I am out of words, and yet
they riot inside me
a cacaphony of complaints,
laments, exultations, exhalations,
rants, moans, cries, whispers
(…uncomfortable silences…)
There is always a scene
taking place somewhere
(the grips and gaffers
never get a break)
all the green rooms overlap,
overlying the stage, skulking
in warehouses, alleyways, street corners,
languishing on cold pebbled beaches,
vacant sun-blasted plains,
deep green forests wet with rain
sun burning fog drowning light blasting shadows
Words fill me to overflowing
a non-stop babble of voices,
music, arguments, diatribes,
calls to arms, well-worn jokes,
soap box monologues
Yet cat-like they ignore
my pleas, not one will come
to my beck and call
they will not heed, sit, stay, fetch, roll,
behave – oh, they will bark,
and bite, and run, how they run
as far out of reach as truth and astronauts
They shun this infernal machine
too many of their siblings birthed here
too many caged, corralled, squashed,
beaten into paragraphs, sentences,
point form bulleted lists
formatted, chopped, diced, broiled
tidied, cleaned, defaced, butchered
Refusing digital bondage
they yet mock the bald antiquity,
the quaint solidity of paper
faced with the laughable simplicity
of a black roller-ball pen
my prose stumbles and staggers,
wanders off course, forgets itself,
its name, the way home,
muttering in confused circles
hands flying like tethered birds
flapping vainly for a kind of freedom
We are only here by virtue
of this flesh and blood interface, this
thinking machine, this sum
of immeasurable parts
yet the interface is faulty, limited, dull-
witted, and far, far too slow
for these frenetic whims and fancies
This resistant weariness, this sullied
sullen petty vanity of vapours
sits not well with me
I would soar among the stars,
if only I could teach myself
how to forget when falling
how to forget to hit the ground.
– T.H.
05.16.11 (Amadeus journal)
