Hallowed Ground

OPEN HOUSE

by Theodore Roethke

My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise.

My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I'm naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.
Myself is what I wear:
I keep the spirit spare.

The anger will endure,
The deed will speak the truth
In language strict and pure.
I stop the lying mouth;
Rage warps my dearest cry
To witness agony.

 

 

My new house is at:  http://theresawilliams-author.blogspot.com/

Dear Reader,

The banner ads on this journal are placed here without my consent.  I do not endorse any of the products being advertised here.  My journal was started more than a year before these advertisements became the headers on AOL Journals. This is an invasion, tantamount to theft.

There are many reasons why people keep journals. 

 I speak now on behalf of any and all who consider their journals to be hallowed ground, a place where their "secrets cry aloud." 

I also speak on behalf of some who are dead and therefore cannot speak.  I speak for those who have left us their words, whose journals we visit as we would graves or memorials, whose journals have been defaced with ads. 

This last entry I leave, as a testament to the sanctity of art.

This journal was once my "Open House."  

To AOL:  We do our living, laughing, loving, and dying on these pages.  They are not billboards for advertisers. 

To AOL:  You have defaced my house.

This entry will remain here, as testament of what you have done. 

--Theresa Williams