W e  M a g a z i n e  I s s u e  1 7 ,  V o l u m e  1
                People have poem holes in the tops of their heads.  This
        comes as a surprise to many people.
                If you close your mouth and hold your nostrils, and
        blow, you will feel the pressure against the tops of your heads.
        In this way people are like whales.
                Some times small sounds are emitted from these holes.
        In most people, it is whimpering and sniddering--sounds that
        one would dare make only when alone and perhaps not even
        then;  disturbing sounds, not representations but the sounds of
        the emotions themselves--the sound of loneliness, the sound of
        the fear of death, the sound of horniness....
                The hole may also emit sounds when one is with a
        rambunctious crowd of happy people having fun, but they are
        quiet sounds and hard to hear.
                Poets cultivate this pressure until the thin membrane
        covering the poem hole ruptures and begins to emit the high
        whining shounds of the self.  These are poems. These learn to
        modulate the sounds, so they do close order drills, in perfect
        step, like a marching band or a troop of tap dancers.
                Most people go to some lengths not to hear them: watch
        television, listen to loud music.  Above all they interpret the
        sounds.  If the poet writes I am happy happy happy, we know
        this is not true, and we have developed a large, well-paid class
        of professional critics whose task is to interpret the poets'
        writings,so we will know that the letters in "happy, happy,
        happy"  must be rearranged as ppphay, pppyahyah,  ppphay,
        pppyahyah--the saddest and most sniddering syllables in the language.
                Two parties have developed around this discovery: one
        believes that people have always had poetry holes; the other
        believes that they developed recently in human history,
        perhaps as recently as the 17th century.
                I am inclined to think it has always been there.  The
        report of poetry is consistent: people are miserable, their girl
        friends or boy friends are mean to them, they no sooner learn
        how to get along in life than they start becoming ugly and tired,
        then they die.
                It is now known that the poetry hole can be closed with a
        simple surgical procedure. It has proven effective and
        permanent; it is highly recommended.

Vol. 2