dear norm,
"words are grown false" and prove
false reason; fools are wary,
terror true -- are we –am i –are you?
i ask because, in some languages
there are two words conveying
the shades we squeeze out of
“to be”, status identifying am
and transient descriptive am,
either gestalt or particular,
so in some cases it may make
sense to ask what "is" means
even under oath, he is not
hungry the way he is a mammal
but "dissemble" has only one
meaning the president lied
to those mortified reporters.
in american politics it says
on the package as everyone knows
there is some dissembling required.
in discrediting the U.N.,
disavowing and systematically
disassembling the international
treaty framework, there is
taking apart. let the futurists
prevaricate, let the people
peaceably assemble to exercise
their right to dissemble; the police
can easily, non-lethally dis-
assemble them, or lethally; whatever.
it is true: "disassembly"
means taking apart, it is
what they do at for example
american auto assembly plants.
to "dissemble" is to "hide
under a false appearance" or
"conceal facts, intentions,
or feelings under some pretense"
according to the "dictionary"
which is a big word for one of
those big books the editors and
yes-men scramble to revise
every time you speak, mr.
bush, you may have heard some
of your advisors and puppeteers
use this word around the set
when talking of law and war,
speaking behind the scenes of
humans, rights and the press,
but you were not to try to
use it yourself, and not strutting
out under the proscenium
dressed up as the flag, like damn,
like the national security
threat of bellicose saddam
as a pretense for breaching,
like fixing facts to match
policy in that memo the press
corps did not even ask about,
like everything you said about
newsweek and america hating
before those lies forced the
blushing pentagon to admit,
if not desecration of the
koran per se, if not outright
flushing, some inadvertent
urine may have sprayed on it,
against protocol after all,
like the terrorism nexus,
the axis of evil, the star
wars programs and orbital
weapons platforms to "walk
about the orb like the sun",
like his putative stupidity.
"nothing that is so is so,"
a clown remarked festively
dressing as a priest, not "the first
that ever dissembled in" a robe
of office, nor the last, norm.
"there is no darkness but ignorance."
he said "you are mad indeed,
if you be no better in your
wits than a fool," norm, like
the reporters and we the viewer-
voters. you see i'm suspicious
that maybe in horror at his
continually shameful diction,
the haute-couture press corps
are so aghast that they do not
even try to ask. they would
not beat up a cripple. they
refrain, sing another round
– in two-party harmony:
“he’s a nitwit and a shame to
civilized educated people like we”
& “see, he’s a simple man like me” –
let him lead another chorus of
these extraordinary renditions,
and let them bore us with false
fear and newsmen’s erudition.
same ol’ two-party harmony.
harmony, norm, we are agreed
on dialectic at least (if not the
lexicon) to channel moral poly-
phony into the divided choir.
they can call our guy dumb,
norm, if they keep mum to what
he’s taking apart. call him
dumb. it’s easy, norm, but
he can help us pay no attention
to where he stands, by
announcing zero tolerance
for desiccating the koran.
those unpersons’ piss wet books
will have to stay that way. Let’s
all agree on no more desiccations.
but i’m pretty sure he didn’t mis-
unintentionally dyspronuncticate
that word incorrectfully on purpose
before misindefining it, or whoever
makes his mouth move did not,
with the best intelligence failure script
it to fit too incongruously.
misunderingenuously yours,
--sir topas the curate, philillogue