On Humpty Dumpty

 

 

Tyrants of egg-headed ambiguity

raise walls of anti-prose,

well-trained indecipherable code

down which readers will fall

 

and fail like an egg shattered

after a spectacular crash.

A spectacle for sure, and yet

no way to put them whole

 

with horses or men.

The impulse is to make

the barrier too dense—

an art of self-offense.

 

Better to build with give

to catch the hesitant.

Let the critics cringe:

A poem is a wall with a hinge.

                                              By John Kaufman