Dead Words

Words strung together like beads
Sliding in unison on a thin wire
Rusty with woebegone decay
Hanging like shards of glass
From a window shattered and torn
This incandescent shadow
Hiding in the light of day
Speaking without consequence
A muttering of well-worn phrases
Meant to intimidate by repetition
These bullies of stolid syntax
Impassive as teenage girls
Locked into their own world view
Punctuated by the drawing in of air
Between these forced gutturals
Shallow in the face of change
Hanging onto these dead words
Like roses on a grave
Like the breathing of a ghost
Plaintive in its counterfeit
Looking for its lost love
These words of regret
Mangled in the passing of time
Strangled by an irrelevance
That means more than this melody
And in the telling of the tale
These words slide one by one
Onto the cold tile floor.

Sam