Prose Ache

Prose Ache

This is a placeholder poem.
It is made out of coathangers and twigs
and I rest it here while I
wrestle
with concepts too oily to grasp.
My fingers slither over insubstantial scissures.
I strip down to my navel and engage,
rucking shoulder to shoulder with tropes. I try to
grapple with a dozen spidery sub-plots that
stick tendrils up my nose and mouth and threaten
to put out my eyes.
I bite and sever, the cut is raw. A parry and block
gives me time to
step back and rethink.

I put on my poet's hat, a floppy thing of
red velvet and royal blue feathers
lined with vellum. It's impractical
by necessity.
I draw my sword and with balletic wrist,
describe a whorl in the air.
Unlike alphabetti spaghetti, these words
are tricksy. I can't pinion them with the tines of a fork.
Quickstab.