LOST WORDS

By John Knowles

( a response to the recent haul of skunk in Silchester Road)

A friend and I once smoked some particularly
Hallucinogenic skunk and as we sat and talked
His words actually took shape
Became 3D and floated around the room
Nouns bumping up against verbs
Restless and tense. Suddenly I became aware
That the room was filling up, Mark
On this occasion being particularly verbose.
We were now both in danger of
Suffocating, of being weighed down
by the weight of his words
I managed to stifle his conversation for a few moments
whilst I stood up, pushing aside:
Ifs,  ands,  buts and maybes
Till I reached the window and slid it open
Holding it open with a stray letter I
Wafting his words out with
With a question mark (?)  and a ‘Y’
Out of the window, his words took flight
Over the roofs, like helium balloons
Scaring the seagulls, the weaker words
Bouncing along the pavements
Scattering pigeons
Till at last Mark was free to talk once more.
Years later I will occasionally see
His words caught like shopping bags in
Chain link fencing, or nesting in hedgerows.
Anger, snagged by brambles
Love tangled in the wire frame
Of an abandoned shopping trolley
I once saw the word Carpathian lodged
In barbed wire above a ladies toilet in Margate
Which was strange, not a word
I would have associated with Mark
It made me wonder, were there others
Speaking in 3D, and now I keep an eye out
For lost words and I log them.
So far to date:
Leafy, change, market led, refrain
Docile, carpet, Jesus, strain
Beauty, acres, lately, tragic
Nebulae, dust, cobbled and magic.
My advice, for what it’s worth
If you should see a stray word
Don’t abuse it, take it home
And daily, use it.

Also in: Poetry