for April's National Poetry Month I've been sharing some of my favorite poems....
Secrecy
by Margaret Atwood
Secrecy flows through you,
a different kind of blood.
It's as if you've eaten it
like a bad candy,
taken it into your mouth,
let it melt sweetly on your tongue,
then allowed it to slide down your throat
like the reverse of uttering,
a word dissolved
into its glottals and sibilants,
a slow intake of breath—
And now it's in you, secrecy.
Ancient and viscious, luscious
as dark velvet.
It blooms in you,
a poppy made of ink.
You can think of nothing else.
Once you have it, you want more.
What power it gives you!
Power of knowing without being known,
power of the stone door,
power of the iron veil,
power of the crushed fingers,
power of the drowned bones
crying out from the bottom of the well.
by Margaret Atwood
Secrecy flows through you,
a different kind of blood.
It's as if you've eaten it
like a bad candy,
taken it into your mouth,
let it melt sweetly on your tongue,
then allowed it to slide down your throat
like the reverse of uttering,
a word dissolved
into its glottals and sibilants,
a slow intake of breath—
And now it's in you, secrecy.
Ancient and viscious, luscious
as dark velvet.
It blooms in you,
a poppy made of ink.
You can think of nothing else.
Once you have it, you want more.
What power it gives you!
Power of knowing without being known,
power of the stone door,
power of the iron veil,
power of the crushed fingers,
power of the drowned bones
crying out from the bottom of the well.
You are the only other person, besides @suetheTRex on twitter (and she isn't even a 'person'), to mention National Poetry Month.
ReplyDeleteThis is a deep poem, and your pictures add a different sense of sinister to it, too.
I think I will do some poetry blog posts with some of my favorites. Thanks for inspiring me!
Goodness gracious, these photos !
ReplyDeletex x x
-m-