Speak Out (of turn)

[kaberett]

I dream I am an ocean filled
entirely with words, blue into black, with inky
sussurating depths. I wake instead
to deserted desert hush, a husk,
dried up, dried out, or hollowed.
Listen to the soughing sighing of the wind:
it sings, in echoes, someone else's song.
No need to excavate, not here, the ruins
plain to see: no work at all to read remains,
to catalogue and blithely categorise.
I dream I am an ocean. This is why:
Because I worry at the sure. Because
I'm bitter salt, that once was pure. Because
perhaps like rivers if I pour myself into
this empty space then I'll be made anew. Because
a glimpse of ocean is enough, some nights, 
to carry through to dawn. Because
in breaking,
            breaking,
                     breaking,

                             I'm reborn.

---

ETA 22/02/2014: I made a recording!

Comments

[kaberett]

This is sort of how about feeling as though I am wrung dry of the words to keep explaining, and about wanting to have an endless supply, so that I can pour myself out and keep on pouring and never run dry, and be enough to be seen and to be heard and to say things that matter without emptying myself entirely.

[stephdairy]

I really love the wordplay, especially "worry at the sure". Beautiful.

(S)

[kaberett]

Thank you, lots - and yes, I was especially proud of that one too!

[shehasathree]

<333

[kaberett]

And you.

[alexseanchai]

'worry at the sure'. Clever.

[kaberett]

Well, I thought so, but it was somewhere gone midnight so I didn't quite want to trust myself ;)

[vass]

Wow. That one makes me breathe out hard.

I love the ending, and also 'worry at the sure'. And also it's really cohesive.

[kaberett]

Thank you -- seriously, knowing that the phrases I can't get out of my head after I've gone to bed, that I have to get up and Write Down Now (and that I then edited, scribblishly, over breakfast) speak to other people is -- a thing. There was something in here about people cheerfully assuming they know what I'm for, what I'm about, without ever listening to me or paying attention; I'm not sure how well that came through. But - yeah. Stuff.

And hurrah for cohesiveness; a lot of my stuff is fragmentary, fractured, because that's how I'm feeling, but I suspect that equally a lot of it is because I'm not as technically competent as I'd perhaps like to be...

[shinyshoes]

I am stunned at how often you seem to speak my mind for me.

[kaberett]

One of the things I consider a major work for me, and expect to think of as same for most of my life, is making space for people. There's a lot of ways to do that, obviously, and frequently for me it's via active listening, but it's also about talking, and about, yes, this. Thank you for letting me know I'm getting it right, for at least some of the people some of the time.

[batrachian]

I...wow. this is beautiful.

[kaberett]

you <3

[untonuggan]

*struggles to recapture breath that was snatched away by yonder poem*

[kaberett]

s.fsal;kfjasf thank you <3

[incidentally, I am amused by the way I switch registers between attempts at lyricism and flow in posts, and keysmashing inarticulately at people in comments... we all of us contain multitudes.]

[calissa]

Beautiful. I love the natural imagery you've used. I agree that the word play on sure is clever. And I love the rhythm of the ending.

[kaberett]

Thank you! I was trying to get waves in, some more, again; I wasn't sure if I'd quite managed it, and I... wasn't quite sure where to put "I'm reborn" (I went backwards and forwards over putting it at the beginning of a line) - so. Yes. Thank you.

[calissa]

I think it would feel unfinished to me if you ended with the breaking. This way the emphasis is on the rebirth and hope.

[ofearthandstars]

I love the use of alliteration...but I really loved "/I'm bitter salt, that once was pure/". You have some lovely turns of phrase here, and I think you make good use of ocean as metaphor.

[kaberett]

Thank you so, so much <3

I have quite a lot of Ocean Feelings - "home" is in some sense the house my grandparents own, on the cliffs in Cornwall, where in storms you can stand on the cliff path and have salt spray hit your face. And it is a place where I am lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves. And it is also an image that is used a lot in a thing I recently finished a reread of, the idea of a person having oceans of reserve, of strength. So -- yes.

[fyreharper]

ohh.

(okay self, crying over poetry at work is Not On :scrubs at face:)

Thank you for making this it is beautiful and has words that tug and I can hear the ocean in it.

[kaberett]

<3

I sent it to my counsellor, who... also seemed to like it? So. I just. I had a lot of things to say, and the way this poem happened (as with so many others) is that I was curled up in bed trying to go to sleep, and a phrase popped into my mind, and it... needed to be turned into a thing. This was the thing.