
Speech act (watercolor, 20230126)

writing + art
What can the dancer say,
moving with his arms that way,
and with those legs and hips, that we,
in our dumb bodies, say with tongue and lips?
He says that in the movement of my being,
this breath, this life, “I am.” —And no one,
even he who soon might take me,
may be the dance I am.
Teachers, in their classroom mode,
Will point the way down any road.
Before you go, remember this:
That getting lost is half the bliss.
—But take a compass and a map,
The way ahead is full of traps;
And pack some warm and woolly socks,
The future is an oblong box.
I pray to speak as musicians pray; those whom I trust, more than writers, since they may speak without need to tell. With this desire, without end of longing for that sound to fill me, I am contrite, and offer my imperfect contrition to the hope I shall not end in Hell. O God, whose music made me, I beg you, do not leave me soundless where I am, believing nothing, and my mouth numb with lies. I am in pain. Say only—to this silent, shapeless form of life I have, you might give remedy. With that uncertain knife I could untie my tongue.
Ask, as if to extract admission,
or hoping to discover I am empty,
What do you believe?
and I say, “There is nothing
to be claimed today not wrong tomorrow”.
I laugh my loud, ungraceful laugh,
rub two words together, making light
for a blind and slippery god who, for all
I know, may also lose his way…
“My god is the worm
whose kingdom comes to everyone.”
When he is leaving and opens his arms around me
I know there is one place I will be small and human,
Breakable, weak, most unlike my other self.
Lips should be the most telling part. Kissing the rough,
imperfect surfaces to speak another language,
I learn how smart a silence is. And also, how
love will turn my head off like a light,
leave me stupid, thick and clouded honey.
It’s just as well I’m dumb with love—
If I thought of danger or of pain, calculated futures
or the interest gained, I would be alone.
Mostly there is just this
emptiness, being
ignorant of truths
that might make us happy.
Dreams peopled by strangers
I’ve become familiar with,
tonight, the stranger is a lover
rejecting me and accepting me.
“I’m afraid of you,” he says
as we begin the slow rock.
“And I am afraid of you.”
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