This is not the place I would like to start
but this is where I am.
Here are hats and horns and the names of states on sticks.
The speaker is spreading out the syllables
of blessings, curses, lies and incantations.
Only the lies are what they pretend to be.
Some words, put to such a use, fare badly
They change colors. They take on mutant shapes.
They come like a pestilence flapping around the room.
Silently, one by one, they fall to the floor.
One with a tentacle, vermilion and mottled with yellow,
tries to attract my attention. I ignore it to death.
Words when they fall are like the falling of angels.
Words when they die are like the burning of feathers.
They peep like bats.
In the beginning that unbroken breath
the endless exhalation
was broken by the terrible mercy
of God’s own tongue, God’s teeth,
into one round verb.
Its offspring number so many
nobody could count them.
Words are shadows, words are only shadows.
We take them for more than shadows. They seem to be more.
They enlist in the armies of our poems.
They quiet unhappy lovers and name our children.
They join all things together and put them asunder.
They never hear themselves. They have no ears.
People send them out with clear directions,
Mean this, Mean that.
They undo whatever they do as soon as they do it.
A person would think we might have had enough.
Hush.
I press the silver box I have in my hand.
A jazz quintet is re-inventing music.
They play with calm and perfect concentration.
There are no presidents or words in the world.
My floor is as clean as Eden.
As if by a word of God,
Let there not be words,
Let there be a magnificent moving of fingers,
Let there be reeds and brass,
Let there be piano, bass and drum.
Da-biddely-biddely-biddely-biddely
Bump.
Ah, but we know, don’t we?
A waiter can hear you make that sound all day
and he never will bring you a cheese sandwich
no matter how badly you want one.
In the beginning was F sharp.
That would have been a very different story.
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