The Shape Of Words Poem by Terry Manns

The shape of words in Autumn is different from other seasons
Remarks are brittle and dry, turning to dust on the tongue
Deeply colourful in their death throes,
The skeletons of beautiful things picked clean by crows.

Summer’s statements are bold and bright,
Shouting, posturing, declaring their sovereignty
Volatile adjectives incite consonants to riot,
To tussle with verbs for space and place on the palate.

A profusion of all things said and scribed,
The verses of Spring in full flower
Over-flow the beds of mouths and bowers of diction,
But are irresistible in their composition.

Onto Winter, obliterating the landscape of dialogue
With whitewashed canopies of packed expression
No two words the same, intricate, delicate,
The last utterance on the final page of Thought’s text, inviolate.