I speak to you with garbled words
Muffled beneath thick blankets of cold water -
Whispered through stained glass
It is not clear what I am saying
Meanings come in jabs and bites
Connected only by the nothingness of water
Or the pretense of suspicion
They penetrate the laminations
Like light or microscopic bubbles
Only to be reconstructed
On the other side
By those licensed contractors
Who sit on beer kegs and read tea leaves
While hammering them into believable shapes
And humming famililar lullabies
They toss them into the pipeline -
This twisting tube of unknown origin
Worn smooth with time and constant usage
It carries hastily wrapped futures,
That march dutifully in a cue of shadows
Shaped by the unforgiving constraints
Of the precise inside dimensions
They are scheduled to arrive in time for dinner
Hot and steaming,
But are forever delayed by the dumb waiter
Whose clumsy body movements,
Poor decision making
And tangled pull cords
Avalanche tangential inertias
In every direction
Except toward the dinner table
Where the hungry guests patiently await
The arrival of the first word
With thirsty promise and gastronomic anticipation
And proclaim their prayerful hope
That a steady stream may then soon follow