Empty Words

I’m telling myself

these affirmations,

I’m muttering incantations.

I said all the

magic phrases,

the buzz words

and nothing has changed.

Is this thing on?

I held the pointed tips

of my sentence fragments

out in front of me,

hoping to cut through the noise

like machete through brush.

I lashed out,

swinging through

the tangle,

yet the exclamations

fell flat.

Flailing about

yet just barely scratching

the surface,

like a samurai sword

with a blade of

wet cardboard.

The truth isn’t always flashy

or impressive,

or what you’d like to hear,

but it’s the only thing with

enough substance

to breach

the dissonance.

Wield it wisely,

or you’ll put an eye out.

Canary Trap

Anyone with a high enough perch

yearns to be heard.

The higher-ups watch like hawks,

like harriers staring down

through the spaces between

the bars,

no need to rattle the cage.

Let them talk,

let them spin their yarns.

Tell them what they’d like to hear,

down to every, minute detail

but skewed

tailored anew to everyone you told.

No one thinks about the things that “everybody knows.”

Stymphalian birds,

cruising low and slow

surveying the land,

hungry bronze beaks glinting

long grass blown flat

to the ground

with each

beat of their razor-edged wings.

The hammer and nail

follow the trail

and retrace their tracks

back to the little bastards

who first chirped.

Telegraphing

I was just about sure

my words would always

go unheard.

Dots and dashes

between two cans

intertwined.

Who’s to say

the notes will make it there,

or side-wind

through one ear and out the other,

or bounce around

inside your skull.

Know what I mean?

Trapped in the highest spire

of our respective mind palaces.

No runway,

no helipad,

we’ll have to drop each other

a line.

Our words

will run along

the overgrowth.

May we drink wine,

tell tall tales

and catch up —

even when we’re far away.

Echolocation

Soaring on

streams of consciousness.

I’m speaking up

speaking up —

even if you’re not tuned-in.

Haven’t you heard?

I’m broadcasting

so that one way

or another

we’ll find each other.

I’ll spread the word.

Come dusk

we’ll find a spot

with great acoustics,

and sing our hearts out.

I’m speaking up,

speaking up,

because I have a voice.

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Transmissions

Games of telephone

only rarely end in fistfights

despite the breakdowns in communication.

Wherever the goal posts slide too,

just have faith your teammate

won’t fumble —

then upon receipt,

so help you God,

shoot straight.

It’s a game of inches,

where the slightest errors

accumulate

and slowly send your statement

careening off course.

How quickly we forget

when our ears

become mere passageways

for the words to escape.

But, if I’m being honest,

a mind like a steel trap,

on it’s own isn’t enough,

and does not a strong chain make.

Games of telephone

barely ever end exactly right

just try your best, given the situation.

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Codebreakers

There is simply no way

to not communicate.

But there are times

When direct quotations

must masquerade

as pointless noise.

Working backwards,

the cipher takes

a clear line

of thought,

ties it into

a Gordian knot,

and casts it in to the ether,

to be parsed out,

piece-by-piece

by one side

or another.

Brilliant mathematicians,

turned prospectors,

decrypt, ascribe

and sift for grains of truth,

or pertinent words

in the cloud of deception.