The art of saying what cannot be or need not be said even if you Iisten hard enough...

The art of saying what cannot be

………………………………………..for Harriet Monroe
… said
………………or need not be

What's the difference if you call tinnitus or l'acouphθne a 'tintement, a 'buzzing', a 'chuintement', a 'whistling', or pure sounds of music : it is still not stilled in him who lies still.

……………………… he left his spectacles on a narrow ledge
and pulled the lever
………….to let the trough down

slopping mιlange of cement paint and the sneeze of bird droppings carried by swirling winds

… did he fear his glasses would come
off
……… or was it just the fear of mιlange slurp on his glasses

… a near-full trough wobbled with the first jerk of the pulley

… a treacle of a drop streaked thick
chased by a heart-shaped losange

…………… long before the splash hit the ground
he thought of whom he might excise
………………. from his last will and testament
with a vengeful codicil
……………………….. the greediest
………………………........... the laziest
or the great spenders

he might not have thought it important
but was it the moment his foot caught
the snake coils of a rope high
on the scaffolding

…………… did he think he heard a saffron-robed monk
knock the tool-box down in haste
a faux pas he felt was not to his taste
……………….. at least at that very moment
still he let himself be led
…………………………. half-blind into
realms not so bizarre
………………………… after all
with only the colliding tinnitus
…………… reverbrating in his ears

What would anyone think
if he or she would come upon his eyeless specs :

" … best to leave said or unheard things alone… "

© T. Wignesan - Paris, July 23, 2018