Poetry Thead

[sbraiden]

AUDIO VERSION:
http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/1753/1753161.html

(mp3-formatted audio to accomodate both highspeed and dial-up modems)

Spoken Word - Free Verse. From the "Keeper" anthology.

apprehension ...


things done, and undone
a thought half formed
a word half spoken
i can't seem to move
beyond this place where i'm fixed

afraid if i do
that i'll miss something real
what i have been waiting here for
and i know it
the taste of regret
is an everborn memory apart
from any other sense
i possess

apprehension
a subtle friend in dark nights
when i'd rather not have to decide
for fear i'd be wrong

i'd be wrong once again,
and again i'd regret my free will

as long as i'm able to choose,
i'm able to choose wrong
and that haunts me beyond
any one thing i could
possibly put into words

only that
there is a distant and lingering consequence
that comes to mind
in a vengeful and darkening place
that is thick with a taste
acrid like bile
salty like adrenaline rushed to my veins and it's taste on my tongue
coarsing to pummel me forward and out of harm's way once again

so i sit here
in this half-cracked cacoon
hid from the world
only to the extent that
there is no possibility of
anyone walking by windows on third floors
yet exposed to the passing of birds
and the flapping of wings matched in time to
the beat of my heart
the guiltiest pounding incessant inside of my head

blue and white shadows
are flickering here on the wall
in some half-painted moon cast up
by glimmers from a silent tv

i see ocre and squash
lined on window sills off to the east
hear cats knocking can lids and
hissing at footfall below

a baby is crying
and i wonder
does she know
of the difference between happy and not?
or is face and noise only
means to meet need?

and why have i complicated
everything
so very, very far beyond just that?


-- sue braiden.