an on-line poetry magazine
for the 21st century

 

Howard Camner

STICKMAN

I am a stickman
You could look at me forever
and never see me for who I am
I move through landscapes
unnoticed
wanting everything I see
To you I am the sum of a few lines
drawn and tattered
and nothing more
but I bleed and cry and love
as much as anyone

I am a stickman
but don’t think less of me
That would be ignorance
and ignorance is a mistake
I can fit into scenes
where you can’t
I can blend into architecture
and never lose my way
I can form opinions and doorways
just by switching positions
In one move I can change my image
and give myself some hope

HOWARD CAMNER is the author of 25 books including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Poems from the Mud Room: Collect Works 1976-2012. He was a founding member of The Literary Outlaws and The West End Poetry Troupe in New York. The Emerson Archives in Boston holds the largest collection of Camner’s literary works.