Witherland

[16] Dead Poet in Construction

[16] DEAD POET IN CONSTRUCTION

My poetry is dead.
It's gone it's gone it's gone
because I killed it, drowned it under
the creases of my palms, blood
for ink, thin-lipped, gone.
And I have nowhere to bleed,
rip my scars off and bandage them
over with a broken rhyme scheme.
But can't you see I'm getting better?

[I have a cure.
It's here it's here it's here it's here
I just can't find it.]

Yes, I'm getting better and
I'm writing lost in my poetry
because it buried itself hidden
and I don't know where to find it.
And I'll write new for it, sign a name
to mark a rebirth, smudge death away
without a heart that beats for a heartbeat.

Prisoners: the words I've trapped
Between the space I need to be
at infinite places at the same time.
And this is what I get:
another prescription to kill the cure,
healing what doesn't need healing
to begin with.

I have a heart once.
It beats out for the poetry I can't
retrieve and dig out from the grave.

I have a heart once.
And I regret killing it too soon.