Who Owns the Words?

The Thought

Can the sheer love of words
exist in its own right?
In poetry, it almost seems
possible, but for the fact that
words so quickly uncover
things within that long to
emerge into the light as well.
So much is stored in words,
so much remembered, thought,
contemplated, repeated, imagined.
I tried to write a poem to
allow the mere sounding
of words. Then I realized I
could not remain, or they
could not remain, in that
isolated realm for long. I
tried to see the words for
what they are, mere objects.
But the moment I identify them in
their specificity another door is
opened. Once opened, a whole
cast of characters, an entire
regalia or troupe, arrives
en masse. This entourage
once on the scene, appears unwilling
to stay still. The characters begin
to perform, and as they perform, they
transform and so do the onlookers.
This seems germane not only to
what words are, but also to
what they want to be. Everything
and everyone is an actor,
and plays a part in thought and life.
The words not only form
an essential procession, or march, but
they skip, amble, stumble,
jump, hide and reappear in
turn. What began as a quote
for an occasion became a
thought that returned, at intervals,
for a lifetime. If the quotes
themselves have characters,
they have also faces, hands and
feet. They evidently
have settled in for good. They are
friends, acquaintances,
rivals, enemies. When I was
young, I found them
to be interesting, eccentric strangers.
They will never seem so again.

**************
Who Owns the Words?

The Poem

dreams-Freud
ice cream- Stevens
center- Yeats
Christmas- Dickens
tomorrow-Shakespeare
and the anthologies
broadcast
aspersion
clever
immediate
span
burst
let
right
resume
mayhem- Child
begin again- Mayer
sonnet- Berrigan
lost
seem
beg
remain
mint-mist-mystery
low
chemical
sin
love-Anonymous
dispersion
beneath
treasure
steam
herald
gleam
underneath
seeming
just
great-glad
allow
abandon
twist
personify
admit
treasure
impersonate
sting
relent
pursue
plagiarize
presume
stigma-Bernstein
stigma- Goffman
reveal
unjust
permit
forgive