Imagination

Our imaginations die.
Time becomes a spool of string rewinding itself.
Clocks stop ticking and each second
the giant fingers refuse to move
becomes unbearable eternity.
Sparrows refurl their wings
and collapse back into their bodies.
Sunken ships rise from their graves,
shedding layers of mud and kelp,
and emerge from the water,
returning to ports long forgotten.
Pages of books unravel from spines
and fly out in a storm,
leaving libraries barren.
Newly built houses burn themselves down.
Piano strings snap, wood, metal,
ivory and ebony uncarve themselves,
sheet music, ink, lacquer,
it all reconstitutes itself in some previous state.
Melodies drift out our ears, never to be heard again.
Don Quixote buries his lance
where it sprouts once more as a tree.
Ancient warriors unswing their weapons,
arrows unpluck from their targets and
float in reverse, nuzzling archers' cheeks.
whole armies walk backward over the sand.
Femme Fatales are left waiting helpless,
ballads remain unsung.
Romans a clef perilously teeter
with nothing to stand for.
Paint unsplatters,
canvasses sit pristine and white
in buildings slowly pulling themselves apart.
Rhythms becomes memories.
The last jokes in the world
crawl inside our minds and barricade the door.
We forget how to laugh.
A thousand stories flow back to our tongues
and disappear untold between our lips.
Would that we could
bellow to each other
the closest-held truths of our hearts.
If only we knew what to say.