Description: I'm trying my best to read as much as i can. If i can't read for the sake of myself then i guess i will read for all those people who wish they could. Imagine what life would be like for you if you couldn't read.
If I Couldn't Read -------------------------------------------
You have your thoughts occupied
By concepts unworthy of your moments
Yet you have the audacity to declare
Of the limited amount of time available
It is not for me you need to apologize
For I am not the one who sees no words
Hungers for mental pictures in my head
Or speaks incomprehensible sentences
The regrets should be for those illiterate
Literally dreaming of letter spinning
Trying to catch them to form words
So that their dark worlds change to colour
It is so much easier for you to ignore
The gift you possess in your hands
One that many wish they could acquire
But have no means to attain their goals
So you can just sit and close your eyes
To forget the hollow things bothering you
While others envision to open their minds
And live the life you detest so much
You have all the time you need to worry
But not enough to appreciate a few words
Existence of excuses lives in your core
But not the idea of what if you couldn’t read
It must be a good poem because I keep remembering it and meeting people who don't read at all hardly, and remembering your thoughts about non readers! That is, after I read this poem 5 days ago!
Joachim (below) is just a perfect example of the adventures in reading that you are talking about in the poem!
Compared to earlier poems, I can begin to get the idea of your poetic "voice" ... the unique way you do it. It is very easy to understand because you don't use metaphors and ornamental tricks in any puzzling way - no riddles - and the lines add on logically to build up an argument. In this poem, the breaking up into stanzas helps that a lot, and the make of each line is more clear and skillful than you used to do... but you haven't changed your basic "voice" and that is what I need to read more of next. Still reading your earlier poems. I am a rhymer and make lots of metaphors myself, so that this is being difficult for me to comment about. I hope you are patient!
I like this and understand the deep implications it carries.
I am an ardent reader myself since childhood and am thankful for that. Though my nearsighted is a bit blurry even with specks – I still read. I have switched from fiction to more serious reading because there is so much to understand and become educated. At 71 I am starting my first art class next week. Something I always wanted to do but never did. I am not English but started my reading in English by swapping comic books amongst us kids since 1942 and though we have a beautiful language (to me of course) I seldom read in my own language. Officially Afrikaans is about 100 odd years old and cannot be compared with English, German, French and so on having thousands of years of honing and so forth. Will add this to my favs. Keep writing and reading. Regards. Joachim.
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Submission Name: If I Couldn't Read
