There are dreams

            Behind every abstract noun –

            No, multitudes of them –

            Clamouring and bustling and jostling elbows

            To push past and singly squeak into the narrow cleft

            Created by the word

 

            Only to disappear, hauled down

            By the competitors who scramble up

            To take their place,

            Etcetera . . .

 

            And so it goes for verbs,

            Though much more complicated,

            Involving as they do unspoken

            Nouns of every stripe and

            Hue of specificity

 

            And as for adverbs, adjectives and even

            Participles, every smallest bit,

            Each throwaway –

            The least sound sounded or unheard –

            Conceals the legions

            Sweltering of hope,

            All massed

            With just one end in sight,

            One purpose

            Under the disguise of

            Elaborate operatic fugues and

            Dance:

 

            To keep us poised

            And reaching

            On the seas of hubris

 

            So a tear or two

            Between us, darling,

            Shouldn’t count so much

            However many countless dreams

            Lie crystallised upon a cheek,

            Bones gleaming indiscreetly on a

            Desert mountainside

 

            Relics, not museum pieces

 

            Much relief, at least,

            From mouthing