It's strange, how fast this city had me in manacles,
Parading around like some clumsily captive Chewbacca,
When all this time I could have walked into its offices
And torn holes through reality with a word.

That is why we should care more, protect more,
When we see others deprived of their ability to speak.
From the smallest disabled child to the oldest man sleeping in the street, we must take back our Voices.

Funny how hard it was to speak, when all I had to offer this court were excuses, defenses, my shadows.
My tongue felt numb and my mouth was dry.
I was a prisoner of Silence.

Now that the city is surrounded by night, they ask;
Like Jephthah returning from the wilderness, I answer.
For one bomb-bright instant, we see the big picture.
Minds filled with visions, they bid me fearfully to go.

I smile as the tables are turned, and instead of running from the light, I am the light that sends these shadows running.
Like dreaming children fleeing some blackness-fed Minotaur of old, the great minds and strong men turn tail and flee into the lie of the comforting dark.

Stepping out into the daylight, I realize how wholly they have become the prisoners of those whom once they judged. The air smells fresh for the first time in years.
And for an instant, I can see the happiness of all things around me, that for that instant someone here felt free.

Yet memory turns the wheels of the mind, and the mind turns the tables again. My head turns upon my neck and my eyes search fruitlessly. It seems that even a shadow is better than nothing at all.

Why are you not publishing.............your prose is awesome Naga!!

Sandy Clark wrote:Why are you not publishing.............your prose is awesome Naga!!

Not to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, that's nice of you, but my writing does tend to be clumsy

Thank you for your kindness

There's a lot of good poets here, but they are shy!!!!! Edythe wrote some hilarious ones.

Free form is fun because (as husband would say) it's stream of consciousness, he called music reflecting that, "diarrhea of the mind" lol.

But thank you, I may be more open minded about art than he is,

P.s. oh jeez you reminded me of something, I believe early last year there was a huge email chain re: the Risperdal emergency, and the local prosecutor's office was in the loop.

Someone had a script in their email that changed people's signatures . It looked like if the message was too lengthy, the script kicked in changing "sincerely, " to "Prose sent by _______".



I was FURIOUS, and it's illegal to tamper that way, but it was also super funny. I've got this comic book about free use as pertains to conflicts of copyright law vs documentary filmmaking & near the end is a paragraph containing the phrase "grey, lawyerly prose".

It was easier to forgive her after reading that, lmao.

Sandy Clark wrote:Why are you not publishing.............your prose is awesome Naga!!

I agree, she is quite talented.