The Old Words

Will get remade, don’t worry.
The old works and days redone,
Unrecognizable. No

One who exists in these days
Was ever imagined then.
No one you imagine now

Will be who exists after
You’re done your imagining.
No one alive now lived then,

Whenever when was. Your call.
Words get remade all the time,
But not as you’ve intended,

Not as the words intended.
Existence must get twisted.
Do you think the old poets

From any tradition would
Understand or champion
Whatever it is you term

A splendid innovation,
Repudiate as canon?
How could they? Maybe they would.

But they never existed,
Not to themselves anymore.
Their ghosts can’t answer to you.

You’ll have to make do with texts
That exist in your own time,
Swirls where nonexistence left.