Latest poem published in "Lights out", the first and last book by the best London poetry night "Until the lights go out", or as we all know it, UTLGO. It is, of course, a poem on my favourite subject: words
The Word
I have looked for a word, a single word,
among so many words, in a
book, a thousand books,
in a speech, a hundred speeches,
knowing that in my case
there is only that word and nothing else, and
to find that word I will have to look for it
all of my life…
it is a word
meant solely for me because
there is a word for each one of us, in each one
of us, mine
will be as mild as a cloud, it will shine timidly like the moon, it will have
the persistent humming of waves and the colours of
Spring, the rhythm of spheres, the shape
of a memory long lost…
and I must find it, yes,
I must find it,
among those thousands of words
that I hear and
read
each day,
for everything
is at stake in that single word…
I am sure that I will see it one day
in the middle of a sentence, in the virtual
language that I
deposit with an absurd sense of
confidence into
a machine, in the silence of libraries, in
the daily newspaper, on the lips
of those I have yet to meet…
yes, that word
might be mislaid in a classroom, exiled in a pub,
forgotten
on a bench in the park, neglected
in an office, mistreated
in a relationship,
abandoned
on a bus…
and it could be that
I will find that word
handwritten on the margins of
a book, in the middle
of a public square, on the tip
of the tongue of
a child learning to speak, floating in the air that my beloved
breathes in or out...
a word as yet unpronounced
by holy men, shushed
by those who refrain
from sharing their opinions, muffled
by those who have
no opinion, guessed at by those who are not
aware that they can have
an opinion…
and I would hope, yes, I would hope
that it is a word written
in golden characters, sculpted
in marble or
ebony, taken from
ancient scriptures, carved on the walls of a temple
or palace, sung by the
initiated or entranced…
but then, yes, but then
it may have been scribbled in a cave
or traced on the sand, it may have been
reduced
to ash and cinders, even badly
spelt and
mispronounced, perhaps
discarded as meaningless or worse...
as yet it will be one more word amongst
so very many
words, part
of an epitaph
or a goodbye, possibly
not even
worthy
of being voiced …
and, yes, and that is the one
word that
might save me, like
the promise of love, an oath, as
in the name
of a newborn, as the last
word a person might utter,
that word…
yes, that word is the word
that belongs to me, that word and no
other word, yes,
and when I finally find it, yes, when
I finally find it whenever that may be, wherever it may happen, then
that word will take my place and then, yes, it
will begin its very own search for the word that is meant
solely for it, yes, the word meant solely for me…