finding the words

this is the game we play, my words and I:

they hide, and I seek.

describe me, I beg, pressing a hand

to my antagonistic aching chest.

and they say,

catch us first.

.

so I do.

in my car that won't start.

in the bottom of my coffee cup.

in the rain that roars relentless

down my rusted roof.

at three am when I wake with heartburn, clothed

in sweat, the words flit across a half-lit stage

as, blindfolded, I follow the feathery flapping

of their feet.

they seldom make sense.

they almost never

mean the same thing twice.

.

it's the chase that thrills,

the wanting of the thing that turns me out and

tucks me tight, sheets of paper cradling me,

newsprint bassinet.

terrifying.

tilting, trembling

on the tip of my tongue,

elusive as a childhood smell

or a dream upon waking.

.

the definitive strokes of each letter

have the power to undo me or to

lash me together, a cord of kindling

kept carefully from the cold.

.

the hallowed hunt,

a haunting, heart-pounding thing,

the way in the throes of it, I'll mash the keys

like I'm trying to nail each sentence

to the cross before it slithers away,

prehensile tail wriggling,

withering in my greedy grasp.

.

the more time spent,

the better you get at beating the block.

the narrower you can hone your sights

on the shape of a thing, breathe until

it puffs up on the window or mirror before

you, bathed in condensation,

bared like a buried bauble.

.

how do I create something from nothing?

how do I survive a need

so sharp

to touch the intangible?

.

the day came when I grew tired of the question,

exhausted by an existence hinged on

mining a miasma of meaning.

I spent a couple of years feasting on

the words of others, glutted to the gills

on the rich fare.

I felt and ignored the itch;

I let it simmer, a perverse type of edging.

.

for a time, I gave up my pernicious pursuit,

hung my gun and watched the words run away

from me, over the hills of dysphonia,

contextless and free-

.

only to find that in this, too, there was poetry.