Sunday, May 10, 2015

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

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