Unspoken Calligraphy
By Desiree Michelle Brown
“. . . like all the words unsaid”
sank
into me
as poets we drowned
in taciturn tidal waves
treading on
lull infested seaway
seiches of silence
overswept
my
tack tongue
quieting this everlasting word-stock
inside
your eyes
like mine
reading excerpts drawn
from
byron duffy cummings
whitman poe
along this riverride
whispered what we’ve always known
to mean
reachless reckless
here
entered your reticence
restricting the diction
that kept them afloat
on bottom board drifts
and crow’s nests rafts
meanwhile
we
swam in soundlessness
embarking
on seaboard sink-aways
cracking under weight
of us
and
our
heaviness
my speech
deadened at the
preach of each
touch
each
tantalizing wordlessness
until eloquence
became clamor
until
we picked apart
romanticism
criticizing poe
and cummings
and duffy
byron
whitman
conversing
through
unspoken calligraphy
literary magazine submissions
call it
Times New Romance
the tempest
brooding
tore language
from our throats
but now
voiceless castaways
i kept returning
to taciturn turbulence
for tsunamis of silence
My name is Desiree Brown. I’m a college undergraduate currently working toward a degree in English at UNC Charlotte (University of North Carolina at Charlotte). “Unspoken Calligraphy” was inspired by my studies here at UNCC as well as a friend of mine who is also a poet. I feel as if my poetry would be a great addition to The Scene & Heard Journal because I often create poetry that people can relate to and that fights for something.
