Dry

DRY

' And I have known the eyes already, known them all -
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume? ' - T.S Eliot - 'The Love Song of J.Alfred
Prufrock'


Why do I cry today?
Why are my eyes so red
And yet my pen so dry?
Ostentatious clouds of pain
Run tears now down my sky.

Is it because-
The dead child rots on the street,
The sacrificial lamb in panic bleats,
That i pontificate like Keats?
Or because-
The cancer-ridden lady,
Is screaming at all the Gods,
To end her tortured soul?

Why are these words so hard,
To find, to grind and to spit out?
Is not the disease-plagued child,
Crying out aloud?
Is that not muse enough for me?
Ain't it sad enough for poetry?
Aren't the lovers all star-crossed,
Aren't the graves still grey?
Isn't darkness still colder,
Than the feeble light of day?

It is because-
I AM DRY.
Why do I try,
To weep the tears of others,
For whom I care a damn?
Whose existence matters not,
To who or what I am.
But still, I try, I try,
To speak the pain of all,
To take the lonely fall,
To bite the cyanide of those,
Whose pain finds no verse or prose,
But runs silent down their cheeks,
In crystal tears of pain.
(Aha! Was that not poetic of me!,
Is not my genius clear to see!)

My hands are shaking.
It is not because-
I swoon in vicarious dreams,
Lit not by candle-light,
But by Darkness' black beams.
I know why my hands are shaking.
My hands are shaking beacuse they know.
The truth.
They know that I am hollow.
They know that I am false.
Know that I write these here words,
Only to pin them up on walls.

I speak stolen words,
Whispered in those halls,
Where dead poets crawl,
Over broken graves of poets dead.
Listen, can you hear them?
Poets repeating poets,
Repeating poems of old.
Same words, same tales,
In 'New Verse' told.
These words, these letters I spit out,
I regurgitate their lies.
The blessed God of Poetry,
In a hidden corner cries.

And you, reader, cut my words.
Soak them, wash them,
Hang them out to dry.
'Rythmn', 'Metre', 'Ryhme' and 'Style'
Are all polluting my clear skies.
You hear, you read, and then you say,
"Hey man! Your not too bad!",
Or,
"Your not so great,
You should have used those ryhming couplets,
Without any rebate..."

Shut up.
And listen. Listen to me now.
Shut your stupid, dumb, repeating mouth.
Repeating words, repeated since,
Repeating time began.
Listen. Just hear what I say, hear what I say.
But what do I say?
What do I say?
What do I say?

What could I say,
That's never been spat on this dust before,
Or like a donkey brayed?