UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/D.E. OPRAVA


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY

D.E. OPRAVA

GIVEN A KNIFE
(I can’t give back)

I looked long
at its hard blade
as it caught light
and gave way to
reflections of face
in varying shades
of distortion,

I thought long
on what words
I no longer needed,
which ones could be
shaved from my being
and more pressing,
which might remain,

I felt long its edge
from hilt to tip
each inch bit deeper
until my self had split
and I sat there
pondering which side
to save, the side
that resembled
a humble sheep
or his mirror,
a sinister goat-like
vision,

I bled long in confusion,
wasted light of day
to numbness night
when I no longer cared
let alone told a difference.

D.E. Oprava writes, because he has to. He is terrified of what will happen otherwise. It makes him prolific. He has been in over ninety journals online and in print and his first full-length book of poems VS. was released in October 2008 by Erbacce Press. He is also the founding publisher and editor of the small poetry press, Grievous Jones. When he isn’t writing he is battling against intermittent sobriety and trying to live up to the semi-sane expectations of husbandhood, fatherhood, and humanhood. Not necessarily in that order and occasionally succeeding.

His second book, a 96-page epic poem about the folly and promise of the American ideal was released on American Mettle Books in Nov. 2009. You can find him at www.deoprava.com