The Man Without Words

Mild rhyme, I guess

Last year I met a man without words

He spoke with elaborate gestures, full of pathos and passion

Like a silent Don Quixote without a friend

Skipping around the room

Afraid to think in terms we could never understand

One day someone taught him a sign

Then another

And another, until everything around him was a gesture

And that this is an apple, and that there is a chair,

And that you should try to be polite, and try not to stare

Then there were no more grand narratives

No more Don Quixote

No more skipping around the room, playing charades and floating

Now there were only shades

With things that had a name

And new ways to feel joy and experience shame

Yesterday I spoke to him

About words, and his stories that didn't need them

He said he didn't remember - like a child learning to speak

His thoughts were a blur until someone showed him how to think

His grand narrative stopped so a new one could begin

And I wondered if a pure thought had been stolen from him

I wondered if my grand narrative, my self deception, 

my pathos and empathy and cadence would be the same

If I was never showed the perameters of my shame.

Reviews

[John]

This is a poem about what is lost with the arrival of self consciousness. The writer sets out to tell us a parable, There was a man who...but the sting in the tail is that she ends by questioning her own possible self deception.

[Bitter Overdose]

Wow! I must truly say, this is powerful - I daresay I can catch your meaning and find my own from this. Epic.

[Steve]

You're talented. Your stories, especially this one, are very, very poetic and have some exceptional imagery. I like your stuff. That last paragraph is powerful "..if I was never showed the parameters of my shame." ...wow