These Words Are Not My Words

By Richard Mather

The open air is hotly thick with sound.

Words like mosquitoes swarming

Around me, pestering

To feed, to infect.

Winged logoi

Buzz my head,

Biting,

Inciting sickness;

Parasites

Inciting violence,

Signifying illness.

My ears are lips swollen.

Words speak too much.

Retreat I must

Go inside as a priest might

Return from the noisy city

To the silent cloister.

Into silence I will not let words follow.

The hospital is vacant.

Around here is nothing

Of significance.

All is unfamiliar, indescribable.

No bodies around.

Even the mendicants

Out there running

Mouths off in a fever lost

To the throng of speech.

But in here I think I am not;

I am where I do not speak.

I must be patient.

Lying down in a bed that isn’t mine

— Pillows so strange they are clouds —

To sleep, to dream

I am beneath a sun.

The air is hot and thick with sound.

Words are mosquitoes

Swarming around me.

They pester

To feed, to infect.

Biting,

Inciting sickness.

Parasites

Exciting a virulent dream.

Retreat,

Retreat I must

Not let words follow me inside.

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Copyright © 2024 by Richard Mather

See also https://www.richardmatherpoetryandphilosophy.com/blog