i am no lyricist, not one so pure and holy
so as to succumb to melodies and harmonies
in my moments of weakness or despair.
perhaps such spares me from falling into cliches,
or condemns me to suffer them by comparison
in an eternity of want and sleight-of-hand
which draws me up short every time.
i would argue that i am, at best, unproductive
and at my worst i become self destructive
of the very things i base my pride upon
until i have been told so many things,
disagreed with half of them and was perplexed
by the rest---to the point of complete collapse---
that i need not confide in anyone at all.
but i can hold no chorus, only ever recite
in a manner so terribly religious as to
shame the very nature of gods or divinity.
i cannot form a verse, nor conceptualize a tune
to which i could dance much more wholly
than any tune i had learned before,
as that tune would be mine, or so i might say,
for who could even possess the birth
and essence of a tune when every note
belongs to anyone who dared to dance at all.
instead i give myself to those who give themselves
to tunes and dances entirely out of my control,
and i, too, become those notes and my steps
belong to their cadence like slaves building a tomb:
on the outside a grandiose relic to live on for ages
and on the inside to sustain and display
some lowly stage of decomposition.
i have no pointed hat with which to adorn
my bowing, curtseying, demeaning and exulting head
and still i play the fool in this dance of poetry--
or rather, a stanza set with expectation and utterly remiss
of any poetic fulfillment or lyrical potential,
just like my relenting dance void of any intention.
i move so as to move, so as to distract myself
from never moving at all. i recite so as to speak,
so as to further deny that i never sing a real song:
true of glory or the barest breath of meaningful life,
bereft of the lugubrious tendencies i am---
or so i would proclaim---cursed by, or cursed with.
a melodic dance in harmony with the very nature of peace;
a statute of potential turned into action
and not just an alphabet arranged haphazardly
by some graceless and undeserving hand
that cannot dance nor sing for itself,
but only puppeteer.
