he spoke
“take my word for it
in my humble opinion
you don't want to know
what the real issue is

“buckle down, chin up,
sally forth, to the very
end, different strokes for
different folks , time will tell,
the world's a stage, don't judge
a book, love is the most powerful
force on earth , truth is dandy,
beauty is beautiful”

he clawed deep into his
linguistic repertoire,
deep, deep into that
vast reservoir of verb
and noun and word, and grasped
a few fish, flopping and
flailing, nice plump, wiggly
ones with scaly scales and
clear fishy eyes and placed
them carefully on the stringer
nice fish, fat fish, fish he knew
and loved

thinking in cliches
one produces well-worn
phrases, word after word
with low entropy and high
certainty, predigested thoughts
with a little lacquer strung onto
a fine filigree necklace, nice patina,
comfortable fit, such a flair, such
taste, such wit, such joie de vivre

the necklace isn’t important, however,
but the crucible in which it arose,
the thought that preceded it, the
intricate mind that produced it
and like the proudest daddy
introduced it to the world
and everyone says won’t
the boys all be rushing for this catch
she’s a nice girl once you get past the
hunchback, and the horse face, and the
bad breath, and the bad table manners,
and the quasi-Tourette's, and the mean
streak as if it stopped at
the dermis and not the marrow