What I Never Meant to Say

No, I really love you:
it's gone beyond words.
I just use them
because they're all I have.
They don't say anything anymore.

There was never really anything to say.

19 August 1989

This is an odd poem to write at a time when I was at my most prolific. I was on a poetic high most days and when that dipped my next fix wasn’t hard to find. And I loved that side of it. If you’ll pardon my crudity: the shit was flowing.

I’ve spent a long time looking at this poem. What’s interesting to me is how I chose to open it. With a ‘no.’ The whole poem is therefore a response. What I never meant to say was said someplace else, before the poem. I never recorded (and can’t remember) what I said or to whom. Perhaps I slipped up with B., mumbled something I shouldn’t have. I could get away with saying I loved her easily enough because she knew I loved her and she loved me. Everyone loved everyone. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord. That was how I could get so close to her because I was shielded by brotherly love. What I did and how I felt behind that shield was another matter. Mostly wrote poems and felt like crap.

3 comments:

Unknown said...: I hope this finds you and yours doing well. May we display your header on our new site directory? As it is now, the site title (linked back to its home page) is listed, and we think displaying the header will attract more attention. In any event, we hope you will come by and see what is going on at SiteHoundSniffs.com.; 30 October 2016 at 06:15
Jim Murdoch said...: Happy to be included, Jerry.; 30 October 2016 at 14:51
Unknown said...: Thank you so very much for giving permission. You can see your linked header under All, Literary and the United Kingdom. If you could say something (preferably good) about SiteHoundSniffs.com here and there, I would greatly appreciate it.; 31 October 2016 at 05:05

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