There is a clenched fist where a garden should be. I have written these words before.
Tonight my voice is acting as chute. I’m lending myself to another because I am expecting company, and must be wholly occupied in the anticipation and waiting of my uncertain guest(s).
If I have nothing to say then I am happy to be lent.
I sit, vacant, in a dimly lit room. A single dancing flame reaches in vain for the ceiling. I sit alone in semi-darkness because I believe these conditions to be desirable. I am expecting a visitor. I have sent out invitation. Whether my invitation has been received or otherwise, I do not know. I can not know.
In fact, I believe it highly likely that my guest resides in no fixed abode at all. I imagine my guest as some Odinesque-type figure, spending each night graciously received and honoured by more worthy hosts than I.
I can not let myself be disparaged by this likelihood.
So I sit in half-light and hope.
I examine my small portion.
There is no polished silverware, trumpets are not at the ready, nor do kitchen aromas stir.
I am not even wearing shoes.
But I offer what I have: myself and my single flame,
which is dripping wax and dying now.
If you come, and I swear it…
If you come and you keep your part of the bargain,
I will offer myself as sacrificial lamb.
But you do not come and so I let myself be conduit to another.
It is her voice that you will hear next…
Adieu.
“I am a dead language.
Mould grows on me.
Slick tongues do not bend themselves to form me.
I am not heard by ears; brains do not organize, store,
and in the end, forget
me.
I do not fell hearts, nor do I make spirits leap.
I am a dead language.
An infinite body of unspoken poetry.
I am ten thousand unwhispered sweet nothings.
I have not been spat like venom from fearful hearts,
nor have I roused the hearts of men to take up arms, only to fall down
forever.
I think it cruel that I should be called a dead thing yet feel myself so brimming with life.
What makes a thing dead?
Is it that I am silent and unspoken?
An intangible thing; unuttered by the mouths of men?
ichorizon 