Words
These words, little more than trinkets, piffle,
Trade in counterfeits with the soul
(Should there be one).
They stack loose change in separate piles
Hoping they might add up one day
To sums almost enough to pay
A bigger bill. A shambles, bric-à-brac,
Surreptitiously changing meanings
As time plunders and loots along
Its gaudy way, hooting from start to finish.
They strut, preposterously, gasp, grunt
And grapple with approximations
Stuffed into boxes that are too small
Or wallow in shallow waters
Or clatter against the bars of mindless cages.
Simpletons, yet our only hope.
An occasional monument mutters and natters
In memory’s swamps. Words are alligators,
Prowling semi-submerged among
Neurons’ mangrove roots, dense, impenetrable,
Repetitive, tarnished, unclear.
Some creatures learn their way around
Among the gaps, the misunderstandings,
Throwing words at the page
Hoping someone will catch the re-bound
And pass them on and even help them
Come home again with a new suit of clothes,
Walking sticks, walking frames, wheelchairs,
Provided the sparkle still glimmers there.
I tinker with the search engine.
It cranks up sometimes, spluttering, coughing.
It takes me places, like somewhere and nowhere.
Peter Eustace has published two books of poems in English and Italian (Vistas, 2006, and Weathering, 2010) and an English-only pamphlet (Brink, 2009) with erbacce press, Liverpool. He has been a guest at the Valpolicella, Verona, Monte Baldo and Nogara festivals (Italy), as well as the Small Press Day/10th anniversary of the UNESCO World Academy of Poetry, Verona. He was the featured poet in issue 45 of erbacce magazine (June 2016). Other poems have appeared on-line and in print (Ink, Sweat and Tears and Equinox). Two of his poems opened the Carrillon Ten Forward anthology. He will be one of the selected 6 invited poets in issue 50 of erbacce.