Sticking the Landing



Some words herd themselves into a flock:
they crowd perfectly good pastures with woolly excess.
Some words run into caves and hang upside down:
they wait for the night so they can fly in invisible, overlapping trajectories.

I can’t help but visualize those roller coasters that insist the rider hazard a second or two upside down. But that is not what I wish to convey.
And this is how an image can overrun a word.
No sword can defend against such an onslaught.

Other words yearn for the arcane and strive to hide in incunabula,
hoping that no tracing hand trips over them.
But such aspirations are foolhardy.

Obscurity becomes commonplace with the greatest of ease.
(indeed it is as yummy as cotton candy to repeat a word spoken by so many)
Yet how long can
one enjoy a dizzying trapeze artist?

Forsooth, I equate the act of speaking with cartwheels, somersaults,
and cannonballs in the lake.
But stillness, or wordlessness, becomes the destination, beyond all books and microphones.

I wonder if there’s room at such an inn, and if it has a trampoline.




About the poet:

I'm a Professor of Media Studies but please don't hold it against me. A Native New Yorker but I have a pretentious mid-Atlantic accent. There's no excuse for it, but it just won't go away.