Monday, April 14, 2014

Touch, Talk, Retort - 15/04/2014

.

sometimes you bump into a person
who believes they should have
made an impression on you
it seems to be your fault
that they didn't

what impression
I've made on them
I do not know
let alone understand

once I got so excited about
having my long-neglected bike fixed
that I wrote about it
like she was a woman
I mean it was

since then I'm someone writing
someone people want to talk to
whenever I write something
I imagine it hitting a chord
stirring a laugh or a thought
transplanting an experience

even my many statements
expressing misanthropy
or rejecting people outright
are ultimately messages
I hope resonate with some
of those same people

I've been held responsible
for the negative interpretations
others made out of my work
things never intended in my words
and then had to wonder
why they watched me in the first place
where the same energy dissipated
when, in so many words
I put something positive out there

out there
I have no idea what they want
from me
and the barest sense of
what I want from them
a talk
a touch
a retort

out there
a landscape of faces
to swallow up all the unpredictable
consequences that occur
when I meet someone
when I say something

this is a message I wrote
I wrote it for me, and you
(ahem)

~
Hello.
My name is Randall Stephens
it's is a name I gave myself
I've been labelled things
by others, my whole life
figured I could have a go
at labelling myself

your name is (yours)
I may or may not
remember it
depends on the distance
between us
(there may be a distance
between us)
I like to say things
into this distance
words may or may not cross
the distance between us
I don't mean you any harm
I think

I don't understand
all the consequences
and so don't always accept them
I may not understand
all the words we use
but I'm getting closer
I'm going that distance

it's worth trying to
at least
this is the impression,

people have made on me.

.

__________________

-Peace.

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