< Issue 5 >
Love Not By the Letter
by Tim Hudenburg
I.
Love not by the letter
Nor through the written word
Neither consonant nor vowel
Words pretty, reactive, measured
Some hurried headlong into sinful platitude
But by these means—cold, remote lasting
Written scrawl
A message
Ready for the discarded
Flung out from some odd boat
Hastily left in the wake
Bobbing in a second hand bottle
In emptying seas
Paper preserved within glass
Museum ready, for inevitable dust
Looking for rest
A shore to wash upon
Eventually dispensing
Some silenced sentiments
To anyone and to none
II.
Speech;
However touching,
Can be so
Rapid, brain-rush
Keeping attuned
To the myriad of signals
Momentary flashes: Pupils’ contraction
Then the inevitable dilation
Lips that move
Form seductive shapes
A tongue though, unscripted
Taught to be taut
Shaping itself
Through different commands
A pen of a different point
Spoken words commanded, impassioned, seduced
Accentuate the human voice
Musical interplay of gentle words
Through subtle lips.
III.
Even your body speaks
Its own controlled language
Your motions of hair, hand,
Bodily curve
Worthy of Bernini
Baroque
Replete with meaning
Expressive hand gestures,
Stripped of concealed words
Cultured, subtle, and understated
It speaks an obscured dialect.
IV.
At last, a polyglot
I have had to become
Addressing you in your native tongue
Undressing you in your own words
Born into you by your people
A lexicon from earliest days
Not losing in translation
But tasting every word
Fresh from your mouth
Savoring our shared communal tongue
Sharp, spicy, unruly tongue
Though untamed,
It makes sense
Where there was none.
Love Not By the Letter
by Tim Hudenburg
I.
Love not by the letter
Nor through the written word
Neither consonant nor vowel
Words pretty, reactive, measured
Some hurried headlong into sinful platitude
But by these means—cold, remote lasting
Written scrawl
A message
Ready for the discarded
Flung out from some odd boat
Hastily left in the wake
Bobbing in a second hand bottle
In emptying seas
Paper preserved within glass
Museum ready, for inevitable dust
Looking for rest
A shore to wash upon
Eventually dispensing
Some silenced sentiments
To anyone and to none
II.
Speech;
However touching,
Can be so
Rapid, brain-rush
Keeping attuned
To the myriad of signals
Momentary flashes: Pupils’ contraction
Then the inevitable dilation
Lips that move
Form seductive shapes
A tongue though, unscripted
Taught to be taut
Shaping itself
Through different commands
A pen of a different point
Spoken words commanded, impassioned, seduced
Accentuate the human voice
Musical interplay of gentle words
Through subtle lips.
III.
Even your body speaks
Its own controlled language
Your motions of hair, hand,
Bodily curve
Worthy of Bernini
Baroque
Replete with meaning
Expressive hand gestures,
Stripped of concealed words
Cultured, subtle, and understated
It speaks an obscured dialect.
IV.
At last, a polyglot
I have had to become
Addressing you in your native tongue
Undressing you in your own words
Born into you by your people
A lexicon from earliest days
Not losing in translation
But tasting every word
Fresh from your mouth
Savoring our shared communal tongue
Sharp, spicy, unruly tongue
Though untamed,
It makes sense
Where there was none.
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