lest you hear me wrong
lest the little gears in your head make up for me a falser voice in which you read my mute texts in
words unpronounced
never conjured for the aural nets to trap and cherish or flinch
lest you begin to detest more than shame and regret or fall in love with these sounds and corollarily their owner
lest you think i sound like the way rusted metal parts screech with each other
or an echo of an owl’s hoot on a cold green night right before dawn
or the way the cusp of an evening’s silence is broken by an imp dog’s unintending step on an orange heap of deserted leaves
or deep at the bottom, lingering, langoured and lolling about, at the floor, subterranean, like a bass guitarist in the zone in a deep pink recording room
or a popular song that is lazy and annoying like a tick on a nape hence
or snappy like the sounds that fiery reactions in gun chambers set off
or squeaky like a trio of mice in a mad dirty squabble scramble across a dull yellow sweaty street
or the words in a poem that sound out of place
or money that is owed
hear then my voice instead
so you will know
i sound like wisps of the whitest cotton that sometimes fly as clouds on sky blues
or the honey that bears seek
or the smells that certain flowers exude, that remind you of a time a decade ago
or the light grey feathers of those birds prepared for flight
or the coy eyes of a new wife who is a romantic wedded in a question to a guy who thinks himself to be a romantic too
or the fate of ships that might sink
or the way questions linger in tongues and behind pinnae
or the sweetness things sweet on the sides of a content throat leave
hear me talk
let me maybe speak you a poem too

Written and illustrated by dregs diogenes