More Poetry by Robert R. Woods

February, 04, 2013

   Boy, I have got to get a proof reader for my material. Yes, I proof it myself but I always miss something. Too many typos and way too many problems with verb tenses... Yuck! I DID find a narrator app. on the computer that helps. Listening to another voice, though mechanical sounding, helps me with punctuation also. So, That's good. Only bummer, I have to post it first because the narrator I have won't read my "non-commercial documents," and I have to shut it off to make corrections. What the hell, Man? Anyway this is one I've been working on a while and I hope it turns out well.

 

 

*The Man Who Couldn't See

There once was a man who couldn’t see.

No blindfold, no! No dark glasses wore he,
he wasn’t blind, he just couldn’t see.

He went to a doctor, who told him flat out,

“There’s nothing wrong with your sight.”
“But I can’t see,” the man said, quite surprised.
“Can you see ME?” the doctor replied.
“No!” said the man.
“But you hear ME?”
“Yes, yes, of course I can.”
“So, what’s the problem?”

Suddenly in marched a preacher man

with enormous, godlike preacher hands
and shouted he to heaven above,
“God, heal this poor soul with your love.”
And he beat, and he beat, and he beat the man
with his holy-roller preacher hands then asked,
“How y’all feel now?”

On the walk home, the man all alone

bumped into many terrible things.
At the corner of 7^th and Woolry Street
he hit  a lamppost. “Oh, pardon me,”
said the man. But the lamppost,
being a lamppost, did not understand.

At home his wife confronted him,

“I’m leaving you, Jim.”
“Why?”
“Why,” she sighed,
“does it matter?”

The man sat in his chair

listening to his wife pack.
He listened as she descended the stairs,
listened as she opened the door,
as her footsteps lightly echoed
down the walk and… disappeared.

The afternoon traffic rushed by, and later that night the

evening crows gathered below the living room window
and cackled out loud ‘bout the darkness of snow.
He even heard the morning coffee pleading
from its porcelain  pot, “Please, please,
won’t someone pour me out?”

The man sat there a while in his comfortable chair,
a very, very long while alone with his fears
until his eyes, on their own, decided to close.
And when they did that! The man who couldn’t
see anything… finally saw... everything.

rrw 8-28-11 (rewrites 1-17-12, 2-5-13)

* It takes a lot of time to get a poem the way that you want it... and even then you don't always get it all. I wish I could be faster in the editing of a poem. perhaps that's the problem, I want to "get it out there" too fast. I need to concentrate more time on craft. Thanks for reading this. More to come later.