Jingled Percolation

My desk flirts with description

It expresses itself as a desk

Doesn’t vary in any way from being

A desk. It’s a desk, simple and plain

But I sense something going on

In my perception of the desk

Something imperfect in my expectation

Of the desk. I need the desk

To write on, to store things, old letters

Legal documents, tape, paper clips, ribbon

If the desk were a horse the desk

Would be a horse. How is it that I slip

So easily into the subjunctive? Can’t I

Accept the desk as a desk? Must I create

Metaphors for the desk to make it

A better desk? A metaphor doesn’t improve

A thing or change a thing it gives it potential

The power to break against the rocks

Of the imagination and personify prayer

Awakened syllables feel alive and blaze

Into idea with shapes and insistence

Consider this afternoon, its apples and

     apparitions

Falling out of your head. Here I am

Painting a window and attracting a crowd

The potato is behaving badly

And I’m humming a song of thread

To go with the things in my head

Meaning seeps through the words

And it’s irritating when all I get

Is whipped cream and spit. Pronouns

Hang like kelp from my brain

Fondling the heart and sparkling

Give the rags a chance. Add

Consonants and stir. The world

Is a ball of rock and aberration

Baked in jingled percolation