Artifacts
Location
Every poets’ voice is distinct.
an indicative drawl or rasp,
a characteristic blend of dialect,
a certain brand of sarcastic humour;
dug deep somewhere in our fibers like fossils embedded in earth.
With needles, icepicks and toothbrushes,
we poets are archeologists; cliff hangers,
excavating antiques from marble
letting free the artifacts of angelic souls to sing.
My voice transforming
the past few months.
I only owe it to seeing
a more polished sculpture
clearly in the mirror of my skull.
I found the page working on me,
as I did my work on it
and when I open myself
to a perfect blank page;
us poets’ worst enemy,
it forces me to unfold
like a cotton napkin at dinner.
It seduces me into shedding layers
of the image image image
that I drape around myself,
my bathrobe of armour,
until I am finally nude
and the voice is free and true.
The tricky part is that we are usually
not accustomed to seeing ourselves
in such a light. That figure that is unknown to me,
laden with scars that are new to me.
Scars I never knew I had. He is scary
but sly, almost charming with a crooked smile
and dead eyes. He knows me. He also knows
that I don’t know him. Every once in awhile, I let him speak.