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Have you ever looked, just by chance, into the eyes of a stranger and recognised something inside of yourself? A flash of your soul. Pain you have felt. Love you have cherished. If you have, then you are indeed the lucky one. If not, look now. Use the eyes of the human race as the encyclopedia of you. For another man or woman has felt how you feel today. In your joy or sadness you are not alone.
To write is to recreate the very core of the human spirit. When at your lowest ebb, the simple action of picking up a pen (or in today's high speed technological world to touch the keys of a keyboard) is to pull yourself up from the floor. It is a form of survival. It is a strand of creativity woven into a pattern. Artists paint. Musicians make music. Writers write. We all have something incredible to give to others. |
reality, blood, and coffee rings
I see it in the eyes of a poet;
not the well-written and famous one
I bought off the shelves last week,
but him over there, flicking
ash on the floor and blowing
smoke across my vision.
For a while I stare, at first
through coy, eyelashed blinds;
then with shameless directness.
Hell, why not? He is watching me.
We share something, my poet and I.
A dream, fragile as the tumbler in my hand.
A necessity to squeeze, tighter and tighter,
to find out how long glass can exist
before it shatters, bloodying our skin.
Or even to wring out the cloths
with which our lives are bound,
wondering how long we too can live,
before we shatter, releasing
our souls to spill across the earth
in life-stained and bloodied words.
Reality, blood, and coffee rings.
I see what he sees. He nods,
I lift one eyebrow and look down
to write my poem, our poem.
When next I look up, he too scribbles.
© Berenice Dunford 2004
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