Unintelligible

Joe Strickland 1986 (Hobbysville, SC)



You are the dialect
I strive to understand,
But your words trip up
My tongue,
Stumbling like a newborn fawn.
I rehearse and repeat
Morning, noon, and night,
And still your essence
Is out of view,
Like dreams long dead.
I pour over your syntax
Like pages in a book,
But your meaning remains
Like an unsolved riddle,
As a dead language
Written on the walls
Of a long forgotten cave.
Far too many grammatical rules
To commit to memory.
But, despite my best effort
To bridge this divide,
You remain a mystery,
A code hard to unfasten.
You are a language,
A foreign tongue to me,
And even in striving to learn,
Our connection remains unseen.  

It's impossible for me
To understand you.
But to be fair,
You don't understand me either.
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Written on May 22, 2023

Submitted by JoeStrickland on May 22, 2023

46 sec read
133

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXXXAXXXBXXXXXCXXXDXXDACDXX DBXX
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 732
Words 154
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 27, 4

Joe Strickland

I'm just a regular, blue collar, working stiff who took an interest in writing poetry many years ago but until recently I haven't had a desire to share any with anyone or pursue publication. I'm an unpublished fork lift operator by night, and a day drinker by choice. I can be followed on Twitter @JoeStricklandSC more…

All Joe Strickland poems | Joe Strickland Books

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Discuss the poem "Unintelligible" with the community...

3 Comments
  • Fayleeg26
    Amazing as usual!
    LikeReply 19 months ago
  • cokerrogers
    Great poem. My interpretation is of a love that was just out of reach that maybe if somewhere on the road was different maybe it could have been.
    LikeReply 19 months ago
  • lovingempath
    This piece has a great flow and expresses a feeling I have always felt, but have never been able to express it as eloquently in words as you have put it here. Great job Joe. (I love the visual of the newborn fawn :) 
    LikeReply 210 months ago

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"Unintelligible" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/159894/unintelligible>.

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