Wednesday, January 18, 2012

From Whence

From Whence

Where are you
at, from whence
do you hail. From
where do you
come from.
I give the ATM
machine my
PIN number.
Acronyms
cave in, and
grammar, when we
flood the engine,
give our words
too much gas.
Alls we want’s
to say it natural,
to put our thoughts
out into the light
for somebody.
We slip an extra
syllable or letter
into a word,
onion with a “g”
ongion, or alvacado
because we can’t
believe words end
where they do,
so soon. The ends
of our sentences
sizzle with vocal
fry, like wooden
doors endlessly
creaking open.
Hows come
Pop Rocks
don’t count as
punctuation.

7 comments

  1. i am so excited! (jesusgod - can you see me???) i am so excited. by this. by you.

    (i am here by way of james. thank you thank you for writing, hannah. i am so excited.)

    xo
    erin

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the humor and the truth in this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. echoing ering maureeng... : )

    have you noticed the questioning tone of voice used to make sure the word spoken is the word heard..

    thank you for the beginning of this mad craazy day... :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, it's hard to believe words end where they do, love this one Hannah. And that image, I'll be thinking about that image all day!

    ReplyDelete
  5. this is thrilling. all poems are about their own language at some level, but this traces the crease that folds idiom into idiolect. we want to say it "natural,' forgetting that there is no natural in language -- but it feels so, doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I say "alls" all the time. It even makes it into a poem now and then.

    That's alls I wanted to say!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I do like the notion of the extra syllable or letter arising from our reluctance to abandon words too soon.

    ReplyDelete

The Storialist. All rights reserved. © Maira Gall.