Sculptures

Did you believe I was a written page
Ready to be read, laid out for your understanding
That you'd grasp everything right away
As if I was mathematics, as if I was formulas
That could be calculated
With all the rights and wrongs
That I possess

Did you believe I was entirely blank
And that anyone was free to sculpt me
From the block of marble
That I looked out through shiny eyes
That just had been made
I'm neither, I'm none
I'm half-created,
I'm half-done
And I can't predict myself
And I can't take care of myself
And I prefer myself when I'm decadent

And I prefer myself when I don't care

I can't go back and unwrite myself
Or unsculpt what was sculpted by others
When I didn't control my own world
And I can't predict what'll happen with the brush
With the typewriter and the ink
I can't predict what I'm going to feel or think

And you can't undo all your thoughts
All your words, all that you felt
That they cut your fingers while you knelt
So you should be exactly like me
And your story is as untouched
Most of it's a story to be

But you never begin on an empty page
And you never calculate it like mathematics
It's unpredictable, and unstable
And steered by many hands
At the rodder

And it's a flying ship in turbulence we crew
And it can sail through air and on the sea
Sometimes with, sometimes without you
Sometimes with, sometimes without me
And this rickety ship is life

And the serpent in the ocean is almost death
But only almost, with all the pretty gems it swallowed
Only almost, as it allows for our touch
Only almost, as we saw it die

Did you believe everything was mathematics
Did you believe that you were free from dreams
When I have seen you sleep
And you have the nightmares too
Even if you don't remember them
When you awake

POET IN THE JAR