Words
For Francisco Font-Acevedo on the occasion of his dedicatory
You cannot get too comfortable around words for they conspire
To change the meaning of things held dear or feared
That from which you came that to which you go and all between
No solace can be gleaned or pain effaced nor water forked
Or fire bled nor wind turned on its head or earth surveyed they
Flock disperse fly overhead nest in your jaw crisscross your heart
They lie always in waiting or writhe down your hands in wrath or
Scathe your breath searching for the syllables to flesh them out
So they can name things for the short duration those hopes that
Meanings like to imply when they congress for war on the open page
Like armies in the morning mists in the greenest wood when trumpets
Blare for nation faith or king or digging the graves where we shall fall
Therein lies the beauty of it all that it was all for a word or words
That all is believed or betrayed to achieve the truest of the heavenly
That most rarefied of fruit that makes it worthwhile to abandon paradise and
Name the unnamed dream the undreamed sing the unsung like gods
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In the beginning
There were words I did not know when I should have known Their learning
Took its toll because ignorance of them as in the law is no excuse
These words barbarians stormed raped my eyes laid waste kidnapped
My tongue scourged the page left nothing in their wake but doubt
They populated in my midst a different race of things a barren land
And my walks became a journey of unreadable signposts the north
And south and east and west of solitude a ground zero of silence
Four walls and a window a drifting sky a mosquito net under which
I slept I dreamed awoke and fled and read and read and wrote by rote
Misspelled my life preached to the few words left promised them the
Promised land walked them over the waters gave them a code to live by
To multiply over the page until the second coming or the ink runs out
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Words like a War Movie
Who loves in future tense the past tense to deride I tell you this
Love rides the seasons’ tides its reason is a moment’s lurch a
Pastoral without a Church a doggerel rhyme tongue twisting spark
Should I for this deny the pleasure of the ride the sweatly sweet
Embarkment on a whim and swim the ocean to decide that I was wrong
I dare you this a love not lived the mornings after toe to toe if the
Life that got away is any solace on the sidewalks in the coldest rains
If this consoles you then kiss and part your separate ways forever not
If not play scrabble on your lover’s face deface the tiles upend the table
And kiss them as you run from the law Print your own Most Wanted
Posters and nail them to the poles and turn yourself in for all the most
Recent transgressions and escape on the side roads with a cigarette
Dancing on your lips You owe this to yourself for once to be
On the wrong side of the punctuation A Fugitive from the Written Word
Then parachute down through the paragraphed foliage like war-torn footage
With words like tracers lighting up the sky the bridges to explode
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Ceremonies
Between madness and the page words between desire and loss as you
String them along the precipice walk the tightrope don’t look down the
Long night waiting for them to assemble you search for the patterns before
You commit them before you let go the wardrobes they choose for
Ornament ceremonies you may only suggest amid the anarchy you
Watch for birds or any sign the lack of breeze an ant trail that appears
From nowhere a trail of crumbs a photo that falls out of a book and
Stay still there may be a spark you’ve overlooked wanting to be the arsonist
You must be ready to be consumed by the fire its silent canonization falling
Backwards into the stanzas and if they ask to bleed you give of the blood
Sanctify yourself because there are no other gods in the room then look
Back at what the page reveals the necessary murders that must be sung
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Day Seven
Too close for words are certain things That language of the near the gaping
Absences I woke to as I tried to trace myself back into them Thrust as
I always was to a life I had no words for and so it was that I began and
So it was that I was careened and left to dry and so it was a new day
Dawning or so I feared that I was still myself again the words still taunting
Beyond my reach my touch beyond my prayers beyond any absolution like
A mumbler in confessionals before the latticed screen in silence waiting
For what ablution I must perform what penance tasked How many times
Must I thread the beads What dance or mime for the air to materialize
In duly metered order just in order to breathe another day onto the page
Let the pen fall from my grasp at last My thing is done absolved anew Rest
Now for the words will still be whirling come morning come morning
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j. a. morales-santo domingo
2017