Endling - Jan 12 2025

 

Endling

Jan 12 2026

Words beget words.

All the clans, begats, and dynasties

dictionaries miss,

the illegitimate children

you wish were proper nouns.

As for me, my etymology is lost

back beyond 2 generations or so;

even the revisionists

can’t contort history

to let me know.

If only language didn’t shift

words inflate

terms perish;

like stillbirths,

mourned, but never named. 

I write, talk, digress.

My words give birth to words

as if I’d invented sex,

hoping they’ll outlive me

but knowing they won’t.

After all

would verbose, prolix, long-winded

make them listen once again?

With too many mouths to feed

would eating your children make sense?

While abundance is fine,

it’s scarcity

that incites desire;

the one-of-a-kind,

rare objet d’art.

Which reminds me of the perfect line

I plagiarized,

the only child

of undivided love.

The orator 

at his turn in speaker’s corner

pounds the lectern and rants,

predicting Armageddon

in spittle-filled sentences

promiscuously sprayed.

He’s either scorned or ignored,

his expletives

landing like shrapnel

on barren ground.

I don’t know which is worse,

the mockery he gets

or my bitter regret

at never giving voice.

To be an endling;

as impotent

as the last of its kind,

fruitlessly searching 

for its illusory mate.