Poem: Puzzle Box First appearance in WILDsound Writing Festival
The metaphor at work here is, that letters in a panning box, are like ideas in a mind. They are subject to being jostled into all sorts of relationships. It is language and convention that steers them into normal pairings. It is the creative urge that places them like speed-dating, with unlikely candidates, that search for that remote association that startles the mind with ‘happened upon’ consequence.
The coda addresses the micro focus of the poem against the macro frame work of all else continuing, and commenting on, this pin point experiment. It goes from the abstract of a musing to the hardcore reality that we are all choosing how each of our moments are spent.
Puzzle Box
my letters are tossed into a panning box
which I shake and watch
shake and watch
but no words emerge
the letters dance, swing themselves
and crowd into frightened huddles
of code
or nonsense
this morning, I almost saw
the words evil, silver and sliver
but they weren’t there
only broken versions of
happy, sometimes, and
don’t
silently, i cheer on their tiny teams
hoping they gel
cement into significance
yet their marching never runs above
a stagger
slow gangs
of panic
I reach a bony finger into the box
and stir them
shove them
nudge them
I coax nothing.
I salt them with periods,
painting
with confused pepper…
nudge and shove
nudge and shove
I will continue my harmless singing
keep injecting myself
into them
experimenting
with expression
as I
we
play with
the end of time.
~~~~~