I got used to being a verb
usually transitive of course
holding lovers, moving mountains
rushing about banging into things
I was never the subject or object
I was the action
the falling not the tears
the speaking not the speech
I was a simile
in motion like a river
charging like a bull
weeping like a child
but then it happened as it must
the intransitive came upon me
I sat, I stopped, I lay
I became a metaphor
the thing itself
the call of the bird
the rose in the vase
the chill in the autumn air
the frozen ice on the pond
I am intransitive
I sleep
I am a metaphor of age
a relic
I am death
I am intransitive
I die
There is nothing like grammar-transitive and intransitive verbs, subject, object, simile, metaphor- to give illumination about life's possibilities and the unlimited powers of the individual person. The last three lines bring sad closure and the complete passive mood. Masterful.
WOW...I am very impressed by your poem Barry. What a unique way of looking at oneself through similes and metaphors.10+++ and into my favorites :)
all the writing i've done, never thought to personalize, personify the tenses as periods of time. So effective, so well done. Thanks..
Thanks very much Marianne. Sometimes I feel like I am writing the same poem over and over in a slightly different way. But once in a while I stumble on something unique.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
For me, a philologue-grammarian, it is an apocalypse, I wonder at the perception.How beautifully it succeeded to pepict the transitions a human being is going through.
Thanks again Dimitrios. As you are catching up, I cannot respond to every comment. But as always I appreciate.