WORD

I started this work in cuneiform

but I couldn’t undam the poem.

The stone wedged it. Bereft, mute, tuneless,

the task I adjourned to papyrus.

The flooding rendered it all a smudge,

its squiggly hieroglyphic unedged.

I converted to parchment and quill,

betook myself to tonsure and cowl,

to abstinence and flagellation,

but manuscript illumination

of my holy writ couldn’t complete.

Printing press further repressed my wit.

O! Its backwardness and reverses

transformed my tercets into curses.

Typing required guitarist fingers,

not these mallet hands of my nature.

Word processors came to my rescue

at last! Too late, alas, for my muse.

--Duane Vorhees