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Page 9

Nonsense. What we say (or don't say)
matters. Any game is better than none.
The rules change from writer to writer,
reader to reader, language to language,
generation to generation, but always
there are rules.

The size and shape of the ball I toss
tells you which game we are playing.
We are not limited: There's no end
of things to do with a football --
wait, not hit it with a baseball bat, surely?
Well, we can, and still have a game,
especially if we know we shouldn't.

We can break any rules if,
in the process, we create new ones.
(Poetry follows the rules of Calvin Ball.
The imaginary tiger always wins.)
We can even create new alphabets:

/ mm*
/ ##T– ^
\\|__/?~[/\)

What did we just say? Critics? Anyone?
Reader, can you read me?
Over.
Out.

(I continue to think, but outside the page.
You can't hear me now...)

Note: In the magnificent comic strip, "Calvin and Hobbes", about a boy and his tiger (whose reality varies with the beholder), boy and tiger play "Calvin Ball", in which they make the rules up as they go along,, but still manage to have a game.

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