04-25-2016, 05:23 AM
Diamonds and Toads
I swallowed the secret,
and now only have darker words
that swim in my stomach
a school of darting tadpoles.
Terrible are the words we speak
when we must not speak.
So instead, I give you a story
of a child who sang diamonds,
and another who croaked toads.
The moral is the distraction
to draw you from the lie.
Even now, the truth burns
like sulfur on my fingertips.
The lie is the secret I cannot tell.
There are not two children but one.
You are long dead,
and my tongue still roils
beneath this sediment.
I swallowed the secret,
and now only have darker words
that swim in my stomach
a school of darting tadpoles.
Terrible are the words we speak
when we must not speak.
So instead, I give you a story
of a child who sang diamonds,
and another who croaked toads.
The moral is the distraction
to draw you from the lie.
Even now, the truth burns
like sulfur on my fingertips.
The lie is the secret I cannot tell.
There are not two children but one.
You are long dead,
and my tongue still roils
beneath this sediment.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson