Saturday, November 5, 2016

Kit Kelen #310 - the words and their poem - for Anne Walsh


310
the words and their poem

no one knows where words are from
those who say they do
have simply not dug deep enough
all credit to them though for digging

no one knows where words go
the ones who pray are merely wishful
we take those horses for a run

it must have been the heart let them out
words once and upon a time for all
but whose and why?
and how far back?

no one knows
why a word means
how it sounds

you can wow
bow wow
I'm sure
each word had its own tune to begin

some are still scribbled into air
even to clear up a doubt

words are with us
though not to start
they may not be there at the end

no one knows how it is we are spelled
the sound and the sense
we have by convention
nobody knows where they're from

but mainly in falling together's the magic
with words as with us all

I prefer no punctuation
it's just the words rub up, abutt
range freely on the page
as they were wont in air

words always wish a way beyond
they're forever getting over themselves
but we're still stuck with them
a next and a next
and the one before's
always still echoing after

without words
we'd be less than lost

I'd like to get my words stuck in your head
without even a tune
I'm doing things the hard way

so
I scratch around a poem
hoping to bring its shadows to light
I fall into the thing
will I be more than found?

words show a pale imitation of life
but it isn't life I want to show
words in their own deep down
do me
some days do my head in

the house is electric in that nest
it's every limb's extension
and what I think, how far

it's as if the poem were deeper in the page
far below the surface seen
as if these signs were
traces of another journey
(long since and yet to come are one)

as if the map were scratched with truth
scraped over with all the terrors to it
so the land lay waiting for the words
for orders to make mean

I call to words
and will they come
some lie in wait
and some will run

and with or against
the grain

just like the truth
lies under paint
when a picture is revealed

like your face as I caught it once in a dream
and never in the ever after

have to get out and breathe with the trees
let the page be blank again 







 

5 comments:

  1. A cracker! Your fluency and fecundity are startling - so much of interest in each poem - and then there's your energy and appetite. No wonder 'some days do my head in'. I wonder if you sleep?
    This poem opens simply with a bang!

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  2. So beautiful! The words I'd say to respond would be the Word we came in with, so, to make sure to (un) capture it, I'll not say a word; but Listen to this as if these signs were traces of another journey . ..thank you so, Kit. This- my too tired self- made me cry with the beautiful of it. Your words respite like a tree. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So beautiful! The words I'd say to respond would be the Word we came in with, so, to make sure to (un) capture it, I'll not say a word; but Listen to this as if these signs were traces of another journey . ..thank you so, Kit. This- my too tired self- made me cry with the beautiful of it. Your words respite like a tree. Thank you.

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