From My Restless Marrow

A poem

From My Restless Marrow
Photo by Mahmoud Sulaiman on Unsplash

IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK

From My Restless Marrow

I felt it in my jealous blood
before they took it all away
plucked it from my restless marrow
and put it into something new

Into a machine

I felt it in my follicles, rooted deep
beneath skin that shed the sunlight
as it burned, crisp red
I felt it hurt and wanted more

To be more, see more
Be the grass and worm
The bull and horn
The stench — 
Sea, sky, salt
More, more, all!

The ocean was vast, but I was bigger
The week-old feather, small, yet I, a speck on it
Fluttering, falling, up and down, again

I was a drunken dream
(back when I used to drink)
but living the world in a waking scene
A vision — of living, living more

To squirm away from nothingness
and death, but skim
past it with passive admiration
for in it only do we live more
On the end’s doorstep do we see more — 
More than this simple life
lacking words and thoughts
and struggle, strife

It’s there I’ll be,
until every word you think or say
is me
This way I will never die
This way I am more


Inspired by Walt Whitman ‘Song of Myself’

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