INDISTINCT VOICES

(1)

 

I am a syllable that slipped
From the mouth of a tight lipped
          god.
I am a trip of the tongue, a divine word stuttered,
          a phrase never meant to be uttered.
I am speech, profound and profane,
          I am the holy name of god used in vain
When voiced by god’s own mouth.

 

(2)

I am lost . A fraction divided by infinity.
          My days . . .
a confusing collage of madness . . .
          faces . . . 
                    voices . . .

 

Boundless chaos dissected into hours,
          divulging insane logic,
pretense never challenged; order springs from deliberate incisions.
          Time is eternity’s autopsy!

In the room, a hundred conversations
          and observations and procrastinations,
which are reinvented . . . reformulated . . .
          rebroadcast . . . and rediscovered.
A cacophony unnoticed by those who sit at the tables.
          But to me . . .
who sits alone, apart from the tables, the voices are static.
          The room is measured by the tables!
          The infinite measured by the microscopic!

 

In the midst of the static, a woman is reading.
          I wonder if she is aware
that she is sitting in Babel.
          The sad ruins of the tower, the confusion of language,
encircle her like attacking Indians in an old western.

(3)

The shape of your name is engraved upon my lips.
It has been carved by the waters of overuse and time . . .
I discover your name seeping from my mouth
with every desperate exhale . . . with the blowing of the wind . . .
          I hear your name echo in my emptiness.
You are a ghost that nightly haunts
          the dusty, neglected attic of my mind.

(4)

Devilish daydreams remain unchained. Life is wasted
          on the living and longed for by the dead.
Dreams are smokey scarecrows – drawn deep by a cool mouth.
          An intoxicant inhaled into mortality’s lungs . . .
exhaled by elegant lips . . .

 

Time does not slip away, it boldly marches!
          It withdraws with force and fury.
If shadows were people, perhaps people would have some depth.

(5)

I am prepared to perform a self-lobotomy
          just to smash the monotony
and find one sincere smile.
I am prepared to be immersed in truth feigning lies.
          Knowing that all words are flies
prostituting themselves for the feces of the moment.

 

I am cunning but cowardly, flesh and blood,
          void of spirit.
Unable to enter into, or inherit,
          the kingdom of god. 
Unworthy . . . 
          insubstantial . . . 
                    ephemeral . . .

Cowards like me pass into oblivion
like disco and Ronald Reagan’s memories.

 

My life is one of futility and senility. Ceaselessly
          reliving dead days, dead moments,
perpetually frozen in long, lost exchanges and experiences.
          There is safety among the dead.

 

Life is unsafe! It is unruly! It is a gift which kills!
          It is cheese in a mousetrap!

(6)

You may be tempted to ask,
“What do you mean by these words?
What is the meaning of what you write?”
          I mean nothing by my words!
I merely trade words as I am a traded word.
I present an offering. I give it breath and I bring it death.
I form syllables from the mud and I breath life into them.
I place them in a garden. I give them context.
          But meaning is not mine to give!
The creator does not supply meaning to the created!
The creator finds meaning trough the created. And through meaning,
          the creator finds life.