THE VISION OF THE MARTYR FRED · AS EXPURGATED FOR THE
CENTRALIANS
Nonsense that shouldn’t be readMore nonsense
Chapter 21
Speak to me of your love of Language,
2You who were raised to use four-letter words,
3To express all your deepest emotions.
4And have you ever read something aloud,
5Just to savor the way that it sounds?
6Have you hungered and hunted for words that give life,
7To the subtlest distinctions you feel,
8And felt your conscious space expand,
9Because now there were more ways to feel?
10Have you prowled through the jungles of syntax and grammar,
11To see just how much one sentence can say?
12Have you felt the power that language can give,
13To the building and thinking of thoughts?
14Have you ever once felt that you said it just right,
15And conveyed your full thought to another?
16Have you felt brand new worlds take shape in your mind, from no other source than the spinning and spinning of words?
17Have you acquired a different taste of life,
18By trying another world’s tongue,
19And felt a new timbre enter your voice,
20Echoing Rome or the steppes or the Seine?
21Have you seen how language, all by itself, can alter the nature of truth,
22And twist and distort,
23Or distill and reflect,
24The innermost essence of things?
25That’s okay.
26Really.
27It’s just that you are Harriers,
28And your muteness is a wall of your box.
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Chapter 21 / 29