In the Library.

Reading is listening.

A voice in the head
Telling a different story
To that we imagine.

Although he has been dead one hundred years
The poet sings deep in the skull
Of the student
Who studies his words.

The inner voice of the student
Is the voice of the poet,
But to the reader only,
Not to those who observe him.

If the student spoke
The poems out loud
He only would speak to us,
Not the poet.

It is in the privacy of our minds
That the writer can communicate
Without an intermediary.

Then we almost touch the hand
That scratched the words
In a hurry
On scraps of paper.

Moving the pen
To the pulse of his breath,
The knock of his heart.

But that is only imagining,
Not true listening.

The truth is a different story.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 15th. 2014.

Written in response to the play Bronte by Polly Teale.