[the day poetry became something else]

This hole I've cut-
torn, slashed, mutilated, sliced-
It bleeds,
it bleeds and hurts
hurts and bleeds.

The fact of this
silences me ;
shuts me up
There are things I would have said
and now cannot.

And oh, words!
what we do when we play with them
is tag with a tiger
catch a tiger by the toe
but we could play
kiss chase with metaphors round the clock
and never get down to fucking

Because does the word metal
taste the same in your mouth
as it feels against the tug and scrape of your arteries?
Does the word die
Kill
As if by divine power
as it shoots from the mouths of the disenfranchised
Does the word high
in any way compare
to the scalectrix on your neuron pathways
Does it?

It depends if the tiger is hungry

We are close- very close-
to the knife-edge of perfection
Which is why sometimes
we tip the balance too far

You get tired of walking on tightropes
even ones stretched out over Hell
and STILL the hole I've cut
bleeds and hurts
hurts and bleeds.
Words are not bandages
Words are not anything

i wish i could have nothing more to do with them

from roundabout 2010/12 Christmas time