Thursday, October 27, 2011

words,


Did Dickinson not once say,
“There is no frigate like a book, to take us lands away. 
Nor any coursers like a page of prancing poetry”?
How can we just pick something up and cast it down
As if it was nothing if someone has given their life
To write it upon a sacred stone. 

Are ours words worth life? 
Are they worth death?
Can life be told from human language?
Or is its essence of a language much deeper,
Much more ornate than we could ever speak?
Can our words ever fit around the meaning
That we have been born to pursue?

When I pick up Whitman and read of adventure and human wealth,
I form an image of a symphony
That has been placed in each separate man,
Composing a new melody with each breath.

When I pick up Shelly and read of monstrous desire,
            I see every man ever born and myself,
             Yearning after our Creator.

When I pick up Lewis and read of supernatural beauty,
            I fall to my knees and taste the sea salt
            That ceaselessly flows from my eyes.

When I pick up Poe and read of terrors beyond imagination,
            I quake and shiver and look over
My shoulder to see my attacker coming for me.

 Once and for all Eternity our words will be written
            Upon these tablets that we hold.
Have we said all what we have desired to portray?
Or have we waited for someone else to say such things?

Although Thoreau and Cummings might have
            Once written on love and humanity,
            How can we not do the same?
We owe nothing to the world but our words,
            For whether we embrace or not,
            Our stories are being written.
Each second a new letter is being inscribed.
Each minute a new word is being formed.
Each hour a new sentence is being revealed.
Each day a new paragraph is either being wasted
            Or being lived.

These words that we write will never be erased
            Unless we cease to echo our fathers.
We cannot let the axioms of Shakespeare
            Be forgotten among us today.
In the same way as we bring the Dead Poets back to life,
            Our sons and daughters will resurrect us.

To live and to breathe is to write.
To dance is to move our hands upon blank pages,
            That will soon be filled with existence.

We owe nothing to the world but our words,
            For whether we embrace it or not,
            Our stories are being written.

1 comment:

  1. love it, man. love the way it looks, too. you gotta a real knack for writing. keep it up, brotha.

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