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Page 61

But the air, to human perception,
doesn't long hold the echoes of our voices.
Safer to fill up the air, that spills out
our voices as fast as we pour them in.
No paper trace to haunt us, only
the memories of our hearers, harder
for us to see (and seeing is believing),
no black on white, oh, we BELIEVE
in black on white, but (not to get
too esoteric about print) we believe

in what appears to last: He's in
MOVIES! He's real! He's in print!
He wrote a real book! He's got his DVD
in the stores! What lasts is real
and dangerous. You have the right
to remain silent. But a poetry reading?

Instant vanishment, a safe place for anything,
a blankness that is self-sustaining --
as are all media, really, but we are
easily fooled by print.

Note: Interesting corollaries: At a poetry reading, my words exist only in you, my listeners...which is tantamount to not existing? What does that say about the existence of you, my listeners? (But perhaps I have no listeners.)

(Re "tantamount": After having his antonym, the French lad decided his tantamount. [Translation: After having his aunt on him, the French lad decided his tante [aunt] to mount.)

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