Stick Figures

Ma demoiselle, this is what I do instead of arguing about gun control. 😉

 

Stick Figures

 

Words! What a mess

of them, words, everywhere.

Plastered on walls, virtual

and physical, slathered on signs,

bound into books

where they flutter in the wind

as if trying to escape.

Words! Orderly and disorderly,

structured and chaotic;

meaning runs rampant

in forty-six alphabets.

Words where you can’t see them.

They hang stealthy in the air between mountains

bounce like kangaroos from slope to slope.

Loud, bold, whispered, italic,

words, what a mess, what a mess,

what a convoluted conflagration

of metaphor and metonymy.

Words, an ocean of lapping waves

of sound and pulped timber boats

<p style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; “>formed from the trees sacrificed

in the name of literacy.

Words, words, words,

how I long to float and drown in them,

send them rippling over air and page

like a rock skipping once, twice,

then too quickly to get an accurate count

til finally I sink into their depths

underwhelmed, overwhelmed, whelmed.