223: This is not the poem/I wanted to write...

This is not the poem

I wanted to write

I hear a voice

a soft voice distantly speaking to me

it is whispering the

dancing, twisting tongue

it knows every skip

          skipping

trip

tripping syllable of

the poem I want to write

It is speaking to me

asking me, urging me

to write it

buy I am a bad listener

the words escape me

the words

rhyming the

not rhyming

rhythm of words

words I do not know

words like bricks in a cathedral

          a pyramid

I can only hear

the outline

the silhouette of what it wants me to say

but This voice speaking it

knows all the architecture 

all the engineering

          all the colors of the paint

                    by their molecular vibration

but all I know are the blue and white whispering

of the blueprints

          and I am a bad listener

                    a poor scribe

                              an idiot trying to understand

                              what the visionary is saying so clearly

it is the

          ghost of the blooming

                    spirit of the opening

                                patron of the beginning

and I can not start to become wide

This is not the poem I wanted to write

There is a new wonder

trying to give birth

to itself but

there is no mortal vessel

that can utter

even the outline of its

          sound color motion shape odor taste

our minds aren’t big enough

          to fit around it

or small enough

          to get inside it

what we are isn’t enough to encompass

the poem I want to say

This isn’t the poem

I wanted to write

The poem I wanted to write

is trapped in some other space

still trying to get me

to hear it, understand it,

write it down

It is still on the lips of god

waiting to be heard

          Why does a water

          fall into a vessel that can’t

          possibly contain it?

          Why does this poem fall

          into a vessel that can’t

          possibly say it?

This is not

the poem I wanted to write

That poem flirted through

my head like a butterfly

and is resting on some

flower somewhere

The spirit I am trying to speak

is dead as it comes off my tongue

it has decayed as it passes my lips

but it is alive somewhere else

beyond me

          shaking its head in disappointment

We both know I am only

writing lies

          (and it’s alright)

Here is a great song

I have failed to sing

my inadequacies kept me from it

but it is they

that make me human

As long as we are human

there will be songs we

can not sing

          no matter how great our ability

          no matter how high our towers of talent

          we will not begin to touch these notes

There are things that exist beyond us

beyond our capabilities (in this life)

and perhaps it is for these

                              we leave.

©2011 by Jonathan Neske

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www.neske.biz