the dead pen

so, tell me again where it is written
  of the dead pens of poets
  and their long-gone words
  and the speeding traces of litany
  and volumes filled with great thoughts

again, tell me where print is falling off paper
  with none to catch and reset their type
  and final resting places of such men are merely
  and neverending with their incomprehensible minds
  and their deaths mean living in famous fonts

if alive today, they would say to i and you, the beguiled
  the pieces are many, but the wholes are few
  and simple equals all the complications of thought
  and our words are still upon waters never drank
  and so make waves against the genius you think us to be

in my death and after a family i've never seen greets me
  i will enter a time of untime and conversation
  and ask hard questions of the dead pens of poets
  and query long on who's, what's, where's, when's and how's
  and finally lay to honorable rest my own dead pen

yet, if the birds could fly so high as to brush their wings
  against this, my untethered dreamscape of past greatness
  and with colors on their feathertips painting the scenes
  and all blackness becomes light shining into forever
  and with my no different than you mind
  and with my samely old wrinkled hands
  and with my twin withered airless lungs
  put thought into word and once more breathe life
  into the dead pen i carry on my way to heaven
then i will become one of the shadowless thems

m.a. miller
12.27.00