Soundness

Posted on September 27, 2018 by

28 Comments

He’s moving to a song he knows and it’s a song we’ve heard before but can’t place.

As he moves, the sweat, sores, and scratches stay in place. What’s inside him is externalized.

He doesn’t care about our inner secrets, our inner fears, our hates, our loves that set us howling upon each other. It’s out/in him.

He’s howling, loudly, to someone that isn’t there, but we recognize his attempt to get through. At times, we think he’s trying to get our attention. We hear, but don’t want to hear. We shake it off, thinking he’s outside us.

His voice seems primal, an odd sort of desire. We recognize its motions.

Shirtless, he scares us. He slams the metal lid of a garbage can on the sidewalk, a sidewalk he will sleep on, a sidewalk we walk upon…every day.

We don’t help him.

We expect someone else to talk to him, clean his face, recognize the song and put it in a playlist, so when it plays, text pops up, telling us what it is.

We must move to a song we know. It’s a song he’s heard before but can’t place.

 

 

Category: Poetry, PortraitsTags: , , , , , , , , ,

28 Comments on “Soundness”

  1. Beautiful. I see this daily and sometimes don’t know what to do. But one thing I never do is judge. And that’s not enough, but a start. Thank you for spurring me into doing more.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Heya, Elan. Thank you so much for consistently giving my writing a like. It means a lot coming from someone whose work I so admire. This piece especially tugged at my mind and heart. I like the way you create pictures for my brain to look at with your words, and also a visual image – it creates a whole other level on which to appreciate what you do, and get a tiny peek into the way you create and associate. Thanks for sharing!

    Liked by 1 person

  10. I LOVE this blog-the words and the photos. Great job! I feel connected to nature. I look forward to more posts from you. Thank you.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Pingback: Soundness | Fresh Hell

  14. Thanks so much. I wouldn’t agree with the comparison. You write in a memoir style. I’ve elected to leave me out and stick to I. Take care!

    Like

  18. That is perfect the way you turned that around with the last two lines. I have often wondered what is wrong with us as a species that we will watch and hope someone else does something while we don’t dare, won’t deviate without the comfort of certain knowledge anyway.

    Liked by 2 people

  20. It tugs at my heart every time I witness this type of scene. And…it happens almost daily where I’m at. Which…is even more sad. Thank you.

    Like

Join The Discussion

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Archives

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 33,974 other subscribers
%d bloggers like this: