The Paradox Of Poetry....The Inherent Limitations Of Words Poem by John Tansey

Words,

smithed, with an inherent
inability
as tools, in their blunt edge,
kill with an intent
to punctuate
the shapeless thing
segregated,
to a towering babble of
words.

Words,
spoken, in a foreign broken
tongue,
tie language
in image, thriving
as islands
in a space of pauses
between,
the watered down phrases of
words.

Words,
without some incantation of image,
or mnemonics
of upwelled longing,
pronounce dead,
the ghost in the body of the poem
sieved,
through the white sheeted
cold clinical facts of
words.

Words,
which claim, with appendage,
the treasures of things
buried,
beneath the measure of a name,
denotes through their usage:
the paradox of poetry
posed with
such preconceived prejudices of
words.