A Dying Art

‘Build a sculpture of what you love'

read the Helvetica font on the frontside 

of the rubric. 

 

Silly school project I mused,

but hastily I pulled and grasped at

a pile of newspapers 

hidden in the shadows of a closet

like an unwanted, obsolete artifact.

 

Strip by strip I yanked and pulled

without mercy. 

Clawing at the edges,

globs of wet glue blurring the words.

My greedy limbs grew feverish

slapping the long-forgotten pieces

together.

 

The ink dyed my fingers as I 

silenced the voices. 

I hung over the mess,

steeped in glue and the blood

of the printed.

 

I wonder now in what world

I have made into my home

where journalism

is better cast off into the corners

of some closet, 

more suited as an art project,

than in the mouths of learners. 

 

For I was playing God,

creating martyrs in the wake 

of my stomping feet. 

Instead of ripping words by their roots

shoving them into the bottom 

of a withered wicker-basket, 

I choose to plant them,

to nurture the letters 

to surplus once again.