[Newspoetry] Re[m(a)]inde<e>rs Games

[Donald L Emerick]

Waiting for Suitable News Story to Come Along,
I take this out, peas porridge hot, nine days cold,
To throw it out, swill, for some to licke it or not,
for why should I wait, reactionary, for the news?
*-----------------------------

Clever word games...

That's one kind of way to take an interest in strings...
One wants to be entertained, perhaps even amused...

A form of entertainment arranges symbols pleasingly,
that differs from some other arrangement of symbols,
so the second plays on, carries on, opposes the first,
in some fashion, as if by shifting its intended meaning,
if a string alone could ever have an intent of anything,
which physical impossibility may lead us to observe,
again, the writer who may have had hidden intents,
to express some views peculiar to that writer,
when every utterance is peculiar to its issuer.

Most writers fail to hide intent, never amuse us,
They only inform us, if you please, of so and so.

Yet, because an utterance voiced is more widely heard,
and because nothing happens by felicity's fatal accident,
not even this indeterminate intent would occur by chance,
but seem to be related to that which I want (or not).

I suppose an intended meaning is like
precious cargo for a seaworthy ship of stubborn fools;
commerciful words sail out on SinBad's Seven Seas,
from broker ports that none dare call home without it,
American Expression credits such calling cards collect.

If these words were respectable, like numbers,
you would call my token-shifting numerology,
for there are ways to please anesthetically
by arranging numbers this way and that,
having no sense to the intended meanings,
if numbers were such as to have meaning --
a proposition brought back into proper ambiguity,
retrieved from clear utility by promiscuous obscurity,
where it strolled like a hooker under scarlet letter lights,
from footlit shadows cast by brazen belief in its falsehood,
chaste belief that has collapsed but not quite lapsed.

I understand anagrams, and ciphered texts,
And think that I compute my arrangements
from the myriads of patterns that could go
in the same place that just this one goes,
as it eliminates whole worlds of words never spoken.
Verbicide is like genocide applied to mere possibility
that words could and must take positions in patterns,
because whenever we see anything there at all,
we pattern ourselves on the backs of our heads,
reinforcing sutures of our seam-cemented skulls.

Ancient kin of mine said all this by saying: Kaballah.
I know that they loved their words games, and hid
their word patterns everywhere in our ancient texts:
what good is a useful string if no one laughs or cries?
They were so much in love with words that they arranged
to have their God, the one who has an unspeakable name,
utter one word to create a good world for experience,
a God who gave man only one job: name the animals.
(How hard can that be, to name animals for a living?)

Some codebreakers thought these village wordsmithies,
standing beneath the spreading and towering verbal trees,
were under the thumbs of larger sinewy hands than man's.
(Uses of God constantly denigrate all activities of man.)
But, when you play a word game, some will forget
the first rule of every game: I remind you 'this is a game'.

Calling cards of good games produce amusements
and collect interest -- not on debt , but excellence.
If you have no time for foolish and childish games,
when will you have any time for living pleasantly?

Thanks for listening
Donald L Emerick

POST-INSCRIPTIONS SUPRA-INTENDED

ProLogo to EpiLogo:
After writing all of the above, I reconsider
all of the writing from the beginning, again,
but can never forget what was written already,
and struggle with a decision of editorial revision:
do I leave it there where I put it, as it stands,
or do I show second thoughts, more thoughts,
and put them there, taking away and adding,
redoing the calculus which gave me an answer,
an answer that seemed to be good enough,
but lacks a good standard for good saying,
for good enough could have any meaning,
and good enough then has no meaning.

Writing has no final answers as its solutions,
as it never determines what it could say,
but only leaves a trace of what it did say,
by signs that gesture, sometimes wildly,
here and there, everywhere and nowhere,
all of the time, frantically pointing, signing.

Why would anyone ever be happy,
how could I let myself be happy,
with some forming by word shaping?

Some philosopher would say,
ah, final cause spits out formal cause,
which spitting is efficient causal act,
which spit itself is formal cause,
as spit comes by material cause.
That would be my god-father Aristotle,
who is my illegitimate source,
and would be a bastard, not me,
if language did not lay blame in time,
first being produces bastards,
last being does not produce,
as it would be an end,
beyond which nothing.
But, Aristotle is also famous for saying
there are thoughts that never get names,
that stand outside of any discussion,
almost eternally forgotten,
even when seen and found.

Such thoughts are not rememberable,
because they instantly, instantaneously,
disappear back into oblivion obscurely,
before they can be grasped and held tight,
bound by the ropes of words to thinking.

I watched some hunters and trappers
who call themselves fishing people,
prepare for a catching expedition.
They knew lurking fish were in hiding,
and that all sorts of traps had be set:
hooks, lines, and sinkers and bobbers,
nets and bait and boat and crew.
And, still nothing much might be caught,
sometimes, but more when more is there,
so they invested in protective preparation,
to maximize yields from their sea harvest.

So, what traps do I set for catching
some thinking and not letting it steal away?
I prepare nets of words, baiting my hooks,
testing the strength of my lines,
what sinks and what floats, and when,
watch the weather, boat and crew.

EpiLog Body Proper:
Line 9:
strike "again," by substituting "suspect,"
Line 13:
convert lessening "of" into equalizing "as"
"as so and sos" else vanish "of so and so."

Insert after stanza 1, this as stanza 1b:
Who finds a clever moves a world,
for clever ever clears away and severs
one of the four symmetrical leaves,
from a clover clever Eve wore for her Lover
(unclever other, incompetent to defy God),
a lure to lull over an unclever leering lust,
{or, should it say, perhaps, more cleverly?}
a lure allures all yours in leering lulu lulls,
reigns in deer, rains on dear, riants under us,
leering lulu lullebians, lullabanal lullabiontics,
parody parades as paradise of reindeer games.

Old line 17:
Strike out to be, as it seems not to be related;
extend negative closing of line by "so I notice."

Old line 18:
Strike an an as inane superfluous,
Strike "is like" for "signs as meta-semitic semaphore:"

Old line 32-33
Convert "beliefs in" to "briefs of" to get under wear of point,
Drop "that has" as a cluttering hand has its hands full;
and end unendingly: "has not quite fallen into a lapsed."

Old Line 34:
Erect "ciphering" by putting "diaphragm" over "and".

Old Line 38:
Let "as if" be turned into "to"; adjust agreeing verb.

Insert following stanza Nb, after yet-to-be-preceding Na:
The best part of waking up,
mounting words in mountains of mourning dew,
is Folger-manian, exfoliation of folderol,
in your eye cups, java coding for j'ava cup coup.

Old Line 40 <40a?>, consider annexing 40b:
Every word halakhizes holocausm's sui-genesicide

Append to 41, "to say" after 42a, this 42b:
on the backs of our pallets, our gullets,
And to old 43 <43a?> nail on this tack:
hammered by YaHWHite jawboney asses.

In Old Line 45, strike out "that" extra,
Turn "and hid," into "hide and seek."
And cap prime of trailing 46, accordingly.

In line 49, kill "their", "God" so stands nakedly out:
Immodesty drops all dressing for its possessing;
In nominative phrase, dub "dubs" for such "has"ing.

Work-in-progress stanza after line 52, old stanza 8:
Dubless God proves by all-as-dub-stitutions,
that such as doubles no animal man names,
All-seeing, coupled doubles do bless deity's best,
A-dieu fess, a doofus, redoubtabless duplicates
in bodacious Buddhaholickal infestivalized test.
<Scrawling editor's personal margin of error notes:
Rhymania wars with neighboring Raisontolerians,
A war lacking rhyme or reason is unthinkablest?>

Old line 54: Erase "the", use-less particularizing.

Old line 57-58:
"some, time you forget," for "some will forget";
as "every" could be "any", "a", what hides here?

Epilog to Epilog, replace replica, Sing:
After seasonings flush and fade,
what uses strings for my recall,
a useful meal passes out, afterall,
savory souvenirs of flushing itself,
that's how you laughed as I cried,
as rain, dear, came down so hard.
T4L--DLE
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