Rae Spencer’s most recent poem to appear here was The Road (June 2012).
Ink
By Rae Spencer
No matter the substrate
Ink will archive matte
Empty, void of reflection
The dark recess of an open mouth
Each word its lips and breath
Speaking
What cannot be known
What came before “I”
Spilled across the blank territory
That is everyone else
Like I
Ink is singular
All the long river of words
Poured across our one past
The infinite stain
Of what we have writ
Poised on the hot velvet tongue
In the dark recess of an open mouth
Clef syllables
And stipple iambs
Even the click consonant
An illumination of phonemes
Unspoken
Yet to be scribed
Added and added and added
Never to be plural
Mine and yours and theirs
Accumulate in the eye
Of the reader
Yet to be born
Who holds our one past
Cupped in the slack curl of their tongue
The immutable history
That is ink left on a page
A brilliant poem stressing the power of words born and unborn. I am awed by your usage of the language.
Sharon Poch
Lovely and precise.
Oh Rae, you’ve done it again! A spectular poem that speaks of writer and reader and literature! Beautiful!
Rae;
As usual, I am awed by your creative language. We all hope that what is put to page will endure. Yours does.
Love it!