Monday, October 10, 2016

the buzz of the bazoo............


Apes, may I speak to you a moment? 
Chimpanzees, come hither for words. 
Orangoutangs, let's get into a huddle. 
Baboons, lemme whisper in your ears. 
Gorillas, do yuh hear me hollerin' to yuh? 
And monkeys! monkeys! get this chatter--

For a long time men have plucked letters 
Out of the air and shaped syllables.
And out of the syllables came words
And from the words came phrases, clauses. 
Sentences were born--and languages.
(The Tower of Babel didn't work out--
it came down quicker than it went up.) 
Misunderstandings followed the languages, 
Arguments, epithets, maledictions, curses,
Gossip, backbiting, the buzz of the bazoo,
Chit chat, blah blah, talk just to be talking, 
Monologues of members telling other members 
How good they are now and were yesterday, 
Conversations missing the point,
Dialogues seldom as beautiful as soliloquies, 
Seldom as fine as a man alone, a woman by herself 
Telling a clock, "I'm a plain damn fool."


Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today. 
Get a vocabulary. Brush up on your diction. 
See whether wisdom is just a lot of language.


-Carl Sandburg,  Is Wisdom A Lot Of Language?

No comments:

Post a Comment