The Poets Awoke, and: The All of You X cept

The Poets Awoke, and: The All of You X cept m. nourbeSe philip (bio) The Poets Awoke The poets awokeThe poets awoke one morningThe poets awoke one morning to findThe poets awoke one morning to find that all their words had left themFleeing into the blackness of night that had no end The poets awoke one morning and foundAs their mothers had warned when they were childrenThat there were some words too heavy for their tonguesFor their tongues to liftTo carry the burden of speechThe poets awoke one morning and foundLike birds fleeing a burning fieldTheir words had simply up and flown awayNo words to talk about what should not be The poets awoke one morning and found their words smashed to smithereensLike so many bodies under two-thousand-pound bombsThe poets scrambled, scrabbledHere, there, everywhereUnder rubble, trying to find a word, a letter, a phraseThe poets awoke to find that words that appeared so inconsequential"the" "and" "but" "this" "that" End Page 23 Even those had been destroyedThe poets awoke one morning to find that along with thatMore portentous words like "truth" had disappeared The poets awokeOne morningThe poets awoke to find that even lies had goneScurrying awaySo much vermin under bright lightsThe poets awoke one morning to find that there was nothingNothing to sayAnd how could they be poets with nothing to say?The poets awoke one morning thinking of wordsLike "carnage" and "war" and "brutality" and "history"Like "punishment" and "retribution"The poets awoke one morning to find those important words deadOf no consequenceLying in the gutter How could they, the poets who awoke that morning, those morningsDo what poets do?(And what do poets do?)The poets awoke that morningTo nothingTo no wordsOn awaking one morningThat morningIn the absence of wordsIn the absence of silenceThe silence that is alwaysAbsenceThe poets turn to each otherThen turn to face the worldTo ask End Page 24 Who are we without our words?Without our silencesHow do we witness? On the morning that the poets awoketo find that all their words had fledIn consternationIn shockIn horrorThat morningWhen they awoke to find that all their words had fledLike sweat pouring out of their poresHad fled them(Forget rats on a sinking ship)They, the poets who awoke that morningWere drowned in the absence of wordsTheir own words In the absence of silenceIn the silence that is absence Perhaps that morning the poets awokeAlong with those who are bereftPerhaps that morningThe poets cried End Page 25 The All of You X cept An excerpt where was it where had it gone the arm is how you making it grow growing it back how did you your arm the one that's not there grow it back it not there from elbow down the X ternal reality of arm is hand we calling it in the time of once upon a caribbean han(d) that all the way from tip finger to shoulder is hand not arm & at four five & at six i wondering would wonder where it gorn in the black & white picture i holding going going gone to where here or somewhere the arm the hand his arm his hand the All of you X cept there black skin aglow in the sun but the hand the caribbean han(d) the very All of you X cept short black pants skinny legs knobbly knees shirt pressed smoothed into whitewhite with hot black flat iron love & the ghost of a smile curving your lips eyelids flutter shuttering your eyes looking look down not out at your past ready and already futured missing me gazing down low history the hold rimed in holy in the time of un off rhyme on and between tock tock X tick tick eating away relentless days of gorn & gone the silvered broken boy magicked boy brokenimage End Page 26 defying...