Monday, April 5, 2010

Hunger for the Gentle (Poem)

Hunger for the Gentle

You write your pain
out the way a missile finds

its target and just lets go.
You push that button

labeled "publish" and
you're done, except you're not.

You check back in, needing to see
who shows up for your main course

how your latest meal
of lacerating words is consumed

whether it's being eaten whole
brittle bones sinew hide and all

leaving you little satisfied

or spit back at you
with tongues as acid as your own.

I want to tell you I don't hunger
for what you're serving up

any more. I want you to leave
your untested recipes in the drawer

that holds your mixes of blames and failures
and one or two lost loves. I want you

to scrape what you've been feeding us
into the disposal once and for all

start cooking again like a pro
with the soft grip of our hands

on your shoulders used to heaving
then wonder at the next crowd

you draw around your table
without a protest of what's so wrong

with you. Go after the sweetest fruits
of the spirit you can collect and eat raw

warm or ice cold doesn't matter.
Make up that new dish the one called

I am I am I am and am loved

and ever after
hunger only for the gentle

remind me:
you are you are you are and are loved.

© 2010 Maureen E. Doallas. All Rights Reserved.
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This poem might work for tomorrow's Blog Carnival, or not.  I'm letting it go now, though, as I have another poem that I wrote yesterday that I plan to submit after the link widget is available.

10 comments:

Glynn said...

Whether it works or not for the blog carnival, it's still a beautiful poem.

Anonymous said...

This is profound. Beyond words. It walked on silent feet into my living room, and gently lighted on the sofa.

Thank you. For this beautiful, haunting reminder that when we are Whole we have no desire to be titillated by the heinous, the horrific, or the disturbed.

Namaste.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to link to this poem, on one of my blogs. Would that be completely out of line?

This message of yours stands alone, so complete, so powerful. I'd be honored to share it with others, with your permission.

(no need to post this as a comment, I just couldn't locate another means of reaching you)

I write here.

Kathleen Overby said...

This was powerfully put. I had the sense of starting again to be the best I/we can be along side this great cloud of witnesses with their hands on our shoulders, compelling us forward.

And the choosing of eating raw fresh fruit, bearing it such, to offer to others - instead of processed fast food crap. True nourishment for ourselves and others.

Picture poetry. I saw it. Heard it. Gently and truthfully spoken.

Kelly Sauer said...

intense. very familiar. how I wish i didn't know it...

Billy Coffey said...

This could be a carnival unto itself. Powerful and convicting. Wonderfully done, Maureen.

* said...

This is a glorious poem.

Randall David Tipton said...

Wow, there was some moral authority!

Anonymous said...

you are loved
like big fluffy
powder puff
dusting gently
on your toes

Mojo said...

Wow. I like eating at your table. This is beautiful.