Jules

put myself in your hands
and you let me drop

in so many bits and pieces
what can I say

I was about language
words are what I’d have given you
to safeguard

smashed vase that I am
now unable to hold water
unable to hold flowers

cuss words all I can think up
think of

regret in me as deep as a well

I am as devastated, as ripped
as land an earthquake has cracked
has pulled apart

I find it difficult to believe
what has befallen me

I know illness, I expect death
but this I didn’t expect

what the computer allows, gives
only to take back in an instant

what I’ve lived, had worked on
for four years
as carefully as I could
as I knew or know how

don’t know if to thank you
or to speak to you

am I to appreciate computer
you give back

like a patient with aphasia
with amnesia

give me back my computer
with its memory erased

like a man hit over the head
dropped or fallen

this accident occurring
in your care,
in untrustworthy hands

a bit of national literature
you’ve allowed
to go down the drain

stuff I’d dreamed up
in bed with the muses


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
11:49 p.m. 09.02.09