Tag: Long form poetry

The broken people

Write

Of themselves

Themselves

To mend

Before the stories

Clinging to sinewy tendons

And blood-covered veins

Break the remainder

Of the broken people.


Like bricks

Pulverized by word-hammers

And spread across

Paper

Weighted so

The paper

Will not be carried away by the wind

The anchor-stories

Are yanked from below

And are gasping and

Building

Something new.


Their minds have slipped

Into the core

Below the place

Where gray matter

Sloshes

And squishes about

And their eyes

Are inside and

See

What is there

And blink Morse code

To the hands

On the outside—

In this way

The stories are told.


The broken people

Choose not to walk

Though

Walking is easy

On feet that are strong

But movement against

Wind might seem like

Progression

But sometimes

Movement of the hands

Moves

Them

Further along

Than feet ever could.


“Do you dream?”

A fellow asked

Who smelled of Vodka

And beef

Whose face

Looked like it dripped with

Paint

Too thick

And crusted on

Forgotten

By the touch of

His painter’s hand.


“I dream,” answered

The broken man

Whose feather pen

Moved faster than before.


“How do you dream,”

He asked then he stumbled,

“With no head to call your own?”

He laughed at his question

Like old women

Laugh at dolls

When dementia

Has taught them

That dolls are flesh.


The broken man

Wrote on

And thought about

A song

He heard in his ears

Long ago

Many years

Before his head fell

Into his core,

“I see the crystal visions

I keep my visions to myself

It's only me

Who wants to wrap

Around your dreams and

[I wonder]

Have you any

Dreams

You'd like to sell?”


The broken people

Tell of themselves

They also tell of you

And when they

Cast

Silvery questions

Into the ocean of

You

It never is in vain—

For they will not

Throw your stories

Back

But

Instead

Transform them into

Something new

And then

You

Move through

Fingertips too.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025