Barking Of Dogs

This act — does it show anything at all
All these books, countless faces
Unknowable words —
Spoken, written, expressed —

Who, or what, believes
That some arrangement of words
Means something

Some configuration of language —
Who believes it holds
Something special
A password — a secret
A PIN — a code

How did a meaningless utterance
Come to mean something sacred
Not just meaning —
But an entire hierarchy
Purpose, worth, value, utility —
All born from a flood
Of hollow, shapeless noise

Empires built
Industries formed
Around a collection of echoes
Who but a fool
Would treasure his own noise

There is food
There is danger
There is water — and then
Sell these signals
Sell these words —
Exploiting, destroying — others
With coded tones
Commanding syllables

Don’t tell anyone else —
Tell only your own kin
Hoarder, gatherer
Hunter, wanderer
Murderer

And now this mind — this one here —
Is it not the same as all others
Hoarding its own collection
Of signs
Meaningless words
It thinks —
Are worth something

Same old story
Who hasn’t done it
Only mutes, the dumb
The so-called idiots —
They don’t feel the urge
To copyright their blabber
Their glorious froth

Everyone else —
Prophets and sinners alike
Sages and small children alike —
All scribbling diaries
Journals of vapour

Believing that hot air —
Their flitting breath —
Contains significance
A reflection, an image
Something —

Of their hearts
Their soul — some wound, or light
But even those words are just
The same tired utterances

Barks of a dog
Like a dog wrapping his own barks
Selling them to other dogs

How absurd
How strangely, ridiculously absurd
That is

Dogs bumping into each other
On some street corner
Spending the entire afternoon
Barking — at one another
Talking, sharing, communicating —
Then getting married
Having children
Starting a family

There’s no escape from this
Is there

How did we get here
When did I fall prey to this gibberish
Only now — didn’t I
On waking up

I fell into it
This meaning-making.
This sound-organising pursuit
That’s killing me —
The pressure, the pervasiveness
The inescapability of it

Even killing —
And me —
How would I know it
Feel it, sense it
Without uttering it
Without giving weight and specialness
To killing
To me

Silence —
Even that —
Just another sound
For the absence of sound

Sounds, sights, feelings
Smell, touch, taste —
Senses, thoughts —
And then what
Then what —
Time

Where did it all begin
When, why, how

And what else
Can anyone ever do
But participate
In this —