August 23, 2007

How to Write Poems #86

See, you take a language
you don't even know
and make up whatever
you think it looks like
it could say. Schickelgruber
becomes "shackled grubs"
or "sickle groove." Or "chick
leg rubber." Words are
squirming Rorschach splats
and you have a condition
not described in the DMS-IV.
Pictograms and hieroglyphs
are more, or possibly less,
accommodating. Barcodes are
the most challenging.

—F. J. Bergmann

Posted by dwaber at August 23, 2007 12:06 PM