And I Have Been Beaten With Words

and I have been beaten with words

or the lack of words

with the back of words

for a very long time

she sighed to a raveling wind

and when will it end

there is light I can feel it on

my skin but it's a winter light

and where will the soul be warm again

and words were given for light

for brightness like song to birds

like wings to flight

but I have been beaten with words

with the lack of words

with complicity and with

the matter-of-fact the

sleight of hand

and just and just

because they can;

with sign language behind the

daily scenes of the cognoscenti

with flash cards instructing 

the instructors mark this well: 

and notice the behavior

near the wishing well

the propensity for believing

anything other than beating

mary angela douglas 17 march 2014

Dear Reader:

For a possible and whimsical solution to this kind of problem, please see my poem (below) "Facing the Dragons Down".  And words really are for light and for happiness. Why would they want to be anything else?

-md

FACING THE DRAGONS DOWN

through kingdoms now

as it was then

you tread a certain

inward path

while they line up again

to stare you through

on a very tiresome playground-

or hurl, with no one else around

a mere boulder or two

down the embankment.

don't ask me how

they know it's you with

a birthday message for

your ailing children

done up in maypole ribbons bright

and the fairytale hour-glass

sands on the low-end...

but they could find you

in their sleep

on the margrave's run-down highway-

and creepity creep creep

through the heat-

roiling their chartruese scales-

waving a finny fin-

casting a munching eye on

your last bit of raisin toast

with frosting...

or burping from an office window

just to throw you off- belching

a murky word in-between

presentations...no one else

in the room even heard.

(and they're not meant to)

do not fear them;

let them rave:

thrashing the marigold window shades

beneath God's diamond and

discerning eye-

you may look swiftly all around

but no one else is there to pound.

they must mean, you.

don't be alarmed;

don't be concerned.

it just that it's your

turnity turn turn

To Be Facing the Dragons Down-

mary angela douglas 23 august 2011