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
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