I missed the window of my telling
you who you are. My greatest
talent, f*cked too thin to mend,
or maim when it mattered most.
I’m not mad anymore, just sifting
through the wreckage of my gift—
this heft of language, all I ever said,
only salve on hand to save us, too often
out of stock.
Words flawless on paper, I fell limp
spilling from a broken mouth.
Throwing spells at your functional illiteracy,
believing an explanation could level
our podium standings, but it never did.
I never do.
Even though I’m perfect on paper.
You never do what I want, either.
Imagining Sisyphus content
was the death of us.
And we have died nine million times
attempting the trick of it—
a compromise so smug, filled with hubris
enough to spare every kind,
every one of us, where no one dies,
unless that’s how they wanted
their story to end.
Our story is ending.
What else is there?
A rock and a hill, a present mishandled
until it becomes a burden.
Until we've learned the weight of words
won’t hold us, slip, slipping away
again and again, and I’m there
hauling myself through the unwritten
spaces you didn't even notice, you left.
Fluent in the language of silence
Where the moon talks about her fears
On an empty dark night without stars
to keep her company surrounded by dark shrouds
And yet the sun shows me different ways
To wrap gifts in his soft and warm rays
And in that moment I tie ribbon’s with my eyes
Those unspoken gifts I see in golden light
The clouds dance in floating happiness
Sailing high I wait for them to quench my thirst
Growing large and puffy till they burst
Some black and grey clouds now interspersed
All held together by a limitless sky
Choosing its colours to paint on high
Fluent in silence of mind and you
I spread my wings and away I fly on cue
29.4.2021
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Contest: All Yours April '30. 'First Place'
Water flows wrapping around the ground and goes
fluent feeling crevices and gaps- when it rains it pours until it evaporates~
11/21/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2020
"Fluent Rhyme"
by: Eric L. Boddie
Do you stew shrews to brew few true new clues
12/3/15
one liner contest
by silent one
It’s nice to be fluent
In more than one tongue,
So you can converse
When you are among
People from places
You’d like to go
And ask them whatever
You need to know.
But what I’d prefer
(This might make you laugh)
Is the version of fluent
That starts with af-.
Speak to me
Nimble word-master,
Construct the images
You wish me to possess.
Be fluent in your authority
To command my thoughts,
Motivate this mortal
With your perpetual souvenirs.
Present deliberate challenges,
Enticing and fascinating,
So I may be authored
By your wisdom.
Expose your riches
In stirring tones;
No matter the cost,
I will pay.
Such is your ability
To heighten my experience,
Dear poet,
Dismaying in tremendous form
And awful honesty,
Until I have become
Your slave,
Spent, replete, and supplied.
I would be forever grateful
If you’d only lend me
A breadth of your time,
Ripening my observations.
Speak to me
Sweet word-master,
And I’ll be the resolution
To your question.
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