Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 16:35:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: bhaatasari <gajjala+-AT-pitt.edu>



mere words?

        from where i am positioned

there are
no
mere words....

                the fold lies
spoken for
as
very often "I" am.

                        I speak.

                and wonder
what it is i
mean.
   as when last i
        replied.

mere words?

        i cannot call them that.

these words that have
scarred, cajoled and coerced me...
moved me into
ways
of thought (and action
                is there action without
                                        thought?
mere words
without
action?

                maybe sometimes
                maybe often

but merely with words
i am often
told
who i am

                even as i try to say
   i am
                not
                        that.


These words are given to
me
i use them as
best
i can

i try... perhaps....

        and wonder what others
                think
        I mean.

while they interpret...
   Interpretation, then,
                Is
                Penetration

Acquisition, Appropriation.

I am forced to
be
who you say i am.
  I try to say what I really
mean.

        Even when your words have already
conquered
my thought

polluted
my meaning

                How can I tell you
                (or Know)
                what i mean

                when you have already
told me
        what i mean.

I/i think in your language
                                now.
(but have you not also
often
been spoken
for
interpreted
through
culture
through
Knowledge
through
relations of Power...)

but there is still
hope
for the unsaid
perhaps?
  can we communicate
                not appropriating
                        colonizing
                each others'
                                meanings?

talk of possibilities...
perhaps.
but we were never
tabula rasa, says a voice from within...
the voice that knows that tabula rasa are a point
of view
>from where you stand
i may seem
empty
>from where
i stand
i am
not)

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