An Old Person of Diss

Or Dis. Or that. Nonsense verse,
Such as a Lear limerick
But unlike a Dada poem,

Always skates too close to sense.
Sound poetry’s just boring
Unless David Byrne’s fixed it,

Rendered it as danceable
As any beat with a hook
And lyrics in unknown tongues.

But nonsense is stickier,
Scratchier because it flirts
Shamelessly with the meanings

Of ordinary language,
Then shakes them off and ghosts them,
In bursts of bad puns, rhymes run

Riot, and yes, then, pure sounds.
Sense is left on the dance floor,
Angry, alone, and confused.

Children love nonsense the way
Children love pratfalls, because
They seem like the world gone wrong

In some harmless way from which
Bright toddlers can bounce back up,
Or to which they are immune.

To their elders, to the old,
Nonsense sounds like dementia,
The mockery of meaning

And of those who cannot mean
Well anymore. There’s always
An old man of this or that,

Always a little confused,
And often an old woman,
And neither makes sense of that,

Whether it’s on Angle’s Way
Or Dark Lane where you find this
Before the ditch absorbs you.