For The Record by Scott Blackwell

Fall/Winter 2014

DAD no. 01 (1)
Artwork, “Of Shadow and Self” by Niall Parkinson

For The Record

I had eyes
to speak,
a mouth to see,
ears to seek,
nostrils
to smell both
the stench and
perfume,

hands to touch
grope
for the dark,
guts to growl,
an entire body
to burn
wither
and die,
feel
whatever
it could not know,

mind to lose, feed,
waste,
heart to bleed,
life to curse,
curse to live,
Gods to forsake,
a soul
so deeply buried
as to never
be exhumed,

beast
to kick and
gnaw,
out of time,
matched by no
other,
that was always
my own.

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Scott Blackwell is a former resident of San Francisco and a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute (1997). He has recently had poetry published in The Iconoclast, Barbaric Yawp, Tiger’s Eye, Crab Creek Review and Caveat Lector. He currently reside in Champaign, Illinois.