When you pull the nose, the
Cheeks, the lips ─ the rest comes with.
Perhaps a white sheet, perhaps a
Paragraph. Eight point. Hieroglyph.
A padlock now pried. And peeks
At word peaks. I've tried, I was one
To excavate and sigh on
The vacancy. I have done it, have
Hung my white flag. Fruitless
To 'what if.'
No more. No, I lift it with intention
To lick the last pulp plate dry.
Mouth black, eyes swung back
In absorptive pollination.
It is a commitment, a vow
To bow before a seeming stack of
Syllable trash. And a contract
Sealed with neurons to last, to last.
A laugh. I needn't be so shy. It
Parts so willingly.
You find it dull. You find it’s skeletal
Sentences dripped with drool.
But leafing turns to biting. Turns to
Gnawing, rolling rapports round your
Jaw. A ravenous clang of page after
Page between fang. How wondrous ─
The simplicity in adopting the maw.
The blank screen graced with place
And face, all framed
In hazy milk.
It is the transmutation of it, from
Soporific to sermon. A foot of dust
On the bible ─ these ones bear
A far more spiritual shock. You view it as
Chore, until your spine snaps at the
Spin of it. Until you swallow it. The angle
Alters, trot to rocketing, and the
Climax is your climax.
Huffing, wet, wallowing in the mess.
Commas and capitals. Lap laden
With the win of it.
It is in every tome, a seed of
Sinew. It is a mirror.
Its peels stink of your fingers
In the end. And your veins have
More than ventured, curling about
That of a vapor. You tremble, you
Can barely sit. Trauma-dropped,
It is cooing at your feet. Refusing
To blend. You think a
Book is bad until you marry it.
Until you've carried it over the
Threshold. Wood. Or plastic.
Or pile. A heap, a heap, be it
Costly or cheap. Until you bury
It. Not at the midriff, but at the zenith,
Where it banters on and on
By telegraph. You welcome it
In that anechoic grotto. It is so
Bad, until, sub-hair aware, you
Triumph in the fail to parry it.
© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH
