Language

But who would believe
how much is invested
in this routine of word-building?

This routine of putting –
a U after a P,
and a double TT after the U;
then, quickly sticking on the i-n-g tail,
so it becomes an animal that waffles through white spaces
of the soul,
making it a thing of meaning.

This need to put – P before U and T before T,
just so fingers do not stiffen...
just so tap-tapping fingers do not stop their tap-tapping symptomatic dance of life –
so that L comes before I, properly followed by an F and E...
just so things stay as they should be.

But who would admit
how much is invested
in the routine generation of sentences?

The little games of metaphorizing,
the predicament of predicates,
verbs, in transit,
positioning the preposition
(never at the end!).

The lax luxury of stripping adverbs,
the primitive frustration of the present tense
mutinying against the calm decadence
of a has-been vocabulary.

But who would admit
how much is invested
in such rioting with grammar?

Across the breathing corpse
of a poem,
in everyday revolts
against a familiar tap-tapping –
when putting a U after a P,
crossing a double TT...
Who would admit
how much is invested?

(C) Annie Zaidi
October, 2005