Merry-Go-Round

Written many years ago, this was an exploration of why poets don’t right, trying to express the fear of sharing something from deep in your soul with strangers who may or may not understand. All writing is personal, but to me poetry really is me, rather than just words I’ve strung together into an understandable story. If that makes sense.

However, as I transcribed this from that old-fashioned medium called paper, I realised that it’s also about general communication and knots we tie ourselves into when trying to express what we need to say, and future-proof ourselves by first working out how our words will be received.

A hundred thousand poets
Without a single voice
Dulcet tones are never heard
Never heard or written in print
Never a print of one sweated text
Never a text of one frightened voice
Never a voice shouts over a crowed
Never a crowd to witness the work
Never the work to put into print
Back on the poetry merry-go-round

A blistering silence that nobody breaks
A voice with a weight that nobody weighs
Nobody hears because nothing is said
Nothing is said because it might be wrong
Nobody’s wrong because nobody writes
Nobody writes in case nobody cares
Nobody cares because nobody dares
Nobody dares in case nobody reads
Nobody reads because nobody writes
Back on the poetry merry-go-round

It’s hard to get published so hard to be heard
Expressing the soul in the knell of the word
We don’t hear the soul and we don’t understand
We don’t understand as we don’t know the man
We don’t know the man so we don’t know the cost
We don’t know the cost as we don’t know the pain
We don’t know the pain as they don’t write the words
We don’t see the words so we don’t hear the voice
We don’t hear the voice so we don’t really care
Back on the poetry merry-go-round

The public are out there just waiting to read
An informative text that begs of them ‘think’
They don’t read our words as the words are not writ
Our words are not writ in case they do not read
They cannot read because we will not write
We will not write as we think they won’t care
They will not care because we do not share
We do not share as they may not buy
They cannot buy because we will not write
And so goes the poetry merry-go-round


Deb Hawken
1997