The Ventriloquist
It’s contagious –
all this spirit writing.
Voices from the other side
breathing down my neck
every five minutes – buttoned up
in starch & lace – lips pursed,
sharing a private joke in silence.
The familiar surge
of unexpurgated words,
exploding like glass
inside the cranial suite –
overturning tables
like Jesus on a bender;
hammering home the point
and he doesn’t care who knows it.
This is where I leave them,
squabbling with themselves
in gibberish – making ashes
from their own kind
behind an invisible line –
past & present tenses
indifferent to one & all,
like a winter lawn at night.
©️Orion Foote
Visions of Orion Poetry 