Words

Words
Daniel Pettee

Watered-down spirits in half-filled glasses;
bleached garments sifted by the sun
to virtual visual nothingness; rust-rimmed implements
pendant from workshop hooks; timeless incense
and unstoppered perfumery; several of ten
ringed pins still standing, fast-frozen frames, near misses.

Ant-crawling, mice-typed images expressed
on foolscap thin as a lizard’s gelid skin,
as cool as stainless silver sheen; the touch of
a beached, bleached fish. Well…there isn’t much of
sure significance, of emotion’s essence, when
the last long letter of love’s addressed.

Diced and measured crossword puzzles of dreaming,
scheming souls at ease, blanked cubes like
geometric cubbyholes for visions closed in glassine tissue
so tough fresh razor blades can’t cut it. A trial: at issue?
Significance of pasts and futures, memory’s slight trick
of gilding lilies via passages of double timing.

Blinking and blinkered images on cuneiformal CRTs
in shaded living rooms only remotely occupied;
a spectral glow commemorates the apathy of
ignorance, the very dearth or death of love
aligned against the shiny, superficial blade
of double visions…or extemporaneous disease.