Track 15
I Can Only Speak of Me
Written and Performed By Nordette Adams

When do we bleed an honest word, we poets, writers with
eyes peering up from the well of souls?
Cast we spells one to another in all arrogance preening with
coochie coos …do we enchant ourselves, veer from truth?
Come, let us slay our silliness, sift our egos to bones of bloody verbs,
splay our guts well-crafted, leave the righteous legacy of real poets.

I do not speak of you now.
I speak of me.
I can only speak of me, accuse me.
I can only say what twists my arteries, begging, “Out, out!”

In the winter of soul,
sometimes a day, sometimes years, sometimes seconds,
a woman’s spirit breathes but the driest ash.
Ash falls through her shell, makes the sound of sand against tin,
sailing down her insides, an endless cavern.
She lumbers through walls of gruel in daily steps,
each moment a mini battle.
In sleep, skin tingles. Her body is a hum.
She does not dream.
Awake, thoughts seep to surface as though straining
through saprobic-ridden sponges,
and she shivers placing pen to paper.

I can only see what I see,
know what I know,
prune ugly bits of me,
grow a more true beauty.
There’s always a more true beauty.


© Copyright 2004 Nordette Adams