Not Aloud

Not Aloud

by Gideon Burton

I'm just not going to say it -- not aloud.

You know how some stuff changes once in words,

how certain thoughts live only in the cloud

of demi-memory, in halves and thirds,

and verbalizing sets perimeters,

commits you to accept or to react.

Crude instruments! As though altimeters

suffice for pitch or yaw. The lens is cracked

that focuses as clearly as a word

defined. Unwind those denotations, blur

and smear the wash of colored music, stir

the safe obscurities: alive, absurd.

     The drums might rhythm smooth our wrinkling brains;

     to speak or write welds thinking into chains.

Photo: Flickr - Thomas Hawk