I normally don't give explanations, but my mom wanted one and I got really into it so here it is: this poem explores the beginning of words. I understand there is history and science to explain the origin of words, but all in all I feel it's sort of unexplained. Who made them? And how are they defined? They give definition but how are they anything, how do they exist if not through words? They become shapeless because no words can explain them (which is why their eyelashes are submarines.. the words get mixed together).. I hope any of this makes sense. I just think it's interesting; I love linguistics.
Here sits the King of Tongues
in a castle of all the true bibles
traced from Rome and Raleigh by the
cobblestone walks, every stone a word
and they never knew who made them
and from what
and feet fall light on all the words
the softest stones
no child ever touched to throw
all the world knows better
than to wage the war of games
the games of war
with words whose makers and layers
hang behind the doldrums
with pasty hands and
long eyelashes
to watch the king watch the words
and see the people grow familiar
with their lines and forget their lines
to never trace them back over
the cobblestone walks
of 26 elements
always running and only the king
will ever know how to find
the end of the cobblestones,
curtains of doldrums hiding
the makers who were not made
and no layer of lines
laid them lines
so their eyelashes were
submarines and their pasty hands were
flags of cities
representing cobblestones
represented by cobblestones
and they were not they
but we because we
know nothing at all
and the King of Tongues cannot speak
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