Kurt Philip Behm

Unable To Speak

Trying to make the poetry prose

Or the prose poetic again

I insulted the meaning

With juxtaposition

Stabbing an idea

That should have been shot

Killing a verse

That should have been saved

Thinking the truth

While uttering a lie

Forming the words

  —unable to speak

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2014)

 

 

All Promise Gone

 

For the lack of one letter,

  the word could not form

 

For the lack of one word,

  the entire sentence was wrong

 

For the lack of one sentence,

  the paragraph went astray

 

For the lack of one paragraph,

  the page lay undone

 

For the lack of one page,

  the chapter could not end

 

For the lack of one chapter,

  the book was now lost

 

For the lack of one book,

  its message unwritten

 

For the lack of one book

  —all promise was gone

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2014)

 

 

As The World Turns

 

When the world turns

   on a whisper

 

Why do we insist on

  shouting

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2014)