Self-Portrait with Knife
Lacking benefit of prayer or belief,
it slips through flesh,
praising its temerity. Or,
parting the onion’s core, reclaims
the right to weep.
How many nights have we shared
these pleasures? I smooth the blade
with steel, listening to the fine hum.
O at the Edges 
Reblogged this on Vox Populi.
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Thanks for reblogging, Michael.
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Love your work, Robert!
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I’m humbled, Michael. Thank you.
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I love this…really love it : ))
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I’m so pleased it appeals to you. Thanks very much.
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a decent sharp knife makes cooking a pleasure. a really good sharp knife takes cooking into iron chef territory. : )
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Oh, yes, sharp knives, proper tools, make all the difference. But they have their dangers, too – I sliced off a bit of my thumb, and a year later part of my index finger. I have since decided to remove speed from the cooking equation.
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This is great. Good work 🙂
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Thank you!
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Reblogged this on HoneybeeWood and commented:
I see here reflections of my sentiments on onions and whetted knives
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Thank you for reblogging!
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Edgy
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But not too sharp, I trust.
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Fantastic.
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Thanks, Emily. I do so love my knife despite our mishaps. Well, my mishaps. The knife is blameless.
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Very nice! A slice of life. Once again, you prove that brevity is the soul of wit. Thanks also for liking my blog post.
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Ah, yes. Brevity cuts to the quick, so to speak. 🙂
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It sounds very dangerous with the “fine hum” when it slice ….
Love the creativity of your writng. 🙂
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It’s that pesky steel! Thank you.
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“Lacking benefit of prayer or belief” indeed…it comes in handy, to grab a knife.
Wonderful poems, Robert! I love your work!
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Thank you, Andreea. I appreciate your comments!
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Nice!
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Thanks!
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Great piece. (haha, pun intended) I know this all too well. Unfortunately, removing speed is not always an option for me.
You’d love what I did to myself last week, fifteen minutes before our brunch began…..stupid, stupid, stupid….you’d think I’d learn….no stitches….but a little super-glue came in handy…
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Ouch. And then there was that time I decided to clean a meat slicer with the blade running…
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Ummmm……wow.
I’m can’t decide if I find this scary or reassuring.
I’m NOT the only one!
No kidding. I have a nice little mini-knuckle where it nicked the bone of my middle finger.
Fifteen years ago and the wife is *still* giving me a hard time about it. Sheesh.
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Lovely complex image of the knife and the onion and the emotions we reclaim through the action of cutting…brings to mind all the layers of how pain let’s us feel other things too. Gorgeous!
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Thank you, Carla. I find a calmness in ritual – the act of moving the blade with a purpose, whether it be dicing onions or slicing tomatoes.
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‘…reclaiming pain..’ I really loved how you weaved in human emotions with the act of slicing. But my tendency is to see everything as a metaphor – so I have a question for you: Was this poem metaphorical for life, the cutting edge of a knife akin to the pain of life? Or is this me reading too much into it? 🙂 Either which ways, I loved it!
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Yes. No. Maybe. 🙂 While I seldom approach a poem with an underlying meaning in mind, my hope is of course to arrange the words in such a way as to offer the reader multiple choices.
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I weep for those onions. Well done!
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I weep over them! Thank you.
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Love this, Robert! I can empathize with those cuts–I took off part of my thumb some months back–yeeouch! I haven’t been around in a while as I’m not feeling well, but hope to be more consistent soon.
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I hope you feel better soon! Am looking forward to reading more poetry on your blog. By the way, I’m attending a Jeffrey Levine workshop at the end of next month.
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“reclaims the right to weep” This could be the theme of an entire memoir.
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But whose would it be, the onion’s or the knife’s?
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Wow, wish I could write poetry like yours.
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Thank you. It’s just one word followed by others. 🙂
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