Showing posts with label consonants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consonants. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Translate-or not


This other language I speak 
-none understand 
outside my elfin ears. 
As if I mumble incessantly, compulsively,
as if I am fumbling my thoughts with stone words.
As if I were
seeking to release crystal clear meaning
from in-side the hollow geode.
If it looks like a rock…

Those wild words were all dear to me, 
took muster to say in such a way as to blur the 
sharp edges, land softly, sometimes it settled
in, others not.
The consonants were the hardest parts, 
the little lilt only the muttering of a passing bird,
waving its wings overheads.

Emulating butterfly kisses, lips
blown away
with all my meaning-
missed-dismissed.
As though the goal was only to tell you
something-
to commune-
icate, instigate, dictate-show and tell
about, something I have lying around.
Yet, I make no sound
like feathers.
Since I can no longer speak
in pure poetry. 


Artwork By Hills, Laura Coombs, 1859-1952 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher) (Flickr: Flower Fairy) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, April 14, 2017

Edit(her)


Today
I pray
all the words fray
ravel away...

Whole words
                    carry too much

-much less, defenseless against
strung out sentences, slabs
posed in parallelographic paragraphs,
cover pages and such strata and likewise its
generous detritus

stacks up,
burying A brain within its grooves-
meaning between
pro-fessional and con-fessional
moves too fast to hold,
the rope burns
and I feel smolder.

Sleep did not bother
to muffle the pillow words,
vowels easily pass
through cotton screens.

Threads that vibrate not enough separation.
Too clear to hear, semi-permeable is
the peace underneath, the bubbles inside lips
of white foamed waves.

Those hard consonants could not be avoided.
Sound becomes
a wall between being and story,
bricks and dreams.

Mist always settles.

Black
is the language
when there are more words
than matter.



Painting by Jacob Vrel (fl. 1654–1662) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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