The Humpty Dumpty Rules
Is there a place beyond The Word?
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a big fall
And all the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again
Nursery rhyme
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, 1872
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1 The Bible
The Word is still God
But
The question is
The question is
The question is always
who is to be the master of words
who decides the meaning
who owns it
Humpty Dumpty knew that
When he talked down to Alice in Woowooland
She thought him rude
Because she was polite
And she thought him odd
Because she was not
An odd rude circular dude
A thin skinned rube
with a bad attitude
Problem
Writers know that
which is why they are a quarrelsome lot
Best left to rot in their own tower of babble
but not so fast it’s possible
we need them to stop the silencing
Because the problem is
the problem is
We cannot hear anything or anyone anymore
we mass in fields shouting screaming streaming
obscenities
We should learn from HD
But who was Humpty D really
you may well wonder since
We exist in a murky dirty season of unreason
ruled by many Humpty Dumpty’s
their words masquerading as sane
mocking miserable mad denied canceled
Whatever
Humpty oh Humpty
You fell off your wall but
You have triumphed after all
And God has fled the building
it got too loud for Him
He left us to squabble
In a Tower of Babble
Where everything is rubbish and rabble
A heap of worn out words
So much kindling for a fire
That may never expire
Because
when they start canceling words and books
You are next
when they start burning books
You are next
I fear Alice, the nice polite one
has lost the plot
the argument
the game
it’s over
I’m watching all the Alices out there
bow to all the Humpty impersonators
The mad-for-power people
Who think they’re smarter than
The sheeple
Perhaps that’s true
But remember what Shelley knew
Ye are many, they are few
It may be all over for us
Yet we still have time
to pay heed to what’s implicit
what cannot be captured in words
only intuited in silence in nature in music
something unnamed unfolding resplendent
in the deep caverns of the mind
beyond Words
beyond Poetry
beyond us
Nicely done… favourite line: Perhaps that’s true / But remember what Shelley knew / Ye are many, they are few.
I like this poem very much, Monika. And it is true, the danger of manipulating language is far more present in our time than it used to be in former centuries. But the problem of what is beyond words was existent also in former times, and writers and philosophers of the epoch of Romanticism were particularly aware of that, perhaps because it was a somwhat similar time of radical change and revolutionary tendencies as our present age. Typical of that consciousness is this little distiches of Friedrich Schiller: "Spricht die Seele, so spricht / - ach! - schon die Seele nicht mehr." Well, this is just one aspect, is does not reflect on the aspect of manipulating our language deliberately, with the intention of achieving political power. This you do point out impressively and connect it very convincingly with that great Humpty Dumpty episode. Thank you, Monika, very good indeed!