Cant

We lie to each other everyday
expressing feelings
through words;

from feeling to thought
the transfer loses something,

thought to word
loses something more.

Science believes in research
until cure,
but somehow language closed the shop
on words
as if, meaning were dough
measured perfectly by the cookie cutter
language.

In conversations we play
an unresolved charade
articulating the elusive notion beyond
the boundaries of a specific term,
we flounder with metaphors,
adjoin parallels,
prefix and suffix,
leaving the other person to fill in
with grab bags of clichés
jargons to nail
down the indescribable.

Poetry and legalese
offer the only viable review of language
as we know it.

Music and paintings can
map the gulf of abstract notions
with more success than language; for instance,

Blue in Green1
can be played
or Christina’s World2
can be displayed to convey
clearly that we are somewhere
between despair and peace
longing and redemption
loneliness and comfort.


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Blue in Green1=a Miles Davis jazz tune

Christina’s World2=a painting by Andrew Wyeth