Sometimes the words are dead,
And you wade through sludged motivation
Grasping brittle twigs of thought
And yanking, just to fall,
Plunged into folds of dead flesh,
Rotted putrid for lack of movement.
Sometimes you breathe to speak,
And suck in dried, empty air
That sweeps and cracks your throat
Like a desert tunnel
And you collapse, for thirst
Of words worth saying.
Sometimes the sun does not warm
So much as burn,
And the stars do not sparkle
So much as distract,
And the river of your soul is nothing
But a muck-clogged creek bed
Wrinkling your nose
With the stench of empty dreams.
– s. Clark
Though I swift and endless write,
I will never find the time,
I will never have the breath
To exhale my endless thoughts
To assuage my searching mind,
And will come at last to death
Scrawling madly still. Be caught
Startled to have lost the light.
– s. Clark
Words settled on him like a mist
He soaked them through his skin
Inhaled them deep into his lungs
And gathered them within
He breathed them back into the world
All swirling, colored smoke
Stained with the ink etched on his soul,
He painted when he spoke.
– s. Clark
Poetry begins
As an ache within the soul
That must be spilled
Dark, blobbed, and bubbling,
Or starlight shimmering,
Or bright, soft color splashing
Upon a page
It is an itch in the mind.
You must reach into your head
And pull out the feather,
Dip its end in the ink of thought
And write
Until the itch is satisfied
By the scratching of the quill.
The ache, the itch,
The hollow echo of words yet unsaid
And so,
Poetry begins
– s. Clark
Shigé Clark Writing 