Lamar Howell's Weblog

Words, delivered to the heart,
must be cut like stones from a quarry,
pounded and rolled like sourdough,
vocal reeds – beaten and pressed into papyrus,
or corn shucks – heated and tamale-steamed.
Pure speech is birthed, giraffe-like –
falling two meters onto all fours;
not rattled like fingers of fate kissing dice,
never opened with a ‘poof’ like biscuits in a can,
or timorously wound like a jack-in-the-box.
Nor should words be the white piano key
that flattens a negro spiritual,
or soothingly warm barber’s shaving foam,
not helpless and curled like a newborn babe.
But each word has its price
and the Word himself will be the measure and the rod
When poetry ushers in the endless age
where angels sit as lyricists and God as bard.