My Inner Confessional – If Its Walls Could Talk
My Inner Confessional – If Its Walls Could Talk
If walls would say what they should–I do not mean
if walls would just stick
to the script, but rather
if walls would speak
what was in their hearts, that is,
their I-beams, that is,
the borne cross of inner
rebar and all that zig-zag
of wood-should–
that is, if walls would say aloud
what they whisper
into their pillars,
these walls
could not help but speak
of forgiveness,
for these walls, whatever you want to say,
about their speech, are per force
good listeners,
and no wall listening to even my faked
remorse
could mistake the sadness
behind all that sinning and sensed
sinning–
(So, maybe the walls I like to imagine
are softer than the walls
of the archetypical confessional–
mine having been weakened
by an awful lot of headbanging–)
my walls, if I would but cede them words,
would say some wall-talk equivalent of
the laying on of hands
(you know, wall hands)–
I can still feel that cool plaster, when, as a child,
I ran my feet up up the stretched expanse
at the side of my mother’s bed; it was like
the soothing
of my aching head,
only she’d be sleeping then, her arms about
her middle,
and it was, actually, well
a wall.
*******************************
15th drafty poem for April, National Poetry Month. I wrote this one for Mama Zen’s prompt on Real Toads about if walls could talk. Pic was posted by MZ–not sure it equates to my “inner confessional” but close enough.
Explore posts in the same categories: poetry, UncategorizedTags: April 2016 National Poetry Month, http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com, Inner Confessional - if walls could talk poem, manicddaily, mother-daughter poem, Not really about my mother poem
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ManicDDaily 
April 14, 2016 at 12:01 am
Sometimes we need someone to hear…The human wall is hard to breach.
April 14, 2016 at 1:26 am
Oh I love this.. what a wonderful pondering poem of those caring walls, I dream of them sometimes as well… especially the thought of being awake with only walls as a child in the last stanza touched me.
April 14, 2016 at 1:40 am
I like the nearly stuttering voice in this, the hesitancy, as though these walls were of two minds about talking… ~
April 14, 2016 at 3:16 am
Beautifully written 🙂
April 14, 2016 at 6:39 am
The sense of pause running through the poem adds a feeling of wrenching out bits of sensitive memories. A powerful piece.
April 14, 2016 at 8:57 am
I wish I were not so brain tired and head sore that I could really say more about this wonderful poem. I will be left with the image of running one’s hands up the cool wall at mother’s bedside.
April 14, 2016 at 8:58 am
Oh, my gosh! I LOVE the stream-stutter feel of this. Just beautifully done.
April 14, 2016 at 11:36 am
I love this:
“what they whisper
into their pillars,
these walls
could not help but speak
of forgiveness,”
Excellent sound play in this poem, K!
April 14, 2016 at 11:51 am
“mine having been weakened
by an awful lot of headbanging”
Mine, too.
April 14, 2016 at 1:56 pm
This. Is. Incredible.
April 14, 2016 at 2:21 pm
Ha. Thanks so much, Amy. k.
April 15, 2016 at 1:54 am
I adore your walls – especially the stanza in parenthesis where ‘…the walls I like to imagine / are softer than the walls / of the archetypical confessional’ – brilliant poem k. 😀 x
April 15, 2016 at 10:39 am
I’m reading it again. The end, the mother, takes my breath away
April 16, 2016 at 9:43 am
I love the counterpoint of the parenthetical statements.
April 16, 2016 at 8:29 pm
I really love the sound of this: ” all that zig-zag
of wood-should”–it is so lyrical and I can ‘hear’ it in my head….as if the walls in my own inner confessional were talking.