I am a stranger in this place,
laid out in a perfect
grid like a thousand midwestern acres
or a New England town,
solid and square, boundary lines
unmoveable. If I could
just jump the fence,
scale the stone wall,
skate in circles around your careful
map. Figure eights.
I don't know the rules; my blades
have rusted with time and neglect.
I mix my metaphors yet again—
my tongue is twisted and inept.
I long for paper and pen,
the cool comfort of written wordplay.
(To see more takes on the prompt "Stranger," visit Sunday Scribblings.)
I'm much for brilliant in writing than in person. Genuinely enjoyable poem. BJ
ReplyDeleteCool poem. My favorite part is where you want to skate figure-8s on the map. Awesome!
ReplyDeleteI love the descriptions of 'place' in this poesm...and everything else!
ReplyDeleteI feel for the narrator. Paper and pen are so comfortable to me but trying anything new is scary!
ReplyDeleteLove the way you wrote this!
Oh, I love this, and maybe especially the yearning expressed in those lines beginning "If I could..." and which then fall off into the next stanza.
ReplyDeleteAnd, like you, I'd much rather be writing...
sometimes writing makes more sense than speaking.
ReplyDeletegreat words! :)
As someone whose handwriting has become illegible of late, this had a nostalgic appeal.Those neat squares are pixels, are they not? Or am I reading this correctly?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this, the layers are nicely done.
ReplyDeleteOoh, this is cool. There's a lot going on here; I'd love to take this into a group of real poetry lovers and have them unpack it. I bet they'd see some really neat things in here.
ReplyDeleteNicely done. I love the mixed metaphors.
ReplyDelete