Details |
Vincent Whiteley Poem
I'm smart, crippled with knowledge I never sought,
things I wish I didn't know.
The song of a kiss so brilliant it's like an x-ray,
the voice of the red rose, the yellow, the white.
The whisper sound where the petals meet and overlap,
the dew that nourishes.
Listen: This is the difference between an object and an idea,
between love and desire,
hope and faith.
This is what's left when there's nothing left,
when the past is soaked up like oxygen
into the blood of the future.
This is an image in a mirror,
imperfect.
When love looks into a mirror and becomes aware of itself
it becomes bliss.
Ecstasy becomes rapture,
sorrow becomes anguish,
the world turns silver and night never falls.
This is a song of extremes, of haste, of not looking back.
These are the words.
The music is the sound that time makes when you're
buried beneath an eternity of its ooze,
the voices that come unbidden and unannounced,
the screams that make you say, I wish, I hope, and finally,
I know.
This is the knowledge that maimed me,
the secret I spread like a contagion with a kiss,
a whispered word,
a touch.
This is the truth I'd sell my soul to be rid of.
Believe me, I've tried.
This is the truth about being buried alive, about being utterly alone,
about missing boats.
And this is how I told it--in a whisper, in a scream, in a song
As a joke in the light of day,
as a prayer in the darkness.
Listen.
Copyright © Vincent Whiteley | Year Posted 2022
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