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W e
M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 1
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THE POETRY
HOLE
People have poem holes in the tops of their heads. This
comes as
a surprise to many people.
If you close your mouth and hold your nostrils, and
blow, you
will feel the pressure against the tops of your heads.
In this
way people are like whales.
Some times small sounds are emitted from these holes.
In most
people, it is whimpering and sniddering--sounds that
one would
dare make only when alone and perhaps not even
then;
disturbing sounds, not representations but the sounds of
the emotions
themselves--the sound of loneliness, the sound of
the fear
of death, the sound of horniness....
The hole may also emit sounds when one is with a
rambunctious
crowd of happy people having fun, but they are
quiet sounds
and hard to hear.
Poets cultivate this pressure until the thin membrane
covering
the poem hole ruptures and begins to emit the high
whining
shounds of the self. These are poems. These learn to
modulate
the sounds, so they do close order drills, in perfect
step, like
a marching band or a troop of tap dancers.
Most people go to some lengths not to hear them: watch
television,
listen to loud music. Above all they interpret the
sounds.
If the poet writes I am happy happy happy, we know
this is
not true, and we have developed a large, well-paid class
of professional
critics whose task is to interpret the poets'
writings,so
we will know that the letters in "happy, happy,
happy"
must be rearranged as ppphay, pppyahyah, ppphay,
pppyahyah--the
saddest and most sniddering syllables in the language.
Two parties have developed around this discovery: one
believes
that people have always had poetry holes; the other
believes
that they developed recently in human history,
perhaps
as recently as the 17th century.
I am inclined to think it has always been there. The
report
of poetry is consistent: people are miserable, their girl
friends
or boy friends are mean to them, they no sooner learn
how to
get along in life than they start becoming ugly and tired,
then they
die.
It is now known that the poetry hole can be closed with a
simple
surgical procedure. It has proven effective and
permanent;
it is highly recommended.
Vol. 2
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