Halsted M. Bernard

There are no chairs at all in the Old Mimes’ Home,
only ricky-ticky creaks in the air, here and there;
and the cake on the faces has been cracked, and erases
all the memes in the minds of the mimes.

Sitting on the porch of the Old Mimes’ Home,
no one ever thinks, and no one ever knows,
and no one ever wishes that a wind would whoosh them over,
since the wind went out west long ago.

Seeing all the mimes in the Old Mimes’ Home,
suspenders unsuspended, and black hat brims unbended,
from lips that twist and dribble, twitch and spatter, spit and trickle,
phrases foam as they form into lines:

Out of silence slides the hissing in the Old Mimes’ Home,
the syllables sit stuck, in the stutter of a hum,
while the tongues begin to shudder, choke and chafe, the empty mutters
make no sound, make no sense, mean nothing.

There are no words at all in the Old Mimes’ Home,
the inexorable tangible exonerates the frangible,
till there are no more mimes in the Old Mimes’ Home,
only air where a chair isn’t there.

© 1997 by Halsted M. Bernard