"Words of the Unprofound"

by Joseph M. Gant

These notes are just obscene.
To feel that no one listened
or ever understood your words,
you force them all to read your mind fuck
of grievances threaded with apology.
They’re really all the same— these swan songs to enlighten
them. These things are not profound.
You said it all without a pen, without
a word spoken
to all who walked into that motel —
Shower stall walls crying red,
strange feelings 'neath the feet of
those not navigating well the mind
field left before them. Screams.
Yeah, you said it all,
and still you left this note.

What exactly is your deal?
If you'd have said it outright yesterday,
even I would have listened to you.
Or did you want to be a writer,
forever published in tile grout, lacking
what it really doesn't take to do well, you opt for this—
A captive audience finds this shit so . . . moving,
but only for a while. You were no fucking Dickens,
and your final words will one day be filed under "T."

If I had to do it . . .
I mean, if I had to write one
just to show you how it's done
and kill eternity's time a while
I'd write, "The only thing I'll miss is beauty."
But I already do, and so am done.


*first published in Sex and Murder Magazine