#72 - notes towards the story of the girl who got lost in the dictionary

12.3.20

72

notes towards

the story of the girl who got lost in the dictionary

open the top of the box

see in down through the ladders and nets

where one word led to another thing

it was someone else’s too

aardvark led her in, by nose

of course, on historical principles

she’d been hunting there for meaning

which, you’ll know, is everywhere

neither quite awake, nor each one

under the spell of another, nose to arse

this could be the inner ear

where every question’s definition

and took an Earworm with, for company

of course but not so many stick

they went by the random method, naturally

(rather than sense)… down Oubliette

to Ouch and so test a Sesamoid

words! some sing and so alive

with Chevrotain for cute or

it could have been Pronghorn, who knows

you do see old folk in there

looking for the worlds they’ve lost

this girl had grown up with the best of words

their several tribes and light

encyclopaedic passages, kidding

where a thing’s explained

a dive into, a hand-me-down

and you could follow a tune

all the way half home because

you have to see with your own lights

so many fancy flights arrested

nor oxygen required there

it’s inner space – can you hear them inside?

quite a crowd and clamouring for  out

go by wi-fi now – so many are diseases

or unexpected architecture, all of them

are terms, concupiscent in cups (as Wallace Stevens

was) later on live but not for now

meanwhile all the more wanting in

and every one inhabited, chosen

dreamt up on a whim, blurted out again again

caught like a cough, passed on

and on beyond the breath where we have

this conversation

build me a Hecatomb – look it up and see!

I still have the volumes that amazed my uncle

the Waverley it was – hidden behind the orchestra

pity the poor bastards who only see print in there

have a squiz in the zoetrope, won’t you?

you’ve already been painting the pictures

the only way out is to make your own poem

all the parts that you’ll need are here