Sonnet L'Abbé (1973-)
Poor Speaker
1I understand you.
2I get what you’re trying to say.
3What you’re trying to say is you want me to get it.
4I get it. You want me
5to understand. You want me to know
6not the words, but what’s behind them. Got it.
7You’re trying to tell me
8what you want me to hear. What I
9hear is all words, but that’s not all there is.
10I totally comprehend.
11There’s a comprehensive totality
12beyond, or above, or within, or outside
13whatever you just said.
14Yes, yes. Your vocabulary can’t put the nuance
15on the fine feeling you wish to express.
16Not that you’re feeling fine, I know.
17Rather, the feeling is fine like a fine point. Right.
18That’s the point. I get it. If you could say so, you would.
19You still want me to understand?
20I told you from the beginning. I’m with you.
21I got it. Why keep going on? It’s gotten. It’s all good.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Copyright © Sonnet L'Abbé 2006. Not to be republished without permission of the poet.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Killarnoe
First publication date:
16
February
2006
Publication date note: (forthcoming)
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2006
Recent editing: 1:2006/2/16
Form: triplets
Other poems by Sonnet L'Abbé
