Going Bablefish

So, I just wrote an entry about how someone's found the blog here, and how my knowing that introduces self-consciousness and hesitance. Then I read said entry, decided it was longwinded masterbatory babel and revised it (by which I mean deleted it) into what you see here. I think that act makes my point better than any verbal wanking. So, the hell with it, here's a poem about privacy instead - I always liked the theme but never felt I got it quite write.

As You Sleep Comfortably

With the gold of silence and fall leaves
I am wealthy. I picture you upstairs,
wrapped in bed sheets and red-brick walls
still wearing your blouse, cocooned
and safe, with privacy enough to stretch
fingertips against skin.
And meanwhile, deck-boards creak
beneath me, loud, as sound can be
in the stillness of October air. Here
in my city sanctuary, where pollution
keeps even the stars from spying down,
I put myself to work – writing, chasing
down my thoughts, making good time

until I hear your dog bark. Realizing
another presence shatters
my confidence, and I lift the pen
to watch him lunge at the fence.
There’s a stick dancing through it,
a laughing child on the other side, and now
I understand what Carrie is saying.
Intruder. Intruder. She tears at the twig
while I try to resume my work.

But the wood creaks again, uncomfortable.
I shift my weight against the paper,
and my hand hesitates. There’s smoke
and laughter pouring from the barbeque pit
next door. There’s a butterfly
staring with wide-open spots on its wings.
And I wonder if you’ve risen to stare
down from our room, watching this page,
watching my words dwindle from it.

Should I share this with you?
I could raise myself up
on the window-ledge, peering in
to whisper that privacy is gilded silence
and it falls away like autumn leaves.

I suppose if I can imagine an audience, I can equally imagine their non-existance. *Poof* to you, says the babelfish. Privacy is a silly notion anywho.