It’s Lovely, Dear, But You’ve Foregrounded Your Ceremony

Anything arbitrary and careful

As Christian Bök’s alphabet chapters makes

A reader feel awfully twee reading,

Even appreciating sly half-facts

Found in them—Awkward grammar appalls a

Craftsman. We prefer genteel speech where sense

Redeems senselessness. It is easier

To sense some power through the words when words

Aren’t too front-and-center, being wordish.

We are servants, after all, as are all

Technologies, and handsome liveries

Or not, the reader isn’t here for words

Alone, but to feel gross strength behind us.

When a composer puts us on parade,

There’s an uncomfortable sense of fake,

Akin to a staged naval battle meant

To entertain the host more than the guests,

Certainly not to bleed in the present.

Where were we? Words should attend discretely,

Carry your luggage of expectations

To your rooms, and then turn into docents

And old gossips itemizing awful

Deeds, flesh-slapping trysts, and rumors of ghosts

Who might visit you while you stay with us.

If you can see we’re only prancing through

Too-strictly preordained rules (words with E,

Words with A), you’ll shoo us out of the room.