round peg in a square hole - Writers Forum

mammamaia · 08-05-2005, 03:28 PM

round peg in a square hole

I can’t be but what I am
a left foot in a right shoe
humming while everyone
drums a martial beat
shedding tears
for all mothers
whose babies are dying
as my countryfolk
buy more and more
of what they can so easily
do without

I can’t see what is not there
good in those whose words
feed none, while stuffing selves
to obese proportions
or hope for change
in a race that remains the same
regardless of
what lessons one would
think they’d have learned
by now

I can’t feel but what I touch
hearts enured in plastic casts
beating in time to gangsta rap
souls pitted and scarred,
shedding truth
that won’t fit
their plans for success
eyelids lowered carefully
to screen out
what they don’t
want to see

I can’t hear what is not said
loving words amid hate-filled rants,
a child’s first “mama” between the screams
of the tortured and dying
pledges of peace
for all peoples
who’ve never known a thing
but war and more war
while others profit from
their misery

I can’t be but what I am
as much “a stranger in a strange land”
as any by Heinlein via Orwell
or Wells
and with no way
to return home...if it’s still there.

103_smalls · 08-05-2005, 03:34 PM

wonderful. enough said... not a thing could be changed to make it any better- and not a single thing could be changed to make it more true. great job!

mammamaia · 08-05-2005, 03:38 PM

thanks, smalls... i'm having a 'disassociated' day [as if you couldn't tell]... it's good to know the poetic voice still works when I'M disconnected...

love and hugs, maia

Achilles · 08-05-2005, 04:35 PM

Quote:

it's good to know the poetic voice still works when I'M disconnected...

You mean some people write while they're in their right mind? Never heard of that before...

Excellent piece mammamaia, and I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone in writing during laspses of sanity.

mammamaia · 08-05-2005, 04:37 PM

no, i didn't mean disconnected from sanity... only from humanity!

glad you like the piece, though... and i've never been accused of being sane, thank goodness!

m

Achilles · 08-05-2005, 04:41 PM

Humanity? Well in that case I suppose I am disconnected from sanity and humanity.

Psycho6058 · 08-05-2005, 05:16 PM

Beautifully put, especially the last line

mammamaia · 08-05-2005, 05:28 PM

thanks, wayne...

as for the last line, i've no illusions on that score... seems to me that any race of sentient beings may risk sinking into the same morass of self-aggrandizement and its resultant homicidal/suicidal consequences... so, wherever i might be from [if, hopefully, not here], may well have suffered the same fate...

dannyboy · 08-05-2005, 10:27 PM

like this one too maia

usernamelessness · 08-06-2005, 05:22 AM

Wonderful piece maia. I loved the delivery and everything.

"I can't be but what I am"

I am not so sure about this line...seemed to confuse me for like 10 seconds. I dunno...let's just chalk that one up to the fact that I am stupid. But for the sake of the more stupid audience...maybe you should change that.

mammamaia · 08-06-2005, 07:49 AM

danny, ilyak, no-name...
grazie mille!... your feedback is much appreciated...

ilyak...
yes, unfortunately... and not only in re 'our' society, but all others as well... sad, huh?

no-name...
in re the first line: "I can't be but what I am"...

it simply means that i'm an anomaly here [this world] and can't be any different... can't become like everyone else and 'fit in' to this society or that... so, to change the line would be to disconnect it from the rest of the poem... hope this explanation makes it easier for you and those 'others' to get...

love and hugs, maia

Julian_Gallo · 08-06-2005, 08:58 AM

Ah, yes...alienation. A theme close to my heart. Excellent! Like this one a lot, particularly for what it is saying. It reminds me a it of this quote by e.e. cummings:

"To be nobody but yourself---in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you everybody else---means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."

Great poem!

mammamaia · 08-06-2005, 09:01 AM

thanks a million for that quote, julian!... i hadn't seen it before... as i'm another oddball who eschews capitals more than not [even in my name, as did he], i'm glad to see it was cummings who said that...

love and hugs, maia