DeepWave

Impatient fingers
Grasp, pull.
Thoughtlessly undoing.
Cross, pull,
form two loops.
Cross again, pull again.
In a brief, unthinking moment
the knot is recreated.
Shoe runs hurriedly away
on foot eager to leave.

Gently drifting down,
Fuzzy velvet settles
Leaves welcome love.

Icy needles pierce
Chilled, shivering, desperate
Leaves flutter, torn.

I left the party.
The music was too loud,
the room too stuffy
and my feet ached.
(So did my heart.)
I wondered if you’d notice
my absence or my leaving
and follow me
or seek me.
The night was cold,
silent,
lonely.
(So was I.)
Eventually I returned;
you looked a question at me
and I looked away.

Often, we wrote to each other
preferring the eloquent solidity of
the written word
to the ephemeral impermanence of
the voice.
His handwriting was
scrawling, sprawling
illegibly across the page
(he was brilliant)
as thoughts and ideas gushed
directly from his mind
to the virgin page.

Then he acquired a computer.
Having discovered e-mail,
he writes to me less and less frequently
as it is inconvenient to find a mailbox.
And even when he writes,
he does not write.
He types.

He sets his ideas electromagnetically
in letters that do not reflect himself
the way his writing holds up a mirror
to his soul.
And though now he is infinitely more legible
I would give the world
To return to the days
when his handwriting danced erratically
Across my mind.

funny,
how sometimes one can fill
pages and pages
with meaningless words,
mail them
and call it keeping in touch.

funny, too
how sometimes one can sit
ages and ages
and never touch pen to paper,
for fear
of saying (by accident) too much.

peel away the bland white
expose the dingy
dusty gray soul; the shameful
purple passion; the murky
yellow dirt-brown fear; poisonous
green venom; throbbing
aching flaming angry red;

refract the bleached exterior
through a flawed prism to
reveal the discordant, soiled rainbow of

true colours.
Why not?

Poetry by Diane Chang

Why Not?
On Letter-writing
The E-male
(Emotional Snapshot)
Rain
Shoelace
Valentine’s Day Musings
Dogs
Untitled 1
Flight
Untitled 2
Seasong
Threesome
Portrait Of The Aspiring Writer
Bittersweet
The Last Bus-ride