The Sixth Sense Poem by Alex Garr

How can I tell you what I see?
How can I convey to you what I feel
when what I feel cannot be said in words?
I want to write a poem so that I can tell you
what I can see.
None of that abstract stuff
that only English majors and philosophers can understand.
I’m talking the real, physical stuff.
The stuff you can touch
and taste
and see
and hear
and smell.

Yet how do I tell you?
After all, these are
only words.
And words work differently
for everyone.

We see everything differently, like with clouds.
I look up to see cirrus swirling through cumulous
and conjure an image of a Tyrannosaurus rex lying on its side,
and you can look up half a nanosecond later and see
a stallion rearing in fire.
Same cloud, same angle,
different people looking.

I can smell a rose,
and memories shrouded in
emotions dance through my mind.
Do you experience the same thing?
I doubt it.
Same rose,
different people,
different memories.

Not even these words you’re reading now
can truly tell you what I want you to be told.
Even if I were to record what I’m seeing on a camera,
you would still be as oblivious as before.
You have the sight,
but without the smell,
or the sounds,
or the fact that you
just weren’t there,
you will see something completely different.

I can see the beauty
of an early autumn afternoon,
but I will never be able to tell you
what I just saw.

And the worst part is,
I will forget this.
Even if I took a picture
and hung the photograph in my room,
I’m going to forget.
I won’t remember the way the water’s reflection
shimmered on the needles,
or the way the wind moved the leaves to create
such beautiful shadows of emerald and jade.

I just write it down
because somewhere,
I know,
someone will understand.