The True Story of What Was
By Ani DiFranco
the light blue flickering rhythm
of the neighbor’s big console t.v.
is basking on the ceiling
of another insomniac spree
and outside sleep’s open window
between the drops of rain
history is writing a recipe book
for every earthly pain
oh to clean up the clutter of echoes
coming in and out of focus
words spoken
like locusts
sing and sing
in my head
and thing is
they often seem
in my memory’s long dream
to be superfluous to
the true story of what was
cuz
real is real regardless
of what you try to say
or say away
real is real relentless
while words distract and dismay
words that change their tune
though the story remains the same
words that fill me quickly
and then are slow to drain
dialogues that dither down reminiscent
of the way it likes to rain
every screen
a smoke screen
oh to dream
just for a moment
the picture
outside the frame
then in a flash
the light blue horizon
spanning a sudden black
is sucked into the vanishing point
and quiet rushes back
to search for the downbeat
in a tabla symphony
to search in the darkness
for someone who looks like me
(though i’m not really who i said i was
or who i thought i’d be)
just a collection of recollections
conversations consisting
of the kind of marks we make
when we’re trying to get a pen to work again
a lifetime of them!
cough…cough…ahem…
i say to me
now here listening
i say to the locusts
that sing and sing to me sitting
now here on the front porch swing of my eyes:
i hereby amend
whatever i’ve ever said
with this sigh
