clumsy prose (Monday, December 05, 2005)

[real_bad_poetry]

you say that even the anatomy of the soul laid bare
is charted in the books on your shelf
faithfully scribed for the modern scholar to purvey
and you the scientist to explain
i would kindly disagree

you say your knowledge makes you better
i say it makes you worse
you say that your accumulating degrees
and dog-eared texts make you enlightened
i say it makes you arrogant and narrow minded

but you look at me with kind blue eyes and sit me down
to cut holes in my best nets and put moths in my finest wardrobe
with your words

are you a monolith that i should climb you?
or a mystery that i should solve you?
if i climbed to the top, you would already
be halfway up another cliff
if i solved you, you would dote on me for my
pedagogic interest in archaic mysteries

"let's face it, he's faster" she said
should i find in the end that you were the victor
when there was never even a race?
so then go ahead, put me in my place.

but i have running shoes that you don't know about
and a zeal that is concealed by this clumsiness
and a bag from mary herself, filled with everything
including a skeleton of love for you
that would do the dishes in your kitchen sink
just to be in the closet with you.

why do we always wrestle covertly,
when i wish we were holding hands?