Song of Myself

Cherry

By Jane Hyphen

Mon, 20 Nov 2023
  • 389 reads
4 comments
 

 

I

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

But there’s a part of me, myself,

The part that I unscrewed,

When everything felt so tight,

Too constraining, when people said,

‘Tell us about yourself’, and I saw nothing,

But dark blurry shapes - incoming, 

As they turned the screws on me,

And I knew myself, I couldn’t enter,

Their fiery machine or breathe inside its confines,

I looked down, identified my tightest screw, 

And I unscrewed it myself, held it loosely,

Put it in my pocket and walked home,

Breathing in the trees and feeling the expanse,

Of something bigger, something else,

I realised I’d dropped the screw, 

And tempted to retrace my steps,

I myself decided that I was better off without it,

That screw of mine is not loose, it’s missing,

Rusting in a gutter, likely regretting its greedy turns,

And I myself can move without check and with original energy.

 

 

Certificate U
Poem
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by Turlough on

No matter what we think of ourselves it's often good to make the occasional adjustment.

With the words of your poem you've really hit the nail on the head, if you'll pardon the pun.

Turlough

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you Turlough. People can't change, or so they say, but you can definitely change your priorities. I really appreciate your feedback.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

So sorry I missed this poem! I loved :

"Breathing in the trees and feeling the expanse,

Of something bigger, something else," in the middle. The whole new meaning of when someone is screwed. Like all your poems, the more i think about it, the more there seems to be. I really like, too, how you are not the repetitive sound of an engine, each part fitting into a rigid whole. It made me think of a horrible Japanese saying I heard recently about if a nail sticks out it is everyone else's duty to bash it back in. I am so glad you are not bashed in!

 

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Thank you for your comment. That Japanese saying is interesting, sounds like something one of those old school bullish teachers might adopt. I'm not bashed insmiley. Corporate dick splats will never be a threat to me. As we both know, it's bees who run the world.