Anxiety (1)
Take a tablet
to ease a thing
I cannot define
As if some dictionary
of bodily function
was letting me down
unable to locate the page
though the syllable
is thick inside
unable to cut the binding
thicker still with glue
and residue
there is no lightning
in a bottle to uncap
and so assume normality
just the thick slide
of chalk in the throat
inscribing its board
scraping the uncertainty
from a shrill call
into dulled silence
diving beneath skin
to unplumbed depths
of untapped bone
where pages are soaked
and illegibly dissolve
and the figurative
cannot be ascribed
to one particular
or any single objective
Although the subject is anxious, I think your poem is masterful, Danny. It describes the speaker's anxieties, one of which is about filling a page with unused, often alarming, combinations of words and images -- a stock brain creating an irregular mind which produces a thing of freshness and strange beauty.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rob. This poem and its partner developed quickly today in reflection of particularly turbulent feelings. I am very happy with the flow of this on. It proves useful to articulate the mood in some sense even if it can't be expunged.
DeleteSuch articulate imagery Danny +++
ReplyDeleteSuch articulate imagery Danny +++
ReplyDelete