Cholera

October, 1994

Language is a parasite
That hooks you when you're young.

People speaking, people spreading
their pathologic words. They talk to each other,
not out of love or need to communicate, but
because they are deluded and think their
words are of great import.

Others listen, not to wonder at the words that
they are hearing. They are just waiting
for their chance to speak.
From all their mouths come
a cascade of reinforcing infections.

The dreadful plague rushes you.
Too young and eager, you accept,
and babbling forth you profess
the weighty thought that
had been content to stay in your mind.

And in the rush to pronounce
you find that you can skip a step
and the contemplations which once had
waited to be pondered, are allowed
to bounce immediately off your lips
and seize the nearest eager host.

Your words flow forth
a babbling stream
contaminated by vocal cholera.

And we wait for the tacit cure.

Bill Bereza's Home of Programming, Info and Art

Last Updated on Monday, November 10, 1997.