The difference between ‘to borrow’ and ‘to bum’
~ a weather-beaten book or a fresh stick of gum
George Stubbs artistic etude's
anatomatical exact elegant equine slightly skewed
“Too sad,” they say as they turn away
asking if I ever write anything happy
Aren’t poets told to write what they know
present to people pictures
painted with their words
of places most are too afraid to go
Should I censor myself
because it may cause some discomfort
to reveal my reality
the cruelty I’ve been subjected to
from almost the moment I gave my first cry
just after three in the morning
on the twenty third of May over forty years ago
for them to feel for a fleeting moment what I do
after all that I’ve been through
Would they expect me to stifle my screams
if I shattered a bone
had been stabbed in the gut with a dagger
before being thrown in a ditch like rubbish
Would they demand I cover the wound with my hand
concealing my viscera from their sight
as I smile before stumbling home
to tuck it all back inside again stitching it closed
with nothing more than a needle and thread
the same I use to mend the holes in my clothes
by the light cast by a candle stub
all I was ever given to find my way in the dark
the flame flickering from the fickle wind
that constantly changes direction
as I pray to gods I don’t believe in
that it doesn’t die
one bloodied pencil stub
If “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”
then I’ll have one muscle bound corpse
and one bloodied pencil stub.
Let us define death
as the absence of ….
innate qualities
life’s essentials
buried beneath
the fear of exposure.
And strength
…..let us describe strength…
as the tenacity of life’s
indefatigable longing
to survive
……to persevere
…….to triumph
over the doubts of
…….death’s doomsayers
To be exhumed
…….from the fear
………of writing
…….By writing.
73 words February 24, 2017
submitted to – What Doesn’t Kill Us – Poetry Contest
~ a stub of your toe ~
infects your insensitive
friends with belly aches
Kim Rodrigues © 2017
y’all
so where will you be in the fall?
stub hub?
or give Aladdin’s lamp yet another rub?
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