~a Knife Disguised~ Poem by E Nigma

~a Knife Disguised~

Rating: 5.0


It's never easy tracing your steps in denial
Because you find yourself looking back
A moments tasting lingers awhile
While in the crowd you see a sad clown smiling back

And there's a hush under a whisper
Where every needle finds a home
For every touch there is a riddle
Where every kiss reveals a stone

And this glass house hidden in the shade
Of everything that's lost
Rests under the stars where stones are thrown
Shattered are the fallen pieces
Trampled underfoot for those in roam

So much is the little that is known
Like the sad song in a mutes eyes never sung
Helplessly waiting in a sorrow filled
Swamp full of syllables unexposed

Wading and tired, drowning all alone
While a boat passes by
And a fisher waves goodbye
While thinking all along that its hello

Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Topic(s) of this poem: Thinking
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Professor Plum 10 December 2014

Terrific poem Ed. Nice rhyming without going crazy. An underlying sadness brings it to another level. Some very nice imagery interspersed.

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Darlene Walsh 11 December 2014

This poem seem to me to go way beyond sad, deep into the clutches of depression. The impressions and questions I got as I read it are: It sounds like something has gone wrong, it is something you did, something you would like to deny, but can't. 'Where every needle finds a home' brings a frightening image to me. 'Where every kiss reveals a stone', looking for love and it's not there. This paragraph hints at pain and mistrust. Why was the house glass, and who threw stones and trampled the glass house? 'a sorrow filled Swamp full of syllables unexposed' Was it something that was said and not said which has cause so much pain? 'Wading and tired, drowning all alone', I've been there, alone, depressed, even with people around thinking I'm saying hello. Depression can be sharper than a knife. I hope this poem isn't a true story, or that I totally misread it, because it's actually quite frightening.

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Daniel Brick 12 December 2014

The first passage that struck was the closing stanza which is one of the best closings I've encountered in living memory. It functions as closure for the poem as a poem, with the knife edge of irony slicing any complacency in us. But it also projects outside the poem into an imaginal future as the fisher, unaware of what he has really witnessed, continues his smooth, effortless water-journey. He seems to occupy another world set apart from the world of the poem. And then there is the mute who has internalized the sad song - whether he really drowns or not is ambiguous. I can see his immersion in water as the SEA-CHANGE that affects the characters under the magician's spell in Shakespeare's last play. In other words, death to an old, inauthentic life and a new birth into something STRANGE AND WONDERFUL. I see this mute as a SOUL CHARACTER, very different from the leering clown mentioned in the beginning, who seems malevolent. The mute will necessarily communicate telepathically and may well be a conduit for a spiritual conversation among other seekers. So much for the ongoingness of the last stanza!

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Daniel Brick 12 December 2014

WOW! This poem has inspired such amazing extended comments from Nika, Mandolyn, Valsa and Darlene! And each reader has his/her own POV to develop - it's truly a poem that speaks directly and purposefully to everyone who reads it with care and sympathy. My first comment focused on a wide interpretation of the last stanza. Here's something more focused... Wait! I can't see the poem on this page. And I need to re-read it before continuing to comment. See Message in your Inbox!

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Geoffrey Fafard 13 December 2014

A big wet dog leapt out of the lake I was sitting by last night as the sun left. I was sitting thinking about a lot of stuff including this poem. I was deep in thought then I was dank and wet then kissed goodbye by a panting tongue and then alone again in the dark (and this glass house hidden in the shade of everything thats lost….} A sad story Ed a truly beautiful sad story. I will go home dry off and linger a while on its content. Geoffrey..

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Kevin Patrick 04 April 2015

So much analysis has been invested into this work by so many other people, it’s going to be hard to say anything original without making outlandish theories like you wrote this when abducted by aliens, all I can say is, there has never been a more beautiful melancholic understanding of the human condition related to the existential problem of being an independent organism that suffers from a fate worse than death, alienation. the crowd you see a sad clown smiling back The artifice of society is that we must all wear faces, that dispose us into a false persona that is not our own, we smile when we really mean to frown, but because if we did do how we actually felt we should we would face greater rejection then we already face. And this glass house hidden in the shade Of everything that's lost Rests under the stars where stones are thrown Shattered are the fallen pieces Trampled underfoot for those in roam I interpret this as meaning an exploration of the narrators mind, the glass house is the person, living with the thoughts that have made you a prisoner of your own mind, the house and the person live separate continuums from the rest of the world, being an observer of the machinations of the world around them and seeing nothing more than falling pieces trampled by the malignant tumors of social construction the narrator is trapped to watch I could go on but I would probably be missing the point, however there is one thing that interest me And a fisher waves goodbye While thinking all along that its hello Perhaps your just using this for really good imagery, using a pilot or a train conductor probably wouldn't have the same oomph, but when you use fisher, I can’t help but see that your importing a Christian-Judaeo imagery, the fishers of men, he waves goodbye yet the narrator sadly interprets it to be hello, represents the dissolution of the religious beliefs, and the failure of communication between the believer and the dispossessed Anyways that's just my gobblygook, this is still a killer work, with the best line Like the sad song in a mutes eyes never sung is the most elegantly worded sentiment I have ever read, and gives Bob Dylan a run for his money Fantastic

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Ging Taping 23 December 2014

Some say goodbye they will never come back again, it's the end of everything.No turning back... Some say goodbye for just awhile and return for a new beggining To Start over again.. In every goodbyes there's always hello to welcome you...

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Leah Ayliffe 18 December 2014

This is a beautiful piece... thought provoking. The ending is strong, perhaps my favourite lines And a fisher waves goodbye While thinking all along that its hello Well done!

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Amitava Sur 14 December 2014

A beautiful poetic expression of a sad sequence being very poignant in deed. Like the sad song in a mutes eyes never sung Helplessly waiting in a sorrow filled Swamp full of syllables unexposed .....

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Hazel Durham 14 December 2014

Deep and beautifully written with inspired lines that speak of inner pain and troubled times that catch up with us all, as we reach out we discover the hello is actually a goodbye!

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