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Take the Poem By the Tail
Take the poem by the tail
Dash not the Word on the rocks sans sense
Avalanches bury the meaning in the rubble
O’Malley came alive to prove this sound truth
Not words alone can make up the poem:
You can take the poem by the tail
And make it rightly wail
Words can’t be killed not in their intent
Unless you kill sense in the making first
And destroy the minds of everybody else
On every planet made from darkest dirt:
You can take the poem by the tail
And whip it to make it wail
Then start all over again
Burn every creature rode on wings
Wore claws or suction pumps
Or sheathed in slithering muscles
Till the poem is turned on tail
And made to squeal and rail
Who spoke to the plants that lay in wait
High holy stench oozing in their udders
To watch the frail humming suppers
Fall eerily within their butter-cups:
Twist not the poem by the tail
To make it cough up its mail
When every parcelle de terre is tilled
You still need the motive to arrest the poem
That willed its worlds into being
Through that chartless string of meanings:
Rumbling trains of words would derail
Even where it did no McCauley entail
Cheat not to say it is this not that
Which made the poem to make sense
If you have something not jibberish to say
Even phonemes and syllables will line up:
You can then take the poem by the tail
Yet swiftly softly will it sail.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
Copyright ©
T Wignesan
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