An Ode to the Silent Poem
in 10th grade my teacher tells us
that poems are meant to be read aloud
that the first Poem was The Odyssey
and that Homer was not a Poet but a mouth
–a chorus of roving mouths–
made ancient in their hunger and despair
she told us that when a Poet speaks
it is a thousand tongues moving
probing the root of each syllable
like a broken tooth
(some poems are so old
they are not even meant to be written down)
and still, she reminds us, there is the matter of the ear
or ears
of rhythm, meter, rain sticks and thunderclaps
Shakespeare was never meant to be bound
in a still and lifeless text!
creaky binding
dust motes and sharpies!
(stars, defy this).
poetry, she insists
consists of spittle and stage lights
orchestras pulled taught
roaring chords and costumed dramas
but what, I think, of the silent poem?
what of the hometown library
and the books we stuffed in lockers
and remembered on motel napkins
what of billy collins on the subway and
flyers on damp concrete
what of reading?
what of the reader?
what of the places where no one speaks
and no one moves
just catches light
or how I read the orange by wendy cope
alone in my bedroom
without you or
your mouths or your ears
and still felt a hinged door opening
my teacher tells me it is now my turn to read aloud
I ask
what is so deficient about the page
that even I have to be added to it.
Television
we want to be white boys
who die onscreen
we want slicked back hair
wifebeaters
dark eyes
we want to grab our brother’s neck
as we sink into stone
we want montague, we want
capulet
we want a penknife between the ribs
just before the red ribbons erupt
don’t tell me it’s staged
don’t tell me it’s masquerade
tell me i’m a White Boy
tell me I’m beautiful.
tell me I’m earnest
tell me I’m doe-eyed
brave, heart-struck, hopelessly doomed
tell me that ratty leather jacket
will always stay my father’s size
and that staging fights solves nothing
tell me that dish rag
hasn’t cleaned a glass in years
so stop trying, kid
(keep looking for me for years)
tell me I have a gun in my pocket
tell me it could go off
I want bloodied chins
and broken noses
I want superman’s curl
watch as I turn into dust
into everything
death-rattle, ignition roar, rallying cry
let me die a white boy’s death
that eternal descent into ice floes
that fall that never hits the ground
pull me away in stagelights
and soft sweat glow
wrap me up in a white sheet
from the kitchen curtains
tie it up yourself.
I’ll go back into the stage.
Bad Day Rising
sometimes, there are days when
the pain is so long and ridiculous
all you can do
is lie back and ask:
why me?
why me?
the same answer for every
bed-ridden questioner.
so here it is: your father made mistakes
or else
your mother made mistakes
or maybe it was your brother
or that social worker
or that teacher
and her father and her mother and her brother and his aunt
the same old mistakes
so old we don’t even have to list them
carving the same old lines
into all the same old people
perhaps the sky wasn’t big enough
or the ocean was too wide
or a war started on the eve of your birthday
and never ended
and now you have to fight it,
even though you’d never enlist
pleading with the recruitment officer
“please sir I’m
blind in my left foot and
flat in my right eye and
nothing inside me has ever quite worked properly”
“I know”
says the recruitment officer.
“That’s why we’re doing this.”
and you are shipped off to sea anyway.
so why you?
stop asking.
I know how it hurts
I know how long the pain is
how ridiculous
how you seethe at the window
in the stillness of all that writhing
and see fairy lights glittering across the water
I know you hear Sinatra and Coltrane
alive in the midnight air
I know you wonder, in those times,
why me?
there is no why
all you have is your bedsheets
and your windowsill
and the curiosity to be better
so if all you can do is lean out
into that soft night air
and breathe
lean in.
Biographical Note: Hannah Siegel is writer living in New York City. She is an undergraduate student in sociology at New York University, and a recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. scholarship award. When unoccupied, she can be found visiting her dog (and loved ones) in her proud hometown of Orlando, FL.