Shrapnel Of Warbled Tune 11.09.2009 Poem by Margaret Alice

I have nobody to talk to, she cried, answered
she herself in a stern aside, it is because you
speak a different language and nobody cares
to learn your strange vocabulary, better give
up and learn to speak as everyone else, use
the same nouns and verbs to designate
the same common-sense ideas

She turned away ashamed, she cannot give up
her language now, a construct of so many years
produced while wading through a vale of tears
the culmination of all her thoughts and dreams
even when she screams in isolated loneliness
she holds her language dear, she cannot sell
her soul for aught, she looks up

And listens to the song of those who sing with
different harmonies, she joins the chant her col-
leagues repeat determinedly then turns away in
tears, it does not work, there are no overtones
the sound is wrong, the melody is gone and
the shrapnel of the warbled tune hurts her
skin while blood is dripping everywhere

Daggers meant for those apart cleft her mind
and opened up her guilty heart, underneath
we are all the same and every knife turned
upon one another finds its mark in us…