I’ve had dreams of masks, figures and laughing faces. They talk a lot. One dialogue between three figures in tricorne hats was like this:

‘A jail without a jailor is but a house.’

‘A jailor without a jail is but a man.’

‘A man without a house is in jail.’

A mad talk. Some of the masks are grotesque: dog faces, foxes, devils, imps, birds, things with exaggerated noses, seven legged squirrels, wrinkled pigs…

‘A fridge without food keeps nothing cold.’

‘A sock without a foot keeps nothing warm.’

‘A man without a sock should keep his foot in the fridge.’

They twirl and dance holding flambeaux:

‘The hare has no hair.
She’s neither here nor there.
Neither here nor anywhere,
The hare with no hair.

She’s gone away for fear,
A hare can disappear,
She can fail to declare
That she hasn’t any hair.

Hairless hares should beware
Hairless hares must take care.
A hairless hare is very queer
Without a coat to wear.

Hey-ho ding-dong
The hare has no hair.
Hey-ho rickety-ting
A hairless hare is queer.’

One of the performers stood on a box and cleared his throat. He wore a ruff. He flourished his hands as if about to make a grand speech. A verbal Niagara followed.

‘Hare this! If the careless hairless hare lost her hair, a silly thing to lose something near and dear, then what can we say but that she only has hare-self to blame. A hairless hare is queer and I wish that the queer hairless hare, who still has tax to declare, were hare-abouts. So that hare-by or hare-upon we could say to the hare that hare-after a hairless hare ought to be called an hare-etical hare; a hare with a dangerous hare-edity. Further, the hare is hare-unto an outcast for, and hare-in is the point, a hare without hair is not a hare, for the hair cut from a haircut forces the hare to do with her new hair-do what she must do, not being aw(h)are, of her haircare, or hare-care, and not sufficiently weary to remain hairy. In short, hare’s need hairs and here’s why a hairstyle is good for a hare’s style. Hare-at I point to her ears, for you see, a hare’s ears also need hairs in order to hear. Can you imagine a hare’s ears without ear hairs? The hare hears with her hairy ears, and so the hare, who is not here, cannot hear without hair in her ears. 

‘A queer hare that hare-to-fore often needed hair care is now bare. A hairless hare who doesn’t care, hops without fear and without hearing or fearing for hairs or cares, or hairs in her ears so she cannot hear what hares say, even if it’s all hare-say. And you may ask where are the hare’s hairs? I tell you. They are in the air. Yes. Hare’s fears caused hare’s hairs, including her ear hairs, to fly in the air, here and there. She could not give herself her customary airs. Instead the bare hare regarded the affair with despair and in her eye appeared a tear. She had no more flair but only care. At the pond she would stare at the image of a hairless hare and the sight would scare the little fish that swam near. It was a concern whether any heir to the hairless hare would in-hare-it her queer rare bare body wear. She could no longer declare with any great fanfare that she was concerned for the welfare or healthcare of the next uprear. Indeed she could not repair her footwear or neckwear or knitwear. Once a bold bear, or was it an old mare, said to the hairless hare, in order to ensnare, “forebear my dear hare, here is a ware that anywhere is good for growing hair.” The hare bought the ware and to her despair it was nothing less than a nightmare. For the ware turned the bare hare into an even queerer barer rarer hare for the dear ware was actually brown veneer. The bear, or mare, was but a shameless profiteer. At first she began to swear, then she began to say a prayer, pleading for spare hair that could compare to a normal hare’s hair. Was there another hare that could share some spare hair and not impair their own hair? Or was there a pair of hares that could pare their hairs so that they could still appear like a pair of hares with plenty of hairs? Were there a few hares that could give new hairs, or new hares that could give a few hairs, to the unhaired weird impaired hare?  

‘Was there somewhere some mohair? Nowhere was there mohair only no hair. Nor any other head gear or evening wear. The hairless hare felt it really wasn’t fair, to have to bear the jeers and glares of the bears and mares, or the sneers and mocks, fears of rocks thrown from the bears and cocks, and to have to dare above her lair knowing full well the animals didn’t care to have a hairless hare. Yes. They believed that the hairless hare should not appear without at least some underwear. I believe it was Voltaire or Molière or Baudelaire or Jean-Pierre who, quoting Apollinaire during a very good year, said of a hare: “A hairless careless cheerless peerless, sheared pared weird bared, nude rude crude lewd, sad unclad mad-by-gad, hare should not dare appear sans underwear especially if she has no hair. It’s not a matter of laissez faire. The other animals should be severe, leaving aside love affairs and easy chairs and silverware and solitaire. Not be too doctrinaire about the wear and tear on the overwear, for if the hairless hare walks stark bare through the thoroughfare, she should say a sincere prayer because then it would be straight to the ducking chair in disrepair.”

‘In such despair the hare decided to disappear for it was very clear her presence wasn’t wanted there or here. She wanted to ask or scare the rare fair clear square shorthair near threadbare billionaire Herr Gunther, not the extraordinaire Monsieur Laboissiere, with his cotton and wool questionnaire, on the sedan chair next to the pear beside the book of warfare, what a queer bare rare no hair hare, whose reputation was everywhere, should wear.

‘But she would not dare.

‘As Gustave Flaubert, with reference to none othare than William Shakespeare, did declare: “To hear or not to hear that is the matt-hair. Whether the shorn hare with its torn hair should suff-hare the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or whethare it was noblhare to take spears and fight against a mer, or weir on the sphere, of troubles, and by opposing end the care there?” That is unclear. Let me say this in closing. It is not difficult to say that the hairless hare was a pioneer, a mutineer, a cavalier, a legionnaire, a racketeer who would sell her hair in order to persevere, in this financial year, and so to engineer more hairless hares. The hairless hair was matriliniear! I say enough. We must be most severe about hairless hares and here declare that here, there everywhere and anywhere, we will not tolerate hairless hares.’

The crowd had by this time disappeared into thin air and the rhetorician was left standing alone. But he smiled and delivered his punchline.

‘Truth is, after all, it was a rabbit.’

The rhetorician made a light foot and danced to his own satisfaction. 

* * *

There was a man wearing a long periwig with sleeves of frilled lace, a dark rich blue jacket with large brown buttons and lime green breeches. He was in an observatory and beside him on a table were logarithm tables. Next to the table was a telescope. The light from a tall window touched his bloodless face like a dying hand. He spoke.

‘A man who can’t spell a word seven different ways is a dull man indeed!’ He held up a piece of paper. ‘School, skool, scule, skule, scoole, schoole, skoole… block, blok, blohk, bloq, bloque, bloc, blohc, bloch… character, caracter, karacter, karakter, charactar, caractar, karacter, charakter, characta, caracta, karacta, karakta, charachter, karachter, charachtar, karachta, carakter, caraktar, carakta.’

He continued to write. As he wrote his face became paler and paler, the more words he wrote.

‘Knight, night, gnight, knyght, nyght, knihte, nihte, gnihte, knite, nite, gnite…’

Then from the gentle fields and summer trees outside the window a maiden stood.

‘Favour, favor, fayvor, feyvour, feyvor, faver, fayver, feyver, feyvar…’

The man looked up at her.

‘Ladies, laydies, laydees, leydies, leydees, laidies, laidees…’

The lady revealed a shining diamond on her neck. 

‘Laugh, lahf, lahff, larf, larff, lahrf, lahrff, lahgh, largh, llarf, llarff…’

The man looked at the diamond with the telescope. 

‘Fair, fare, fayre, faire, fayr, phaire, phair, phayre, phayr… most like it’s from Sir Oliver.’

The pale faced man then examined the logarithm tables. 

‘Venus, Venis, Venas, Veenus, Veenis, Veenas, Venuss, Veniss…’

His face vanished, but words still came pouring out from under his wig. And she was bursting with light as if surrounded with burnished gold. Then all became a brilliant white light. And my dream faded into the long hypnopompic. Wine-addled, my mind saw shapes upon the walls of the bedroom, shadows of kings and fire. Such was my dream then.

* * *

Without words how can a man survive? Crouch on a bare rock and make faces at the sea? Now listen, the scene: a Parisian salon in the days of the enlightenment. Perhaps the same that Diderot frequented. Installed in the corner, an animated conversation between two rouged, wigged and powdered gentlemen. For charm’s sake let us call them Les Deux Messieurs. At the beginning they were talking of mathematics but then spoke of language. 

‘Sir,’ began the tall and thin one, ‘An abstract noun, a verb, a direct object is a formulation I cannot abide.’

‘Indeed, sir,’ said the shorter and portly companion, ‘thus: “The honour is won by soldiers” really is quotidian, flat and stone like. But sir, how stands the following with you: subject, adverb, verb, abstract noun, conjunction, pronoun, verb?’

‘Scurvy, sir,’ returned the tall with dismissive look, ‘positively maladroit, thus: “She daintily plays music while they eat” is a contemptibly frigid, domestic, sickly and an almost irresponsible expression. It does not leave the observer in Parnassian transports. It is, sir, as if merely listing items. No, no.’

‘Sir, you flummox, pother and other wise discombobulate. For I find this a most animated construction. Observe this example: “They freely know the danger, but they go.” Does this not contend with the finest modes?’

‘No, sir, it does not “contend”, as you put it, with the finest “modes” as you have confabulated. It does not move the senses nor does it sail with the winds to the sublime. Rather, it is weighed down by and is as leaden and dull as a large stone. It ranks among pebbles, rocks, sand and other beached disjecta.’

‘How, sir, would you cast it?’

‘Like so, “Danger stings their hearts, hailing them back, yet they strive forward.”’

‘Now, sir! I am confounded. I am almost voiceless. You have left the noun unguarded. Further, the sentence is un-metaphored. Sir, it must read, “Danger grabs their tender hearts, pulling them with puissant arms, still they go.”’

‘Sir, you crowd the page. The object is affect not the befriending or otherwise of nouns. No. Your instance is overweight and still.’

‘But, sir, your choice of verb is weak, feeble and deathly consumptive.’

‘“Stings”, sir, is not in my catalogue of phantasmagoric mots.’

‘“Hails”, sir. I refer to “hails”. It is the very vocable of the extirpated. It is inhospitable to the positive sanguinity of life.’

‘The “sanguinity” as you term it, is expressed in the alliteration, sir. “Heart” and “hail.” The spirit is not encumbered with any lead, but is free as the ease of breath.’

‘“Pulling,” sir, is in both sound and aptness the most correct. Regard, the effect is in the image. “Hands pulling down. But they go.” How fearful is that sir?’

‘Not at all. Nothing, not a particle, article or item. The strength is in the auditory not in the ocular.’

‘Ha. Repent!’

‘Not in the least. Is not thunder more fearful than lightning?’

‘A dull instance. Besides, consider, thunder in the hands of Jove is not auditory but tactile.’

‘Pah! What heresy! You cannot listen with hands. What’s more frightening, hands or thunder?’ said the tall one.

‘The hand trembles at the sound of thunder, therefore the hand is more frightened.’

‘Foo! You bandy it, sir. The danger is in their hearts.’

‘I, sir, am not a peregrinator, rambler or otherwise distender of the pure forms. I say “pulling” is the most apt for it is suggestive of motion towards the grave, thus is fear greater, timor mortis conturbat me.’

‘That depends on who the subject is, if he be a great man, non omnis moriar.’

‘Pish! Fear comes even to the great, in articulo mortis.’

‘Ho ho! Would Hercules quake the same as Henry, fortis cadere, cedere non potest?’

‘Fear is no discriminator.’

‘It is not fear, but the reaction to fear that makes the difference between Hercules and Henry.’

‘“Yet they ply forward”, in spite of their fear. Are they all Hercules’ or Ajax’s?’

At this the tall one stammered, his feathers suitably ruffled. The corpulent gentleman tittered until raising a hand in a gesture of peace took snuff. 

‘How stand you, sir, on the QUESTION of the perfect?’ said the short.

‘An observance of the prime, measure, euphony, boldness of mind, character, le mot juste, proportion, tension, opposition, eloquence, charm, stimulation, and passions should altogether bring us to those rare and sublime raptures.’

‘Indeed, sir, but have we no formula?’ said the short.

‘Indeed, sir, if there isn’t, we must invent one,’ said the tall.

‘Sir, let us put aside tolerable construction and attempt the high mark. How stand you with: Abstract, preposition, adjective, noun, verb, object, conjunction, adverb, verb?’

‘“Danger of a tender heart pulls them, who nevertheless go.” No, sir, it fails in the MOTION. Positively soporose.’

‘Then, sir, I have you with this: Subject, verb, adverb, verb, conjunction, adjective, noun,’ said the short.

‘“They go, tenderly scared, against strong arms.” No, sir, it is an abuse of sense to be “tenderly scared.” Now how about this: verb, pronoun, adverb, conjunction, preposition, adverb, verb, preposition, verb, adverb?’ said the tall.

‘“Pulling them puissantly thus back, fearfully grabbed in going forward.” Well sir, that does contend, that does contend. And yet’

‘And yet.’

‘And yet, shouldn’t it be more … isn’t it more: verb, pronoun, adverb, preposition, noun, verb, adverb, verb, preposition, verb, noun?’ said the short.

‘“Pulling them puissantly back, the hearts fear, powerfully fear, down-grabbing arms.” Sir, it nearly strikes, it nearly flies but yet there is a stone in it. Gradibus ascendimus. Surely it ought to be: verb, pronoun, adverb, adverb, verb, noun, conjunction, preposition, noun, adjective, conjunction, adjective, noun, adverb, verb, preposition, noun, pronoun, verb, preposition, pronoun, adverb, preposition, noun.’

‘“Pulling them puissantly, heavily, the beating hearts, while under the tender yet fearful rhythm, strenuously go against the arms which lay on them perilously into the grave.”’

‘Transcendent!’

‘Apollonian!’

‘Ecstatic!’

‘Empyrean!’

They began to hop and twirl in a fit of strange excitement. They took snuff and emitted several excited noises then hooked each others arms and skipped. At length they calmed themselves.

‘Subliminal ambrosia, sir,’ said the short.

‘And not so much as a pebble or grain of sand.’

‘Indeed sir, and not in the least bit periphrastic, bombastic, indirect…’

‘Prolix, tortuous, wordy, bloviated…’

‘Verbose, rambling, discursive, distended…’

‘Circumlocutory, circumlocutionary, pleonastic.’

‘Indeed sir, but a phrase of the perfect simplicitude generated from the very principles and LAWS of nature and perfected to the highest degree by artful cogitations in the union between the sciences and beauty.’

At length their excitement diminished and they again resumed a ‘dignified’ seat and posture.

Sir, shall we now turn to our efforts to extend the lexicon,’ said the short.

‘And sir, what word have you made?’

‘“Tresove,” sir.’

‘Indeed, sir. it has a soothing tone. The tongue is not indisposed by proximity of the t and the s. I must congratulate you. No, in fact it is admirable. And of course, though it hardly need mentioning, that the sove is pronounced wove and the tre can be clipped depending of course on one’s rank and station.’

‘Indeed, sir, to think otherwise would be an error that would cause such as we to unwind our estate and slip with high blushes into the great ocean of the unthinking populace. Sine scientia ars nihil est.’

‘I hardly dared to mention it. Now, sir. What meaning do you attribute to this neologism? It is indeed a verb?’ said the tall.

‘Naturally it is a verb. It has the appearance and tactility of a verb. Indeed, sir, if one were deaf and saw the word on its own, atomised, the deaf man would at once construe a verb. In a word, sir, it demands conjugation. As to its meaning, sir, what do you think of this: “Tresove – the act of walking and conspicuously contemplating some weighty matter?”’

‘“He was tresoving in the dusk as the metropolis heaved with cobblers,”’ said the tall.

‘Or, sir, “They were silent as they tresoved, frowning at their doom.”’

‘“Tresoving on his poverty through the market, he did not register the great hullabaloo.” It is an excellent designation.’

‘And, sir, what locution have you summoned from the dark vacuum. Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam,’ said the short.

‘Inunculate, sir, is the very vocable I have hauled out of the Pandorian abyss.’

‘I commend you, sir. It’s sound is exquisite to the ear, and its form on the page frabjous to the eye. Need I say, sir, that if you desired it to be a noun it has the very bell-peeling of the ecclesiastical.’

‘And indeed if it was a noun it would be clerical,’ said the tall.

‘Then, as indeed I would have so made with this term, it is an adjective?’

‘Exactly, sir.’

‘And much better for it. And pray sir, what signification have you attributed?’

‘Thus: “Inunculate – an adjective pertaining to an insouciant state of mind before some disturbance is imminent,”’ said the tall.

‘Thus, “He lay inunculate among the meadow’s flowers while the peasants sought shelter from the coming storm.”’

‘Or, “They were inunculate to the tax collectors rap at the door, despite their penury.”’

‘Or, “I am inunculate to the hangman’s noose.”’

‘Or, “She inunculately slept even though in the morning she was to leave the duke’s service.”’

‘Indeed sir, this is most becoming.’

As they took snuff they began to dematerilaise. 

So much for Les Deux Messieurs. 

* * *

A man with enormous plimsoles and hands the size of catfish and a pair of eggs for eyes, was proceeding in a jaunty, syncopated fashion along a path in the Bois de Vincennes. He stopped by the Lac de Minimes. The swans were sneezing.

‘Jibbely-bang. Jibbely-bang,’ he said. ‘Misty-woo on the merry blube. Thrasaphonic thrust, ginger-most. I sanctifily the long toothium, unchangeable song.’ He then paused and eyed the geese. ‘Oh geesiae, where’s your fariniatus? Where be your glibe petrolabe or the puk-puk of your word-wample? How much handoi-munch do you neck beg from the human milky and kindium?

‘Oh prance off you scowling flapiators, piddle-paddle across the lade. Frummet your chibs and wrinkly croakers. Tellest the scallafy water slobes, that the humanoi swimicus in their undertrobes by the bower. Tellest the job-gates brid to stop its croakus. Tellest the erastes crabs their clacking boves have wide griefatum grave the slackshot tapdoles. The flogs have tocked it. And they slidiatus down to Pluto-Plato. Tellest then, gilobal geesiae, the musi-weeds to shroft from their frickle-tickle of the belliae of the hornbeam cullappers. Oh but lookium, for shrooping they with perfidely braibs. Tellest them oppi-wise to cutticus the twide beteen. And tellest the dowager heronymous, with their diviticus blong eaks, to scratchiatus another patch of the blube. Let them pash the wobbles elsehow. For certes, it jarrioff and right fearipium the tender heart. And for a heaven shake, tellest the frum-lucks not to wak Dunecan with their fracking. Oh gessiae, awail with ye. Strobbliates far from the thilse pace. Don’t lumgaph the wobbles so!

‘And you, back ravlens … lave off your folk-croak. Mythiato your owb semiotoia. Why cast ye down beady eye raybes that mortifido the hearts of the leiving bings? Who consecrades you with the full puiss and strangly-hold of a dim-death bode in the coffle-gravel? Who bore you the verai aegis of wide darkus thang-a-toes? I reckle nei that you desertioi or meritocks to carry the shkirit of Pluto-Plato. For, lookium at the chiblets that dell fown the folk-stalk. A swack or three on the muzza, then to twinkle out a faint. But on awakeius, and crotting twey and so, they shoffled it to the lade and, nei-nimble, pashed it quick on the wobbles. Bar one, whoob delled with wide ferocitos, swacked its noddle whereat its braibs sallied apart. It’s shell-alley’s lohr. Now, why not he to wear the maskus, crown and semiotoia of Pluto-Plato?

‘Oh bribed sollay, brursting your shards of shine that sliver-silvers a thousand shimmers on the wobbles. Lookium down upon your creatatus. Lookium upon all your creatiae. All the leiving bings brosting with joy and grusting with life. Observy all your bings, whoob twuddle and pash, or singus twittle-most, or swimicus in the blube, or flappius in the ska. Observy what-how beautifilly it is!

‘But you, snoth-slails with your slovish slime, your curkely shell made of Fibinarch fractobes, and your dinkle eyes. Why you mobe Lentish elsewhen you could dash? What dorpal dreams and thoves cereby-thinkle in your slinky braib? Machinaticus of gobal oberthrage?’

But the snoth slugs ignorami him of the plimsoles and egg-eyes. So he trollocked along the crackle toad. Where-then, an ovish piggle-trough, waddling on four trottle sticks, which to the flar fung eye lookius only as a piggle-trough, screebed loudly. The man stopped and lookius at the animalium, which, wide-odd, had the face of a chimpanzola. 

‘How have you cousin? Be you glidiling the lies?’ said the piggle-trough. 

‘No, but old chuzz, why not you tongue out one of your poem-wamples? Be bonum and fropple up some Delpho verby mots, the like nei any creatatus has ever or elsehow heard. Choggle our hearts wib a story of dollar-rose feelibs, wib tear-a-bill fates, wib pash-on-it outbrursts. Make our thoves sore into the ska.’ 

The piggle-trough cleared its throat.

‘The In-Ter-Net strobe one and nought,
Flashing shimmers on the screeb.
The pixel toves struck and fought
Wib the whorly wilding weeb.

They struck and fought, the pixel toves,
To loaf it up, the clickle-tac,
The mousey pluck, the key-bored groves,
Did chog and churn the windle-mac.

And seeking forth by frogging leaps,
Page-by-page and slinking scroll,
The goo-gill gold and the yub-tub heaps
Guarded by the non-ame troll.

Crotting-rush went the giggle-bites
To forward slash wiki-weebs sight.
And crushing wide all privabe rights
It fills your store with porn-pong blights.

But harkle wide to this chief thove
Beware the hackius, wib viral slink
Whoob steal wide your money grove
And waste your time and dullb your think.

As freedom is high mined by vast sense-ore,
You best keep your thoughts in a deep-locked draw.’