MORE AND LESS THAN WORDS

They say

that there are active sentences

and agents

and objects

Intent can be diagrammed

Silent fragments

together

mean something

With the longest spoon in the world

we stir them up

and spit them out

fruitfully and fruitlessly

we chew and chew

savoring and gagging

struggling to swallow them

over the lumps in our throats

            Sputtering, slavering, and singing

            we spill and stain them

            and sometimes

            set them free

                       

            Meaningless without

            their consummated nourishment

And sickened by

what they lack

Prepositions and propositions

go unanswered

and worse, unasked

Tongue tied with a satin ribbon

That decoration,

curled and dangling,

longs for a tiny grasp

to tug at its end

and release the middle part,

the tangled order,

of its essential knot

(for what is a ribbon

without its knot?)

Knots and nots

are so different

yet exactly the same

There is a place

where all ingredients

mean one

where the parts stack up

only to topple with

expression and nonsense

music and silence

sometimes

trying to say the same thing

sometimes

trying to say different things

and sometimes

trying to say

that which is

perfectly and horribly

unspeakable