Monday, April 1, 2019

sometimes poetry

i don’t know what to tell you
there are secret poems

i would be a fool
to speak them to you

i’m not sure what a poem is
what it’s supposed to hide

how much weight a word may bear
how much do i give away

how do you choose what to hold –
do you use the right hand or the left?

what is the gift being offered
or is there even a gift?

we speak the words into being
give the stories skin and bones

an architecture of hope
that there is someone listening

that even a soft still voice still
makes an imprint on the world

now i speak through a cloud darkly
(no. that’s not it)

now i see through a glass darkly
each phrase a broken mirror

perhaps it isn’t that big a mystery after all
perhaps it was never meant to be one

sometimes poetry plays games with you
sometimes you even win