Truculent Ode to Poetry
You storm in at the most inopportune time, like when company’s coming and the house needs cleaned or when the presentation at work looms large upon the horizon, and in I walk into my office, open the computer, and there you are, squatting like a protester dressed in red in the snow with something that must be heard because you’re not moving until it is. It is annoying, all this poetry. It won’t let me sleep until I’ve written each word down, wrestling like Jacob in dead of night only to find myself limping toward dawn. I’m tired of verbose ambushes with exciting new ideas that too often go awry like the perfect Scrabble word mixed among the tiles if only the right ones can be drawn but seldom are, despite my planned hope. It’s like living with someone who’s bipolar, bouncing words about like Sherlock Holmes on speed. I can’t keep up with so much brilliance, though I try to suss it out like Watson and get it all down as a public service. You run ahead, and I chase, only to race in and find you suddenly slouched silent and sullen on the couch watching Law and Order reruns and getting cheese doodle dust all over the cream upholstery of what’s left of my mind. Sometimes I’d like to tell you to shove off, leave me alone, but truth is, I enjoy the games afoot, of hide and seek and chase and Scrabble and wrestling that leave me so breathless with beauty amid dirty dishes and unfinished reports that I don’t care when you’re here, though in the back of my mind I know you’ll soon blow out the way you came and leave me as a doldrums sail devoid and drooping alone. ©Tess Lockhart, all rights reserved. May, 2018. |