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IMPURE POETRY
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Impure Poetry
(After Pablo Neruda)
-- This is one poem, in an autobiographical series of poems, that I posted here at WriteSpike. Go to my stories section for others. They are in chronological order. --
In Michelangelo's unfinished statues the male figures, the "Captives"
"seem to be battling to free themselves from the rough-hewn stone."
Time-Life World of Michelangelo.
Words after speech reach into the silence...
Words strain, crack and sometimes break under the burden...
T.S.Eliot The Four Quartets
In Michelangelo's unfinished statues
the angry captive men
are rooted within blocks of marble
arms and legs not yet born
forever pulling to be free
Like these poems, never finished, impure
formed from slabs of silence
now audible
yet immovable on the page
So I regret these words
because I cannot polish them
and lay each one down
like found stones
that I reworked
Real words live in our mouths
spoken with the taste of bread or beer
slippery with saliva from another's lips
If I could I'd place them on the page
as I find them
covered in the dirt of people's cries
So I will not talk about beauty in the abstract
Instead I will tell of moments not quite right:
like you standing in the hallway that night
looking at me in the bed, the light behind you
the curve of your naked hip in silhouette
and that slightly annoyed turn of your neck
Incomplete images
we are afraid to bring into being -
the life we have not lived
the world we move against every day -
figure and ground
My words cluster together
full of loose ends
outlining a rough shape
These words are born from the silence
and point
uncertainly toward song.