Strangling Words

A word

After a word

After a word

With each adding depth to the meaning

Of the one which came before it

As few as possible

Not necessarily beautiful

But true

That is how things should be written

Not

The magnificence of the omnipresent moment adds splendid divulgence to the optical illusion that we are alive

Or the magnitude in the momentum of this momentary lapse in perpetuity seeks to …

Confuse

Befuddle

Overwhelm

It is here that we err

Are lead astray

By calling down great sounding nothings

To layer upon layer

Reduce the words voice

To nothing

More words can mean less

And weighty words even more so

And just a few can be staggering

In their clarity

Be so thrilling in their succinct turn of phrase

That they linger in the mind all day

Words are something writers need to pay attention to

Or you can end up with a meaningless

Frustrating mouthful of words

And nowhere to spit them into

So they stay in the head, clogging

Fouling the drains of your mind

Stinking

As you are lost sinking

Into a Government form

That asks twenty questions

And explains three pages

Of meaningless gorm

Dredged up by some wanker

That does not understand words

Or what they have even written

Yet pours scorn on the reader

“It’s quite clear you just add your name – and sign here”

No

It is anything but clear and is designed to frustrate

And obfuscate

Keeping ordinary people under heel

And too busy dealing with the trauma and boredom of sealing their fates on forms that don’t make sense

And yet they feel ignorant

No

You

Are

Not

Ignorant, dear reader

What you are trying to fathom is not literate

In any sense

It should be an offence

To speak so elaborately that the ordinary man cannot understand what he is reading

Which is why so many documents used to be written in Latin

Including laws – so we needed to employ a solicitor

Religion

So we required a priest

Yet now it is all in a language that is so overbearing that no meaning seeps around the edges

So again

We must employ a dozen professionals

Just to prepare a tax return for a company and it’s five trusts which is required just so we have some method of fighting the unjust

Tax arrangements

In this country

Sorry

That descended into a rant quickly

The point is

As one layer of society begins to layer itself in complexity

So another

And another is required

And more employed

And take sides

And meaning is lost

Truth is flown

And it started with the words which were used

So very poorly

Used to hide the truth

And add so many layers

That never get to the point of anything

Strangling words of all meaning

Then stringing them along

Like dead birds

On a line that disappears into the distance

Telling nothing but lies

It is no wonder society loses meaning

Depth

Value

When the language we speak

Is being swallowed alive

By words

That are nothing but complicated lies

And meaningless jargon

Harbingers of a society eating itself alive

Which is also why people began swearing …fuck me! It just feels like a divine truth to swear when faced with a five page government form these days or a Real Estate ten page nothing or any other document that has been brushed with a legal feather.

Forgive me my rant

But nothing seems to get clearer

It just becomes more buried

Beneath

Words

That

Don’t

Bloody

Matter.

13 thoughts on “Strangling Words

  1. True on so many levels. Literary writers can drive me nuts they should have listened to Mark Twain. I used to rant on this. They deliberately obfuscate to look smart. And now government bullshit We have been filling out forms for weeks. Nice post. I’ve been working but not really posting from it Maybe post some older stuff. Talking about current projects takes away the immediacy of working on the project.

    • Governments are the worse kind because an ordinary person just employ a professional to deal with their over loaded forms and their staff half the time don’t know what they mean. We need to simplify everything – then perhaps depression rates will drop.

  2. I heard one of our pundits say how easy they make it when we are supposed to pay taxes, but when we are supposed to get anything like unemployment, they make it nearly impossible — mostly to give themselves jobs. Bureaucracy.

  3. These lines made me laugh for the sheer truth to them:

    As you are lost sinking
    Into a Government form
    That asks twenty questions
    And explains three pages
    Of meaningless gorm
    Dredged up by some wanker
    That does not understand words
    Or what they have even written
    Yet pours scorn on the reader
    “It’s quite clear you just add your name – and sign here”

    Yes, sometimes less IS more.
    Enjoyed this, Kate.

  4. True on so many levels. Literary writers can drive me nuts they should have listened to Mark Twain. I used to rant on this. They deliberately obfuscate to look smart. And now government bullshit We have been filling out forms for weeks. Nice post. I’ve been working but not really posting from it Maybe post some older stuff. Talking about current projects takes away the immediacy of working on the project.

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