07-28-2011, 12:33 AM
Let's be honest, hearts are dull.
The soul is a whiteboard filled with sums
few of us can hope to solve.
To say I write from my gut
doesn't mean a great deal.
What matters is the metaphors,
the beauty of the images:
why need a soul when hell is hot,
burning with the endless skin
of those who once through cities walked,
looking in a window here,
checking their laces there.
All this is much more thrilling than
the simple arrogance of graves,
the emptiness, the silent rot
no poem can justify.
The soul is a whiteboard filled with sums
few of us can hope to solve.
To say I write from my gut
doesn't mean a great deal.
What matters is the metaphors,
the beauty of the images:
why need a soul when hell is hot,
burning with the endless skin
of those who once through cities walked,
looking in a window here,
checking their laces there.
All this is much more thrilling than
the simple arrogance of graves,
the emptiness, the silent rot
no poem can justify.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe