Dyan Cannon

[anirbas]

Do You Know What It Means [to Swallow a Scream?]

Do you know what it means, to swallow a scream?
To pretend it's not there, tearing the air?

All around me, I see the pain, I can't feel...
All around me, I feel the pain, I can't see...
Oh, how it hurts to be me...

But, today is liberation day
And everything is going my way...
*Love isn't him, them, or ice cream...

And that blinking message has set me free
to do just what I was meant to do...

Love each and everyone of you...

~Dyan Cannon.

*Not sure if this line is correct...Searched for the poem
on the net, to no avail...So, I did it from memory...
One of the few poems I remember, I memorized in 1981...
Fairly certain, it's all there and correct, but the asterisked line...
Found the poem, originally, in Cosmopolitan,
if I remember correctly...They used to run a poem in each addition...Don't know if they still do, havn't bought one in at least...Oh, twenty years, or so...LOL...
After you have kids, you stop buying Cosmo...Buy Redbook and Parenting magazines, instead...hehe...But, yes?

Madame Cannon, if I got it wrong, I pray your forgiveness...
Yeah, like she's reading...LOL...Sabrina.

~*~

The correct version, as written by Dyan Cannon and so kindly shared with us, by a reader and possible poet, herself, sfemet.

~*~

Do you know what it means to swallow a scream?
And pretend it's not there filling the air?
All around me I see the pain I can't feel
All around me I feel the pain I can't see
How it hurts to be me

But today is liberation day
And everything's going my way
Right here right now
Please listen to what I have to say

Heaven isn't tomorrow or yesterday
Or him or her or them out there
Or ice cream
It's right here right now inside of me
And that blinking message has set me free
To do just what I'm meant to do:
Love each and every one of you.


~Dyan Cannon.

[sfemet]

While clearing out a drawer this morning, I found a sheet of paper with a poem typed on it. I don't know how long it has been there, but some of the items in that drawer have been with me since high school. I suspect the sheet of paper dates from the mid 1970s. There's a bit of blue fun tack on the back, something I haven't used since college.

I don't know where I got the poem, there is no date on the sheet or attribution. I'm not a poetry person, so it's clearly something that struck a chord at some point in my life. A web search led me here, to your post. It gave me the attribution I longed for.

I return the favor with the complete poem:

Do you know what it means to swallow a scream?
And pretend it's not there filling the air?
All around me I see the pain I can't feel
All around me I feel the pain I can't see
How it hurts to be me

But today is liberation day
And everything's going my way
Right here right now
Please listen to what I have to say

Heaven isn't tomorrow or yesterday
Or him or her or them out there
Or ice cream
It's right here right now inside of me
And that blinking message has set me free
To do just what I'm meant to do:
Love each and every one of you.

Attachments:

[anirbas]

Wow! Thanks millions!!!!! And welcome to our smallish herd of poets and readers, alike.

[phantasm]

Curious, I Googled the poet's name just now and the only thing that popped up in the first 10 hits was an actor. I'm betting that she's not the author due to Anirbas' coming up dry......

[anirbas]

No, no, Phant, Dyan Cannon is the author. I knew this. What I posted was what I remembered of the piece, I so adored when I first read it. Cosmopolitan used to do a poetry section when it was edgier and less all about five thousand ways to have public sex...Laugh out loud...Dyan Cannon is an actress and she is also a phenomenal poet. I read this piece, the first time in a Cosmo in the seventies? sfemet shared the piece she found...And it is the correct form, as Lady Cannon wrote it.

I am tickled she did. I have already copied it.

I used to have a copy I had written in longhand on sketch paper and framed. I used to do that, back in the the day...Write my fave pieces of poetry on sketch paper in long hand, and frame it as wall art. It was great. Got people that would otherwise have never read poetry, to read a piece, when they visited my place...LoL...Invictus, was another I did this with, amongst others...I should do that, again...Note to self...

[anirbas]

And yes, sfemet, you joggled my memory...It was in the seventies, not the eighties...I'm an old bat, with random bouts of "sometimers"...LoL