the finer line

I forgot the words I wrote today. I can’t recall the topics I kneaded over. It’s not yet midnight and the day feels like a tunnel of content spitting me out like a waterslide. But all gray content, basic beyond belief. I haven’t thought of the world this way since the commercials between daytime television shows.

I before E except after C. Short vowels followed by one consonant. Phonetics boiled down to state mandated curriculum. Is it really true that every syllable of every word must have at least one vowel? Doesn’t that seem like homogenized milk to you? Or Styrofoam? My grade school lunch money is coming back to haunt me.

I heard an interview years ago with the poet Charles Wright. He claimed he didn’t know what iambic pentameter was until his thirties – in so many words. I certainly didn’t blame him at the time. The things we don’t realize about language make up inches of invariable white space between the words – added up.

I machine out web copy every day, just so I can barely pay the bills. I’m nothing but a silent advertiser, an invisible scribe of gross product. Writer of today’s white noise. The little buzz of light what is words.