deepundergroundpoetry.com
Inner Maelstrom
They say to sit with your feelings,
leave space to feel them.
But what if
there’s no space big enough?
I’ll sit with them,
but they won’t sit with me.
They dash in--
then back out to sea.
They swell, and screech.
A swirling maelstrom
even in
the calmest waters.
When I come to ask,
what wounds me so?
A silence….
scratches in my throat.
Though their language
is one I’ve tried to learn,
their voices
talk (or scream) out of turn.
A codex not taught
in our strangled schools;
I’m lost
and I don’t know the rules.
leave space to feel them.
But what if
there’s no space big enough?
I’ll sit with them,
but they won’t sit with me.
They dash in--
then back out to sea.
They swell, and screech.
A swirling maelstrom
even in
the calmest waters.
When I come to ask,
what wounds me so?
A silence….
scratches in my throat.
Though their language
is one I’ve tried to learn,
their voices
talk (or scream) out of turn.
A codex not taught
in our strangled schools;
I’m lost
and I don’t know the rules.
Published 1st Jul 2022
Author's Note
Emotional intelligence isn't something a school will teach you. Perhaps if they did, we wouldn't be such messes walking around like all is well when chaos reigns.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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1st Jul 2022 11:23pm
Your terrific work here speaks to the real reason why people everywhere have always turned to poetry for all their most profound concerns.
Poetry was psychology thousands of years before psychology, and has never required any arcane certification to possess validity.
After years of the liberal arts being defunded or cancelled due to an economically motivated preference for Big Tech and Big Sports, this poem tells us why the humanities have more value than they ever have, and need to be reestablished on a scale to match or exceed the libraries of Andrew Carnegie.
Poetry was psychology thousands of years before psychology, and has never required any arcane certification to possess validity.
After years of the liberal arts being defunded or cancelled due to an economically motivated preference for Big Tech and Big Sports, this poem tells us why the humanities have more value than they ever have, and need to be reestablished on a scale to match or exceed the libraries of Andrew Carnegie.
