Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WORDS, by LEW SARETT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WORDS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He never flickered a muscle, never stirred
Last Line: And flood-tides find release.
Subject(s): Language; Passion; Words; Vocabulary


He never flickered a muscle, never stirred;
Speechless he stood beneath the stinging whips
She laid upon him in each syllable
That crackled from her lips.

Yet in his heart a river of passion rolled,
And swept his words into a groaning jam,
As when a torrent chokes a rushing stream
With logs across the dam.

But when she flung at him the dynamite
Of foul black names and insinuating doubt,
With a mighty moan the pent-up tide gave way,
And the jam of words went out:

Words cut by a madman's axe; words brittle with ice;
Words pointed, barbed with sleet and torn of branch;
Words that cascaded, ricocheted, and split,
Fell in an avalanche.

Down with the flood of wrath they pitched and plunged,
Until at last there fell the utter peace
That settles on a stream when logs go out,
And flood-tides find release.





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