名人诗歌|The New Hieroglyphics

In the World language， sometimes called

Airport Road， a thinks balloon with a gondola¹

under it is a symbol for speculation^2.

Thumbs down to ear and tongue：

World can be written and read， even painted

but not spoken. People use their own words.

Latin letters are in it for names， for e.g.

OK and H2SO4， for musical notes，

but mostly it's diagrams： skirt-figure， trousered figure

have escaped their toilet doors. I （that is， saya，

ego^{3， watashi wa） am two eyes without pupils；}

those aren't seen when you look out through them.

You has both pupils， we has one， and one blank.

Good is thumbs up， thumb and finger zipping lips

is confidential^{4. Evil is three-cornered snake eyes.}

The effort is always to make the symbols obvious：

the bolt of electricity， winged stethoscope of course

for flying doctor. Pram^{5 under fire？ Soviet6 film industry.}

Pictographs also shouldn't be too culture-bound：

a heart circled and crossed out surely isn't.

For red， betel spit lost out to ace^{7 of diamonds.}

Black is the ace of spades. The king of spades

reads Union boss， the two is feeble effort.

If is the shorthand Libra sign， the scales.

Spare literal pictures render most nouns and verbs

and computers can draw them faster than Pharough's scribes.

A bordello prospectus^{8 is as explicit9 as the action，}

but everywhere there's sunflower talk， i.e.

metaphor^{10， as we've seen. A figure riding a skyhook}

bearing food in one hand is the pictograph for grace，

two animals in a book read Nature， two books

inside an animal， instinct. Rice in bowl with chopsticks

denotes food. Figure 1 lying prone^{11 equals other.}

Most emotions are mini-faces， and the speech

balloon is ubiquitous. A bull inside one is dialect

for placards inside one. Sun and moon together

inside one is poetry. Sun and moon over palette，

over shoes etc. are all art formsbut above

a cracked heart and champagne^{12 glass？ Riddle13 that}

and you're starting to think in World， whose grammar

is Chinese-terse and fluid. Who needs the square-

equals-diamond book， the dictionary， to know figures

led by strings^{14 to their genitals mean fashion？}

just as a skirt beneath a circle means demure¹⁵

or a similar circle shouldering two arrows is macho.

All peoples are at times cat in water with this language

but it does promote international bird on shoulder.

This foretaste now lays its knife and fork parallel.