Space
is not the final frontier,
of that I’m certain
nor was Debussy right,
though some does live
between the notes,
nor do I want more,
what I have
will suffice. No,
space is the damned
key on this keyboard
that sometimes sticks
anddrivesmetodistraction.
Their corpses have been gathering dust
in the closet where I keep them,
in boxes, once neatly labeled, but
the collection has grown so large
I’ve given up any attempt at organization.
I do, periodically, take a glance
into the boxes, take a few out
and carefully consider them, but
heeding the proscription, I always
put them back into their box.
Fortunately these corpses have
no discernible odor, and no one
who hasn’t peered in the closet would
imagine that simple cardboard boxes
would be replete with such corpses.
Still we need the room, so it is time
to be truly rid of all these words,
but sadly though I wanted to ship them
to the person who caused their demise, I learned
William Faulkner left no forwarding address.
It is hard, he says,
to put your cart
before your horse
when you have neither.
So then you are left
with the choice
of whether to buy
a horse and try
to overload it
until it cannot walk
or a cart easily filled
that no one can move,
or to just buy a half
dozen clichés.
All too often it
is just a matter
of tossing words
into the air and wondering
where, or even if,
they land, and if
they do, what we
will find when they
finally settle
on the paper.
Words, words, words
Polonius, it’s all
this damn book
is full of,
but don’t let it bother you,
for your time
is so limited, I’ll
see to it soon enough.
It’s the price of doing
the bidding of the devil.
Did you really think
it would be otherwise?
This is, remember one
of his tragedies,
so the only real question
is how to count the dead.
When all
is said and done
and everything
that can
be written
has been,
when the questions
have all
been answered
or forgotten,
when you grow
tired of answers,
ask yourself this:
Then there are the days
when extracting words
feels like extracting teeth,
and there is no Novocaine
for either my pen or me.
If you hear a scream,
just ignore it please,
it is only the agony
of a poem’s death throes.
