This poem has been published by Edge of Humanity Magazine: https://edgeofhumanity.com/2024/11/11/harms-end-blog-by-donny-lee-duke-whispering-softly-at-the-end-of-the-world-how-loud-i-sing/ and has been posted at The Skeptic’s Kaddish, in David’s Poetry Partner series. He wrote a companion piece: https://skepticskaddish.com/2024/08/27/whispering-softly-or-screaming/

To know on the edge of your screaming
that you’re gonna be alright,
to see it plain as day
in the darkness,
you go on steam engine,
you take your task with God.

I don’t know if it’s gonna rain
mud puddles in my mind,
firecrackers in my heart,
but I’ll be okay.
The world has caved in,
and sunshine has found me lying in the sun.

Do you know sleep?
Do you know how to sleep?
It’s a ridin’ all night long
the team fellows of the mind
with what you need to know liberty
while you’re still in bonds.
It’s a conscious sleep.
You hear it talk to me now.

You can’t spend me.
I’m a waste of your time,
but I will speak to you from the hours
the training of the ways,
deep soliloquies of love

that hasn’t found its purpose yet
but challenges the world with it anyway.

You will laugh at me,
but I know time like you know your own hair,
and I can stand up and sing when God is killing me.
What is a poet for?
Can I quote my little boy?
It’s for blankets in the sea.
I can only grasp his hand in verse.
I can’t see him anymore.

Whales sing,
and they bring in the ocean round to itself.
It’s more than call letters.
It’s an attempt to dare fate
and expose ourselves to bright shiny blades,
so we can give time its meaning,
even if that’s just a language cloak.
You sit there and read us
those bright and shiny blades.

Fuck you I love you the poet says.

Nithish did you hear that?
It’s how we meet the world Planet Us
and not die in the telling.
We undress in front of the world
and give it its mic,
all the while singing our hearts out
in front of I don’t care.

I am loud in a sea storm,
Prometheus battles night
on top of an angry world
because he’d brought fire down of the Gods
into the people of his sleep,
and lit the poet’s tongue on daily cares,
common battles,
and everyday falls
to know we are more than these.