A VENTRILOQUIST'S DUMMY SINGS KARAOKE
 
and the audience laughs
but gets lost in translations,
someone else's song
through someone else's wooden mouth.
 
All that hearsay plus what's left unsaid,
so many TV mouths move
but what comes out is often fed,
media-McCarthyism paying people to slander
 
yet paying no respect to Charlie,
another McCarthy but a funny dummy
whose mouth moved by the skilled hand
and wit of Edgar Bergen.
 
A ventriloquist's dummy sings karaoke
while angels dance on the tips of our tongues,
yearning to speak the truth and
enhance their exquisite taste buds.
 
Good taste or advice, even if only from a friend of a friend,
is worth having, old sayings tongued for a reason.
Me gusta la poesía porque es la oportunidad
para jugando con palabras y verdads y mucho mas . . .
 
Unless we really talk, it's hard to say what's meant
by words like "God" or "socialism" or "dummy"
and whose to know what's in a "sandwich"
without some adjectives like "cheese" or "mustard."
 
My advice is: don't fight over God or Gods
or who is The One -- just keep whatever experience
you can muster, keep it real close,
let that see you through . . .

- Mankh (Walter E. Harris III)
 
Mankh has contributed to Axis of Logic's Poetry Library many times. He is a writer, small press publisher, and Turtle Islander. His most recent book of poems is Adam Had No Earthly Navel. You can contact him via his literary website: www.allbook-books.com

READ MORE ESSAYS AND POETRY BY MANKH