You Keep Asking Questions

You keep asking questions

I can't be trusted to answer.

Still, you're insistent

I'm the one who's evasive.

Somebody, you say said

something somebody else

only slightly heard or

nobody else quite remembers

being said quite that way

but I'm the one who's being evasive?

Why don't you look me straight

in the eye, speak what's being said

in clear constrictive consonants to

what's at issue here,

the prickly thorn

of our conversation?

Why must we always drift

from mundane to

clinical conclusions,

comparative analysis of subjects

never germane to our mother-

tidal pool inheritances?

Why can't you simply speak

with the clarity of experience,

absent all the sketchy half

and half conclusions?

Let's bury the excuses,

make a pact of equals,

from this moment we speak

without the bull s**t evasions.

Ken e Bujold

© 2022

Reviews

[light and ashes]

Well said.
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[Ken e Bujold]

Ha! well said indeed on the topic of saying nothing
:)

[light and ashes]

Lol
:)
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[Chris Shaw]

I think too many of us are afraid of directness, so we beat about the bush and take the long country winding road route instead of the motor way. Directness certainly gets you there quicker and prevents side tracking :) Liked this poem and I have to admit to being guilty.

Chris

[Ken e Bujold]

we are all guilty as charged Chris, hence my guilty plea

[Laz K.]

"Why can't you simply speak/with the clarity of experience,(?)"
I keep staring at this line wondering, "Yeah, why is it so difficult to communicate with clarity?"
Well, it takes two to tango, as they say. Clarity might be one thing for a speaker, and a completely different thing to an audience. I feel like we need to at least acknowledge that our clarity might be just as confusing to others as theirs to us. Also, it's not surprising to me that clarity - or we could call it truth - is elusive. We might not want certain things to be thrown into the spotlight - not even internally, let alone extarnally. We have secrets, we have unconscious motivations, secret agendas, and who knows what else that twists and colors, or hides the truth.

Very thought-provoking write. :)

[Ken e Bujold]

indeed Laz. Though I chose my pronouns carefully. The I of the first ten lines never appears again. And it certainly can be read as a neutral I at that. Me appears in the opening line of the 3rd stanza, never to show itself again. The you is, as I intended it to be, a two sided monster. Neither side speaks with clarity. The entire last half is a dance around the concrete, a masquerade of evasion, which is more often than not what an argument of passion is. The truth is known, but never spoken. From fear, love or the need to preserve one's self I will leave up to the reader to interpret.
Ken

[KWP]

Interesting thought process here - more so when I read the comments.

A poet being evasive from themselves :D - honestly cannot understand what one would gain from that.
I think a poet who can articulate with a certain 'romantic' clarity to captivate in some way shape or form, is a poet indeed. I also believe a poet (good poet) is someone who observes thoughts instead of entangles themselves in them too fully understand the being they may beat that point in time.

Clarity of experience is only for the brave enough to experience in the first place yes?

I like the mental to and fro. I like the fact this poem itself seems an observation of one's own thoughts.

[Ken e Bujold]

thanks for the thoughtful review KWP. Your thoughts are both considered and informative. I enjoyed your take of it being an internal monologue as much as an external debate, since as you note, much of a poet's insights are indeed an internal to and fro. In order to speak with clarity one first must find that clarity within themselves
Ken

[KWP]

yes agreed - but like any clarity - unless you are committed I feel it will always feel like the ocean, comes in waves :)

[Coyote Poetry]

My grandfather had the old man logic. He told you straight and hard.
"Why can't you simply speak
with the clarity of experience,
absent all the sketchy half
and half conclusions?"
I understand the above lines. I dislike the double-talkers Ken. I like when someone tell me what they want. Thank you for sharing the amazing poetry and your thoughts.
Coyote

[Ken e Bujold]

same here coyote. and for me it isn't just the double talkers per se..it is how people in general kind of lost the ability to logically form an arguement

[Coyote Poetry]

I agree Ken. The people of today must remember some history or the same stuff will be repeated.

[Red Brick Keshner]

All that indirectness has somehow shaped us in our metaphoric wanderings through poetry and thought. A painful blessing in disguise? Many times even poems are like a lost argument, come to think of it. Good read Ken.

[Ken e Bujold]

they are Fred, with one caveat: in a poem the poet is arguing with themself, and so any lack of clarity is due to their own inability to cut through their own falsities. In readers of poetry, the same process is occurring in a slightly different way. Sadly, in the rest of the population the default position is to argue through evasion, then claim the other party is the one evading the topic of conversation. It has, does, and always will confound me how little some folks seem to care for logic or precision in their day-to-day relationships.

[Red Brick Keshner]

It's cool though if the poet's reader takes up the conversation and argues points and nuances whether in agreement or otherwise. True that, we just had a big falling out of late (in the offline world) and most of the arguments that were presented were evasions and triangulations and finger pointing in a circle of no ending.The bottom line was the lack of evidence or action that a resolution and reconciliation was at the core of any motive or evasive exclamation. Futile, really.

[W. Barrett Munn]

I share your frustration with indirectness. It tends to be in the same family with inability to set boundaries, passive-aggressive behavior, and conflict avoidance. And none of it rhymes.

Winston

[Ken e Bujold]

pretty much sums up my feelings on people who can't lose an argument for want of sound reasoning, they are the running backs of life, always juking, though this field is infinite, so they never really advance the rest of us anywhere