The Secret Poem

The dull thud of stigma nails me to the couch, the carpet sucks

my soul from the heel of my tattooed foot and the black rose

design  with the single red tear, my bones leak joy into the clouds

leaving me bereft and cold inside my hard-on dies on contact, , let's

have an imagination ride outside the confines the confines of mind, from behind,

no, less, woof, woof, let the ink bleed truly free across the supplicant

page, the words and jumbled meanings, metaphors spewing forth in a 

barrage of noise, as noisy as a  pen writing can be, and chaos

fought the Abyss for ownership of me and tried to deny that it was

not me and unfolded my origami heart and printed a poem deep inside

and gently refolded it's swanlike wings, hoping no one would notice

or even care to read or find

Reviews

[Eilis]

It’s almost as though the poem itself is the source of pain. The secret poem. As though it is the mark of the battle between chaos and abyss—two equally unpleasant places to find oneself. But, I can’t get away from the life-essence image of the origami heart and the swan wing folds.

It hides the secret poem, but it is also malleable and subject to the act of opening again. So one would think. And also, in its organic connection to other life (in metaphor and image anyway) it reaches outward.

If chaos wishes to lay claim to the person and marks the heart, it only has the power to make the mark—not to control what the heart does next. And the heart closes around (enfolds) the poem, yes. But what happens next inside that separate universe is left to time.

Maybe I’m off on an odd tangent. Trying to unfold my thoughts along the way. There is a sense of weight and pull—the draw of experience trying to drag the spirit and life force away, but also, there’s an inherent power in the act of writing itself. The ‘barrage of noise’ made by the pen can act as its own defense against the dark arts of chaos and abyss. The dull beat of stigma.

I don’t know. There’s the sweep of battle here for sure. I see a kind of Gulliver’s Travels scene in my head where the man is subject to a hundred tiny things that try to pin him down and suck the living out. But there’s always the power of creation. Which can fight the darkness in ways we thought we never could.

The swan-folded heart becomes itself under the power of creation, and chaos can not hold sway. At least that’s the ending I’m walking away with.

Think I’ve totally gone down the garden path with this review, but I’ll leave it anyway as a marker of my thoughts in the moment.

[gram linski]

The secret poem is indeed a source of pain, this was a conscious write and you have grasped the battle well, once again you insight and delight with your reviews, Eilis, thanks as ever for the read

[jacob erin-cilberto]

the mind cannot be confined...and the poet knows that and allows it to go free...
we tattoo words on to a page, and in turn those words tattoo themselves on the reader.
even those poems hidden the deepest way. so far inside, it is like unwrapping origami to find them.
love the line "my bones leak joy into the clouds"
wish i had written that one.
j.

[gram linski]

thanks, j. as ever your eloquent reviews are poetry in themselves,

[Chris Shaw]

That origami heart is a brilliant image especially as it unfolds to reveal a printed poem inside. I won't forget that. Indelible it is.

Chris

[gram linski]

Hey Chris, glad you enjoyed, are you guys under water yet, lucky you devonish got webbed feet, lol,

[Chris Shaw]

Thames in Berkshire over the banks in several areas quite close to home. Not as bad here as elsewhere in the country where the flooding has caused devastation. Other rivers gave flooded too. I live at the top of a hill. Last time I looked my feet weren't webbed. May be better if they were :) Hope you haven't suffered as a result of the storms.