Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Sleight Of Hand

It’s to the audience
we write,
we sing,
we slide a tap
across the sanded floor.
It’s their thoughts
we reach in and steal,
then clone them as our own.
They’re none the wiser
we pick them clean,
they applaud,
they cry,
they laugh for more.
Does that make us thieves?
Is there some primordial
intellectual property law
we’ll be charged with
on Judgment Day?
Who knows?
Who cares?
Is that my hand
in your ear?

(all rights reserved Pat Paulk 2006)

14 comments:

Borut said...

Knowledge is as the bedouin’s lost she-camel; wherever he finds her, he has the right to her (taken from a saying).

Blueprincesa said...

The best thing about your poems are their conclusions. Always so surprising, but fitting.

Anonymous said...

HEY! Why didn't I get to see this one first? ( so I could have nabbed the concept....hehe.....:) )

I love this one, Pat! Absolutely love it.

MB said...

Nice one!

Now getcher hand out of my ear!

floots said...

lot of truth here about "performance" in all senses
good stuff

all i can say about the ending is thank goodness i'm not doing a handstand :)

Neetee said...

Very true. You know, that is what brings truth to pleasure, seeing ourselves in another's words.

These are important and wonderful words that very well written.

Thank you pat.

polona said...

excellent write (as always), and i love the ending!

J. Andrew Lockhart said...

This made me think of my theater days --

GK said...

Nice one, Pat ... very interesting ... but should the title be "Sleight of Hand" ...

steve said...

Pat, oddly I'm spending a lot of time thinking about IP law (careerwise), so that one jumped out at me - and I drift off thinking about the poetry in lines 1-22, wherein each line of characters comprising 2-9 syllables is assembled in a novel manner with the proviso that said words shall not have been previously uttered in toto in blogs either known or unknown.

Scary.

Pat Paulk said...

Borut, she-camels are too tall for me!!

Blueprincesa, thank you fro reading them!!!

AA, have to fool you every now and again!! Don't you like surprises??

MB, but it's such a nice ear!! Thank you!!

Floots, you can keep all your thoughts, when you're doing handstands!! Or, share them with your proctologist!

QNT, I love pleasurable truth!! Thank you!!

Polona, as always, thank you!!

Rebecca, we are part of one big animate and inanimate soup!! Thank you!!

Andrew I had a few of those.They threw me out for putting on the wrong costumes!!

Gilbert, you are right!! I thought "slight" was a polysemous word. I always get in trouble when I think. Thank you!!

Steve, you've examined me to the very syllable!! Glad I had clean ones on!!

Pris said...

Oh I like!!!

Natalia L. Rudychev said...

I absolutely love the rhythm of this poem which is masterfully accentuated by the twist of thought
in the ending

Elena Horowitz-Brookes said...

Wow! This is really full of truth. None of us in this world are truly original no matter how much we wish to be. This really drives the point home in a wonderfully poetic fashion.