E.P. Robles | Poetry

“If I say something often enough, it becomes true,” said Hal Garrigan, stroking his chin.
“And what are these things I said last night, these transcendent things which are nothing?
I just said there are no monsters, that we’re never really alone, and that we don’t have
to belong to anyone because we’re free to go where we like. And we can make love all night,
and sleep all day.”

Those are all true, aren’t they?
Those are really true.
But what’s missing is all that the best poetry has to say.

Ah, yes, all that bit about the hot breath of the beast on our necks in the dark, and knowing that the smallest movement can cause the very earth to blow apart, and the silence in the place we live is only a mistake in the playing of the piano.
That’s a grand idea, isn’t it?
A mistake.
I have to give thanks I thought of it myself.
Otherwise I might have been quite insane by now.
Well, madder than I am.

I don’t know, maybe even crazy.
There are things we’re not supposed to think about.”
“Like what?”
“All these characters in fairy tales.
The king, the princess, the wolf that’ll eat you up and the princess who keeps telling you she knows the way.
The wolf that’ll eat you up and the king who’ll send him to do it, and the princess who’ll let him do it.”

:: 10.19.2022 ::