On Voices One Only Dreams Of

-- Eliot, Frost, Hass, Butterworth --

I’m not one of them
But I want to be.
Here I am among them,
Yet I’m so far away.
Their words pound over me
Drowning me in their brilliance
Almost too much to bear –
I hold my breath, waiting
Waiting for that moment
When I won’t have to go back
Won’t have to meet with
My inadequacies.
Won’t have to hope that I too can say so much
Won’t have to be
Me.
Wont have – to be.
I want to break through the surface
And come back up again,
Because it hurts so much being battered
And I can barely breath and
My head – my heart – is filled to bursting and
There are so many things I think
They might come rushing out of me in torrents
Raising primeval forests black and brilliant – but,
Emerging, spews forth from me
Not Golden-tongued Glories
But coughs and sputterings,
Violent vomitings from a soul,
Sick at heart,
Discordant,
Dry heaving. Dead.
Life pounded out by poets.