Who sleeps with an angel
crushes a feather
The lesson of the flower
blindfolds in black soil
This is not white
only silence its memory
A drop of sunlight makes
a halo on the rosary bead
Sea races and dashes
the silent statues of days
In the House of Strangers
the plague of a 1000 doubts
The hands of a clock
sculpt a mirror into stone
An automatic moment propels
itself in the face of time
The wings of the sky cast
bird shadows over a sundial
Lift wand of night to the
dying ochres' instrumental
The menses of the crescent
carve an ivory bas relief
Put on the hat of the moon
Stride away to the stars
The future concludes nothing
True or false
--Dennis Saleh
THE SAY
As in, the last-Say.
Or, he'll want to
have some-Say.
Who's to have
the-Say,
or the final-Say.
Say, do you know?
Say-what?
You don't say.
There's hear-Say,
the old what-Say.
You might need
the gain-Say,
or a nay-Sayer.
You might attempt
an as-Say,
venture an es-Say,
conclude a
brief-Say
on somebody's
Say-so.
The Say-it-
isn't-so
cannot be
overlooked,
also never
forgetting
sooth-Sayers,
Cousin here-Sy,
Sister curt-Sy.
Also ages ago
folds and tapestries
of woven-Say,
dressing in Say,
the Say-man
passing with wares
at a Faire.
I dare-Say
there would be
old-Sayings.
I say,
across the tops of
fifteen columns
in the Oxford
English Dictionary
it says
"Say, Say, Say."
Apparently everything
has a-Say.
Even unto
the beginning
was the word
Saith-the-Lord.
And now
I've had
my-Say.
--Dennis Saleh