this is how it stretched and ripped
and colored pink and peeled and
how a scrape came and went but
some were too unforgiving unforgettable
that time the thieves in ho chi minh
that you bravely chased down and
won back what was taken from you
though not without the price of a scar
this is actually what happened
or the story of the thieves in ho chi minh
that you bravely chased down but
you wound up on the ground in some
alleyway, bloodied and broken
this is also not a lie
the truth is that the skin will be evidence
to either story- and each may be equally true
for the skin will only recount its pain
it does not care how it was received
there may be times people attempt to
persuade their skin to tell a specific story
with ink and color and letters- though
regardless of the pattern, that story is
always the same an attempt to control
some part of the uncontrollable
3 comments:
geoff, i love the repetition and how this flows (unforgiving unforgettable).. and i like the idea of how the scar is physical evidence of something that happened, but how it got there could be some incredible thing that the scar will never be able to demonstrate. awesome :)
this is deep..i love it. It's kind of like man's attempt to take control of nature - like giving animals names. or to explain existence by different religions. In the end, it remains outside of our capability of ever knowing, but you try to piece it together anyway. I also agree with justina.. the repetition and sparse use of punctuation makes your poem really organic..like it's some growing blob that doesn't care about the conventions of grammar.
Abdul has a scar under his right cheek (er, face cheek) that he got when he turned a certain age. Everyone in his village has one, so he can identify people in Ghana based on the scar they have on their face, it's pretty cool. We sure are expressive people, if we can find a canvas for it, we'll use it.
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