Friday, June 25, 2021

HYPERTEXT

"Don't get any 
big ideas," they say 

as if concepts 
had a shape,

took up space,  

put on weight.

"Don't be so 
hormonal," we snap 

as if phonemes 
could cross 
the synaptic gap; 

as if we weren't 
wordlessly
speaking to ourselves.

*

Perhaps experts 
minted profane words
for sex—

for violence, 
infirmity, and
betrayal next—

not because 
they must be 
discussed, but 

rather, to act
as talismans,

so that we 
wouldn't have to 
contain them.

*

With the web cache 
of hindsight, 
we can now see

the brilliance 
of the 20th century 
poets 

was to mishmash 
their analogies

and to formulate 
their metaphysics so exquisitely  
backwards: 

plainly, ideas 
are not in things

they only exist 
as the bridges 
between them.