Denial

Denial

I do not offer words instead of food to the hungry,
easy phrases instead of houses to the poor.
I cannot call upon the stars to stop wars,
nor dangle hope of heaven under the noses of the dying.
I am no pope, nor politician, nor astrologer,
and I do not speak to honor myself
or the dead or the living or any one of us.
I only want to quiet the animals clawing at my door,
to hear the barely audible blood buzz in my ears,
and to walk between singing and saying,
a little apart from the others, in love.

(© Ken Zimmerman 1992 previously appeared in Northwest Poets and Artists Calendar 1993)