The Quiet Rebellion of Paper

The Quiet Rebellion of Paper

The Quiet Rebellion of Paper

See here on this maculate page
A poem struggled for breath,
Spat black blood and died.

And here on this one,
A letter left its nail marks,
As it lost its hold and fell into the abyss.

See this hard-edged invitation,
Serrated in two for memoranda,
With plans stillborn one optimistic morning.

Paper is the measure and metaphor of our lives;
Our order’s young faith rests
In white corpseflakes that burn well,
Tear easily, crumple eagerly, fade gracelessly
And cannot resist the blandishments of water.

Paper is order and method, we think
But on a hot neap-tide night
Paper will rebel
Quietly.

Discarded drafts will invade files
Shredded printouts will heal along the seams
Chaperoned incunabulae will mate with Pocketbooks
Illuminated manuscripts will break from the vaults
And head to the fire in kamikaze squads.

And we?
What of us then?
Oh but it is a sultry night
And we are sleeping.
Our mouths hang open, stitched to the pillows
With fine threads of saliva.
Runnels of sweat course through our hair
And each breath is foetid with floss.

We will rise coughing in the dawn
To a new world.
Rivers black with ink
Bank notes printed with runes
Textbooks in lost languages
And poetry replaced by Reader’s Digest mailers.

And we will deserve it too.