Howard Firkin
(strange alphabets)
The how is easy to explain, but dull;
the why’s another matter. Rearrange
the thousand index cards that clog my skull
a thousand ways—it still seems just as strange,
      as epileptic as crime ever gets.
I puzzle like the wholly colour blind
confronting bland grey dots: we know
a pattern is revealed to other minds,
or sullenly accept it might be so;
      illiterates before strange alphabets.

I must have cubist motives; all intent
is just a tarot of a set of random shards.
Inspection only leads me to invent
unlikely readings that ignore the cards.