Dead Content In A Dead Monument Poem by Margaret Alice

I’m scared of my document, I’m scared of the
words that form lines and sentences I can’t
understand, I see no meaning in all the cold
words that have not been compiled with an
eye and ear for how they sound, for their
rhythm and beauty, for their acting ability

For their natural aptitude to paint pictures,
perform magical rituals and create lace-like
structures of beauty, to become stories and
parables and symbols of enchanting ideas
and promising theories and glorious visions –
cold, cold words, defaced and scarred

By their demeaning position in grey sentences;
to be relayed in ice-cold and lifeless constructions;
by scientific terms that must be ascertained by
consulting ice-cold manuals and legal dictionaries;
words bound up and trussed and emptied of
subjective connotation and denotation

Words without song and rhythm and dancing;
I must string along dead, dead words, without melody
or movement, without feeling or power or beauty,
without the right to be unique - I must render the
same dead content in a dead monument to legal
ideas bereft of emotion, vision and dreams…

(I don’t care what the words mean, as long as they sing – said Alice exasperatedly…)