Sunday, November 20, 2011

The Party (alone with all these people...)


Crows talking...


The Party

Alone with all these people talking,
I’m almost one with the room.
Maybe I am the room!
Have you seen me anywhere else tonight?

Now I’m the paisley couch.
Anonymous legs try to tickle me with dull jokes.
Or my face is the Oriental rug.
I can hear my own wool lips chattering
like so many Chinese women.
My table top needs polishing.
My lap’s ashtray is full.
My floral drapes are heaving for air.

Help! I watch that artificial fern,
Snake out under my bathroom door.
Wait fern, not yet!
Our guests are searching
for something to remember.
Don’t crowd them out! 
They need fresh images to carry home!
If you don’t stop, you’ll hide them
from one another.
                                               
I give up; you might as well go head--
I guess they won’t know the difference.
I am the room, the same room,
but lost in a web of plastic vines,
alone with all these people talking
in a tangle of  leaves and words—
this reaching out and getting nothing.

                                                Kay D. Weeks
                                                c. 1970

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kay..I believe you have captured the feelings many of us had in our youth. I clearly remember feeling alone in a room full of people at a party. I could rarely think of anything to talk about and was jealous of those who seemed at ease. I could not relax until i'd drunk myself into a state of glib. A wonderful poem that brought back memories of days gone by...thanks Kay..Harve in Hanoi

Anonymous said...

Reading this, I thought of our conversation. I thought of how well you listened. Then I saw the date you wrote this and was surprised.