Outside Voice Poem by Denis Mair

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The signboard beside a deserted road got tired

of the futility of advertising for an advertiser,

so someone painted the word NOTHING on it.

Now the owner is no more, and for the sign there is no other fate

but waiting for the letters to flake off, so it won't be ignored.

To blazon such a stark theme shows a streak of existential hard-headedness,

but it still has to contend with the pendulum swing toward flaky mindedness.

Meanwhile, the fresh paint of an outsourced voice

gloats from its prominent spot beside a busy street,

over the multitude of eyeballs that will soon pass it in torrents.

When words are flung, such are the cosmic flukes in distribution of attention:

Some seeds of meaning are swamped; some will be left high and dry.
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