I write poems because they seem to be
an easy way to impress people
and I like to be impressive
I think it's because they seem
mysterious - as though they were
anything other than words in an order
I guess I'm not that sure myself
how it is they come to get that way
and why people like me so much when they do
I don't like mysteries.
So I put this poem in alphabetical order
to help me figure out just what the hell
it was about it that got you all so riled up
About all alphabetical an an and and anything as be be because
Maybe it was the way that the frequency of the letter 'Y'
was exactly 1.618:1 of the frequency of the letter 'E' - which is the golden ratio.
Apparently that's an aphrodisiac.
Because come do don't easy figure get got guess hell help
Or maybe it's the fact that, in placing the dissected piece at the end of itself, I had the poem twice,
which mean I had to add in all the
new words again to the alphabetised list.
How I I I I I I I'm impress impressive in in is it it it it's just like like like me
Which I then had to repeat.
Me much myself mysteries mysterious not order
Which I then had to add in again
Order other out people people poem poems put riled seem seem so so so sure
So now I have this poem which is
copulating with itself
recursing like a golden rectangle
Than that that that the they they they they they think this though
So now it's gotten so big
that the original version, which I'm reading now
(and god I'll have to put these new words in too)
it like the square remainder
and the work which may once have impressed you is just
spiralling out of my hands
into a list of words which never ends as each one I add spins off an infinite tail
like a child's face caught in a hall of mirrors,
and I've written 'and' so many times that I'm drowining in the damn things
christ I thought this was supposed to be the easy way!
To to to to to up was way way were what when why words write you
Damnit. Now I'll have to start again.