Let x = this

Let x = this

you say it is not easy to spit up a sense of ‘this’
but I’m not listening ‘this’ time
but thinking of fortune & the fact
that ‘this’ language is
recalcitrant

(we’ll borrow from Wittgenstein:

“The world is all that is the case.”)

as we pause to look over fields of tightly kerned typesetting
splash pinot noir into Val St. Lambert goblets
crush the fresh fig pieces between molars
let the Morbier melt till its ash salts our tongues
pass over what silence cannot be made to say

(recompose the world phrase

by drowsy phrase)

keep on taking in words as if there was substance in them
squalls of reference ruffling thru our parole
or what you’d call fancy talk
but I’ll ignore the gravity of your ardor
as you use  me for explanation
or something more Anglo-Saxon
a coital detour into argument

(we can seek the lees of speech

with curious tongue-tips)

sweep up the leftover alphabets everyone else forgot
the abused vowels the stains of consensual lust
between adjacent consonants
frame this thing we improvised

(and there was much in late-century French

theory we place here _______)

but I say put the flesh of your words here
between my top & bottom lips
let me eat the meal of your complaint

(yes you & I more or less spawning

in a polluted stream)

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Published in Rampike Vol 19#2 (Cultural Mischief Issue)