Who Says Words with My Mouth?
Who Says Words with My Mouth? - meaning Summary
A Soul Seeking Its Source
The poem presents the speaker as a soul displaced from its true home, living in the body and ordinary world as if confined in an unfamiliar enclosure. Its repeated questions about voice, sight, and identity express a spiritual longing for reunion with the source that brought the soul into existence. Poetry appears as an unplanned utterance arising from beyond the speaker's conscious control.
Read Complete AnalysesAll day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off, but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. This poetry, I never know what I’m going to say. I don’t plan it. When I’m outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
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