A Clown and His Pipe

There’s better ways for us to waste our days,
Than returning stares that we borrowed for too long.
For too long, swallowed up by an empty page.
What starvation feeds you, devourer
Of the words of a thousand authors and poets, alike?
Wells have emptied to whet your thirst,
So I’ll shake out to the last, a drop of fluency
To carve ink into these precious words,
To dedicate a thought in desperation.
We could light a fire and forge a silver tongue.
Drawn beneath our blunt remarks,
Fashioned from all of our meaningless change.
What would it take, to pry these ragged teeth, to tear these jaws apart?
What would it prove, to wrench them from my heels, to shed them from my heart?
Swallowing swords, sharpened by turning cheeks between blows.
I feel this is better left a performers art.
It’s a narrow throat that keeps a razor’s edge from the heart.
I’d rather not speak in tongues.
But I’ll take every breath - I’ll make every breath a piper, charming flames,
Singing and dancing, out from their smouldering bed.
Swallow the pen, devour the sword.
Inhale the proverbs whole.
Spinning on static, gouged before the peak.
In this chaos of frequencies it’s so hard to speak.
This noise is nameless,
Stumbling like a beggar,
Desperate for some kind of change.