.

Jargon

The devil will manipulate,
through jargoneers who fabricate
non sequitur profundity
tuned with the proper frequency
that will, before you realize,
infect your mind and hypnotize
with phrases such as “Love is love,”
which is the best example of
how bumper-sticker jargoneers
can craft a phrase that interferes
with thoughts formed in a once sane brain
that now is captured by inane
quotes that sound great if you dispense
with every ounce of common sense.

For “Love is love” is just as true
as if they wrote that “Blue is blue,”
and just as useless since you’ll find
that what love means is not defined.
And who would say they’re not “Pro Choice,”
although there are some with no voice
and we know what they would have said,
but someone chose for them instead.
And “Girls need boys like fish need bikes”
is meaningless but still it strikes
a chord in just the perfect key
that resonates in harmony
with all the anger that came from
old frictions some can’t overcome.

But wisdom that is truly wise
is very hard to summarize
in bumper stickers stuck on chrome,
or put on posters hung at home,
which means we must work to resist
and lamely say we’ll “coexist”
or latch on to another quote
that’s clever, but some flunky wrote
to earn a paycheck, not impart
words meant to truly change each heart.
But hearts will change in ways profound
if we’ll just harken to the sound
of every single quote we’ve heard
that leads us to a holy word.

.

.

Warren Bonham is a private equity investor who lives in Southlake, Texas.

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4 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Warren, you are the master of long compelling sentences. Talcott Parsons would be proud. How great are the thoughts expressed of aphorisms that are arcane and misleading tautologies and nonsense! There is a lot to praise in every phase.

    Reply
  2. Russel Winick

    Warren, your message is compelling, and the rhyme and meter are spectacular! Great job!

    Reply
  3. Cynthia L Erlandson

    There is so much wisdom here, Warren — and a lot of catharsis, for me anyway — those signs drive me crazy! Not only is “love is love” a tautology, but, as you observe, it isn’t defined; it may be the most abused word there is, although “choice” may be abused just as much. Those who call themselves “pro-choice” are actually anti-choice about many things, as you’ve succinctly noted. Great job!

    Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    Especially the first stanza, Warren, sounds like a Gilbert and Sullivan song. The rhythm is good all the way through, of course. The second stanza goes more deeply into the illogic of some sayings, while the third explicitly reveals jargon versus wisdom as your subject. I notice the third (quoting the most problematic bumper sticker “coexist”) is the only stanza that has a period, signaling the way to wisdom enunciated in the last four lines. True to the message of the piece, you wisely do not claim to pronounce wisdom–only to suggest an escape from jargon. By the end, we have a good working description of it!

    Reply

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