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I come here all the time to hear you playing

by Shirin Swift


Fear, I am writing you a five-lettered song
in no particular key with a blindfold on
I dared myself that I'd finish it in the mountains
not sitting here across from their gray beards.
I read that I need to confront you
hold you up to the light like a fraudulent banknote
but, fear, I don't know if that'll work for me.
Keep visiting me nights tho,
there must be a reason for you in my life.
The song is just this. It's you, circling me like a warning.
A refrain of five strenuous stars brighter than the rest –
when light's flavors begin to die on the tongue.
Either myself or someone who resembles me
struggles this evening under a tree's green paws riveted to death.
Until day i sit up to pray – no different to the rest,
buttoned down the middle -
but you bow deeply, a gun propped to your chest
feet first through the door, belly crawling and humble
before gods and snipers.
Could be I'm just as restless, waiting near a disguised pulpit,
tuning in and out of your undisguised calls
pretending to capture leaves, their color
a coward who reads up on fear, to preempt
what's already at home, stretched out, feet up

06/18/2007

Author's Note: An old journal entry, i decided to post it as a poem because these sorts of feelings still visit me.

Posted on 06/18/2007
Copyright © 2024 Shirin Swift

Member Comments on this Poem
Posted by Kathleen Wilson on 06/18/07 at 03:24 AM

This poem (truly a poem) has the wakefulness of the night, when "fear" is there, watching, with "death" and one wakes to find them staring. Only one such as you would sing to them and your songs excrutiating to their ears... such delight in the sound of language as yours only could begin to smooth their rough and hopelessly endless edges...

Posted by Elizabeth Jill on 06/18/07 at 01:00 PM

Keeping that dare, finishing that song in the mountains; face to the wind...

A poem in deed.

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