Take On a Life of Its Own - Sept 9 2023

 

Take On a Life of Its Own

Sept 9 2023



We still dial phones and pump gas

even though we don't

do either.

Language has its own persistence

if not immortality.

Things may not mean what we say

but we still get their drift.

Because words can be slippery

as freshly caught fish,

thrashing about mightily

until squirming free

from our literal grip.

Catch and release, I say.

Send a word

out into the world

and let it take on a life of its own.

No dead fish

swishing back and forth

in the blood-stained bilge

in the bottom of the boat.

Even the newspaper

no longer has pages.

Instead, I’m reading on a glass screen

filled with light.

Too bad

it's the same sad news

of pain

failure

philandering,

violence greed and vanity.

I'd throw the paper across the room

to vent my disgust.

Now, nothing to do

but turn the page.

Metaphorically, of course.

They used to line the bird cage

wrap fish in this,

let them pile up

in a dusty corner

out of sight.

As if old news

would improve with age.

As if the depressing words

would somehow lose their stink.

Cheap newsprint

yellowing and brittling,

giving off that vinegar smell.

The ink eventually fading,

until mercifully

it can no longer be read.