought that was me. How I am. Not a writer....noooo...not me. Writers are.....writing people. People Who Write. REALLY write. Write things that matter. All grown up very important things. Not.....me. I am just a scribbler of sorts. And I was/am content with that....if it's true, well then....a scribbler am I. Until the thought wormed its way in to my brain (the furtive sneaky ) that maybe...just maybe...that is writing. My style. My strange way. But....still writing. So here I am at the dance. Not sure I know any of the moves and the music is entirely mine. But.....only one way to find out…” 
(ChimeraPoet)
Copyright © | Year Posted 2025

Poem

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Rodgers Avatar
March 12, 2025 at 4:47 AM
Dear Candide, staggering, almost like standing in the eye of a storm, watching language unravel and reassemble itself in the shape of ghosts. I liked the weight of the unsaid, the inevitability of words consuming and defining us. It lingers, eerie and beautiful. Masterfully unsettling. Spring Blessings, My Friend, Daniel
Diderot Avatar
March 12, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Indeed. Thank you. It certainly gets crowded in the Asylum. From dark, some light may arrive.
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:47 PM
"White Walls"/The KVB
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:47 PM
https://youtu.be/FuCERKkPifw?si=ZhJZ4SlS413T2uFX
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:08 PM
"Ode To The West Wind"/ by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:09 PM
https://chimerapoetry.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/ode-to-the-west-wind-by-percy-bysshe-shelley/
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Magritte/ “Not to be Reproduced (La reproduction interdite)”, 1937
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:08 PM
https://www.renemagritte.org/not-to-be-reproduced.jsp
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Bedlam.
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bedlam
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlem_Royal_Hospital
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM
https://www.valmcbeath.com/victorian-era-england-1837-1901/victorian-era-lunatic-asylums/#.XZpaJC_Yq00
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:06 PM
"Words"/The KVB.
Diderot Avatar
March 11, 2025 at 6:06 PM
https://youtu.be/0xTbnat2T9s?si=jFTj0qboEqiyayHd
Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace