14 July 2025

mood dictionary

in the stars and wind
emblems, logos, signs of signs
fraught anachronisms, historical pastiche
take your pick before you bend

to the parallel imaginary wind… inaudible,
invisible, untouchable… it exerts no pressure
on any skin or drum or thumb
a purple-sounding x in perplex

a hear-here for complex
or see-here for your startled
yes! behind question-marked goggles
it’s a valedictory misadventure

to treat all art the same
as i would not if I had but the grace
to name things as they are
and number them in sequence, too

and remember them (the hardest bit)
and trot them out in any circumstance
called for by this host of witnesses
these clouds, these beams, these glances, lies