Words

We are the ones without a sound

Whose lips do not move

Who have always been silent.

 

Yet we speak with our eyes

Those burning yearning orbs

We call out with our minds

Screaming for help.

 

But this world

This cold cruel world

That favors not the weak

That requires one to speak

That turned its back on us

And slowly walked away

Has extended to us naught a helping hand

Has chosen to knock us away

A casual slap

Time

Time

And Time again.

 

You look at us, at me

Bemoan how pathetic are we

Where have our voices gone?

It is true that we do not speak

It is true that we often weep

It is true that our hearts are fragile glass

But who says we have no voice?

For in our words

Those inked-in shapes

Lay our very selves.

 

Author's Note

I didn't include much punctuation because I read through my work and I was having trouble with the rhythm; it should flow better this way.
Anyway, this poem is very much real. I don't often speak and I feel that I can't really express myself except through writing.

Reviews

[R J Askew]

I read this twice, first in a hurry, thinking of TV images of the dying and dispossessed and then then thinking of how cruel the ambitious are, myself included.

Then I read it again and thought of the words. This was the right reading. I love words and think we serve them, not they us. I sense they -- being primal concepts -- don't need us to exist but we need them and that we live our lives through them and that they in language shape every aspect of our lives. So I agree with your thrust, esp in the last lines.

And I wld not worry about the punctuation, but wld try and read it aloud, if you haven't already, to see where its empheses are. I wonder if each poem has one line, though, or word even, which is its pivot? Which is your poem's pivot?