One for the master,
And one for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
What I mean to say—
What I mean to say is—
What exactly is it that I mean to say?
—that I’ve been meaning to say all along?
How can you teach longing? How can you impart desire?
What metaphor manifests hunger? What alchemy conjures thirst?
Is it for want of information? Are we always one bullet-point away from transfiguration?
Or do I mean to say that ignorance is not the problem, but rebellion—that the great need is not education but repentance?
Do I mean to say that prayer is not devotion but survival?
Do I mean to say that survival is not an option?
Or do I mean to say that the prophets were right
and that somehow, inexcusably, I know this?
Do I mean that the mechanisms are wrong and mean nothing?
Or that the worst thing a man can become is moral?
Perhaps I mean to say that the ineffable is both the soul’s bane and only elixir.
Perhaps that the building blocks of disclosure fail, always and utterly.
Do I mean that my sayings are cryptic for reasons too terrible to entertain?
So what is it that I mean to say?
That I repudiate the sanctioned enlightenments and seek revelation in gutters and nursery rhymes?
That only cabbages and kings will be saved?
And you, dear reader, do you know what I mean to say?
What I have meant to say from the beginning?
Do I mean that at this, the world’s end, there is but one thing left to us?
Do I mean to say that, should you so desire, you may come too?
