Les Mots, Les Vers, Le Pain

words are not well today; starched
you ate them up like bread
in a box they slowly spoiled; parched
charnel house for the unsavory dead.

they’ve pickled long in quiet brine
meaning chokes; forms bind
brackish style and sly shade of lime
but not the wit once thought entwined

Yesterday, words were silkworms
crawling naked through town
Godiva white - stiff, gluey germs
		          but now

words have become unsettled and vague
no longer stuck like papier mache  
but strewn out in bodies of an undying plague
		most beautiful array
The words are not well today.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2005

Poem

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