By Christos Floratos
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In grainy corridors calling distant lights
Where shadows erect pillars of blight,
The wooden walls beg down upon me,
And here I am left quaking at its fee.
_
No, it is not that cold snap,
Nor is it that summer’s shimmer,
The houses left tender – just a whisper.
In howls of the past; here they entrap.
_
Arsonists of hate and weavers of sorrow
They gather like dying moths to flickering toilet lights.
“Isn’t that him?” They whisper and spray,
With their stuttered voice and eyes disarray,
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Like Satan is on their door step and all they can do
Is whisper and point at him.
The farmer of salvation dug deep in mud yet
No one utters a word to him.
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Neon lights echo a howling gale through the grey jungle
Flashes flash as Utterers utter
“Tell us more.” They demand then hide,
However, they’ve been blinded by their gaze to the blaring sun.
Yet here I am in this humble abode,
Ants follow and sheep’s tune to anode
For you see,
It all came with one simple mist…
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Because of those whispers
And those damn spitting lights
It shook me here in this necropolis disintegrating
And all those sheep are going,
And here in the back of the cities I must confess,
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There, we’re whispers.
And I followed the shame.
Author’s Comments:
‘There, We’re Whispers’ was the first poem of the ‘Autumn, That Bastard’ poetry collection I started work on, long before I even thought about making this collection. The main thematic of the poem isn’t easily distinguishable and intentionally so. Is it about a person who is followed for an arbitrary crime? Is it about someone haunted by mistakes they do? Is it someone who doesn’t conform to society? Throughout these Author comment sections, I usually say I don’t want a to impair you, the readers judgement of the poem and what you think it is. Here is why. I follow the Death of the Author with this poem and want to see what you think of it. So unlike other Author Comment Sections, I will not break down the poem in terms of direct meaning, but rather identify some neat titbits and some techniques used.
No, it is not that cold snap,
Stanza 1
Nor is it that summer’s shimmer,
The poem was originally titled, ‘There Were Whispers’ but in a sudden spur as much of my writing is (See The Penelope Complex) I changed the name to There, We’re Whispers. It is also able to be read like there were whispers, suggesting a past/historical motif that the persona is spouting on about. The title actually came from a line in The Walking Dead Comics that I really liked, it was from a smaller character who said “There were whispers and I was a afraid”. This would have also been the ending line, but then I realised recently that it only existed because I liked that reference and thus changed it so it was more contextual to the feelings of disillusionment.
Like Satan is on their door step and all they can do
Stanza 4
Is whisper and point at him.
As many of those living in the Southern hemisphere know, Autumn is a hard season to really apply to us, usually because it is a western concept that stems from the northern hemisphere the idea of four seasons. Most of the poem is in a rhyming scheme but then it comes to the last two stanzas where its thrown out the window, in almost a panic from the persona as their world is disintegrating. In some ways, the sheep are the laity of an ideology and the person realises this as well, and he follows this self-reprimanded shame.
There, we’re whispers.
Stanza 8
And I followed the shame.
But what is this shame?
Let me know here what you think it could be! What am I rambling about?
Christos Floratos 