Building

It’s not that hard, I just don’t want to do it.

The words are there, lying on the table, on the floor, in the corners.

They hang from the lights and from my fingers.

Someone must gather them and build them nice.

Build them pretty or ugly or angry or strong or mystifying.

Lay them in order, in order to tickle something, someone, somewhere.

The stories are there, skulking in the corners of my brain.

They lie listed on yellow pages waiting for me to lift them, live them.

They whisper and whistle at me in the night, and in the deviling day.

They pull on my sleeve, point to something.

Some thing my blind eyes miss, some sound my dying ears can’t capture.

I don’t smoke but I want to.

I won’t drink, not at noon, but I want to.

I want silence and clamor, all at once.

Séance and hellfire, all at once.

Lift it up and drop it, crashing to the earth like thunder, like hard rain.

Make it work, make a world for dropping into, smothering this one.

The impossible, build the impossible, but make it nice.

Shepherd it and shelter it and show it the door to creation.

Gild it, gold it, govern it with a gentle guiding hand.

But make it nice.