Is Golden

I

talk too often.

But I

haven’t always been this outspoken.

Years  passed

when I said nothing at all—

				(abra mis ojos)

time goes by fast

without loud reflecting.

	I had a million ideas that festered

	and just a few moments to pass

	in the company of crass thoughts

	under thunder clouds and flooded memories—

Willow trees, selling Kool-Aid at garage sales, the room where the only sound was a clock measuring seconds with a “tock”…

You learn,

when you’re the last,

to speak up fast or miss your turn.

	So I won’t be

held responsible for words spoken in otherwise silent rooms.

It is your response-ability 

Interrupt me.



I want to know.

	whereareyoufromwhat’syoursignwherewereyouborn?

tell me all your ideas about death

	and poetry

		and spirituality

			and prepositional phrases.

These I would never learn

if I paid silence as my currency.



My seeming sense of urgency is not

some inflated Freudian part of the brain…

	it is fire and water, consuming

slowly, tempered by the same element that

provides its speed:

	I am insatiable.  


Every day, foot in mouth, mumbling enthusiastically

around the fleshy edges,

I can live each day this way, live long,

live well.  And I will

	“And oh how I loved everybody else,

	when I finally got to talk so much about myself.”

	     whether you like it or not.









copyright 12.2.02  -erm