Poem-A-Day #227 : Planchette

I love Ouija boards. I love the idea of things talking to us from beyond whatever this is, from whatever that is. I love the lie of it. The beauty of it. The need for it.


Planchette

Ghosts of trees
                          break open and
       split along their Blaschko's

The rupture is a balloon pop -
                                                 the second it takes for sound to enter your ear
pick at your brain register there is infinite -
                                                                      the threads of wood in your eye tell you more

Heart wood
                              is both poetic and descriptive
and tragic in your hand or sanded into a banister
to slide down

But shaped into a heart -
                                         and holding a pencil -
                                                                             the wood can speak its screaming truths

What these spectral beasts say
                                                  the creak of ships at sea
                                           the vanished static of leaves
or the shrapnel of falling down

Whichever it is -
                            those voices are in your hand
warming there and feeling polished -
                                                            they are making the small plank left behind move

British Planchette c.1850-19860