I occasionally write poems, though much less often than I did in college and before. The subject I always circle back to is language. I've had a longstanding love-hate relationship with words. Here's a poem I wrote in August of 2015. POLITICAL DISCLAIMER: "Every word is a lie" is a poetic turn of phrase that leads somewhere else; it is NOT an endorsement of "alternative facts" AT ALL EVER.
Every word is a lie that tells itself true.
Before we gave it a sound, what color was blue?
Before we said it sang, did the wind have a voice?
What’s the flavor of home, what’s the weight of a choice?
Without words don’t we know what’s right from what’s wrong?
What did we feel before love came along?
These pearls of power, these kernels of truth,
Exist between tongue, lip, throat, jaw, and tooth.
The marks that we make out from mind, eye, and hand,
Spell out the stars, tides and sea, rising land.
Gone, forgotten, the things never given a name…
Yet unspoken, they lived, loved, and died just the same.
