Best Aphasia Poems
Letters, words, and phrases
Once piled, filed in my brain
Dumped went all the drawers
Words went all askew
Files, unsorted, scattered
Mixed messages now astrew
To this scene I now awaken
Into this dreadful dream
Perplexed and puzzled
Tears now stream
Reasonable realignment
Unfeasible, Unworkable,
Words washed away
Impossible to reach
Imprisoned within
Words from others
Echo in my ears
“Sufferered stroke,” “healing hospital”
Only fuel fears.
Familiar faces
Names don’t know
Smiles and tears
Both do flow
Days now pass
I try to speak
It’s hard to find
The words I seek.
I find only
a
massive
mountain of
tangled terms from
which to pick and choose.
I strain to say the sounds and work the words.
Those around me puzzled, don’t quite understand.
I know ‘things’ and ‘objects,’ on much more
I can’t expand.
Frustrated, Unfulfilled
Feeling strained and stumped
Searching for simple syllables
In massive mounds where they were dumped.
[My husband suffered a stroke on November 15, 2012. His therapist tried to explain to me what aphasia was. As frustrating as it is for the victim to make himself understood, it can be equally frustrating for the caregiver who wants to understand. This poem is my effort to have others understand.]
Thrice divided am I in why. Fighting my flight response with determination to make
might right. No slight of hand or devilish spite. Plain and right, the soul's trident. Lack of
action spites my plight. Fear of destiny rears the thorned head and blinds with laser
calibrated lightness of sight. No longer can I claim 'why' but 'why not'. No soft option or
blotted white, only purest truth. To know is blasphemy and I can't afford that. Height is
a blessing but only for lords of serenity and need for solace. I have no title, no name,
no space for placing blame on nameless phrases. So I bow to cowards and pray the
devout will set pace. Scroll erased and made a torch for clouded eyes and cavernous
synapses. But I collapse under my own hate and scream 'I!' Meat and light aren't in
fight but shame is the remaining course. Of course, my hoarse will run and be weary in
cemeteries of me's. Please in sand filled fists. Kiss her away and slay what is left. Flip
the wild flight in the white spaces between fate and the places I'll go to show fate her
reflection and mine.
Hint: This is not a poem.
If one can put words in feelings then
things will go easy for me.
And if feelings will have words with them
then things will never be.
…
Let’s start with the blue bird -
a mane, that’s what you shall have;
because a birdie with no mane
is an owl exposed to sunlight.
Let’s not forget the blue moon -
a muzzle, that will be handy for you;
Let all your screams dwarf the stars
and for once shine.
And the blue eagle -
a character. All you have is
a large beak and rowdy feathers!
Fly not with false pride.
…
And if this is not coming across,
all I can say is that, “You have
to have an eye for a poem and
an ear for a nice painting.”
I cannot show it. I have promised.
Building up in the shores of my thoughts and soul,
An overflowing ocean of emotions I'll risk,
To drown in my own sorrows and tears, in folds.
Tirelessly I longed but only in secret I'll whisper,
I am haunted by the essence of you, this fear sips deeper,
You crept everywhere in sight, endlessly, searching for her figure,
As those beats grew faint and this ocean grew bigger,
What of me, "Oh God! Please do your worst!
I will be far away in this ever state of Cursed,
Nothing said but I still feel this agonising thirst,
As my breath utter those words, in knives I immersed.
I'll hide in the abyss. I will keep myself hidden.
The truth. In infinity I will hurl.
Sawed off chains from your heart and set it to Eden.
I'll stay silent forever so you can have the World.
Lamenting for the loss of words They were there and now they are not Shining like a woman with starburst eyes vanishing leaving only a halo of tears in mine searching for the words and their fate were they kidnapped by a seducer a plunderer drawn away in the hunting net of a thief who cannot create but only appropriate Have they been harmed molested are they safe Lamenting for the loss of words They were there and now they are not To perpetrator the only thing sadder than the loss for words is never having any of your own