The German language is a mess,
or as they’d say, a “through-each-other”,
but sometimes, when you blindly guess,
you stab the proper word without much bother.
They’re literal little dumpling-chefs,
the Germans. Gloves to them are “hand-shoes”.
Moustaches are called “string-beards” (if
they’re on the way to being like Fu Manchu’s,
as oft they are in Germany,
whose handlebar-hirsutest suburbs
heave with hairy men who’ll flee
from razors, mumbling Swabian plumbers’ proverbs).
What pretzel-stocked bananensaft-
and-beer-soaked planet must these people
live on, referring to alien craft
as “flying undercups” with little scruple?
With mental graft and cries of “uh?”
we sword-fight with their dark insistence
on six Satanic words for “the”,
yes, six! Six! Six! But some words lend assistance.
Is it just daft or knifesmith-rough
to call a tortoise “shield-toad”, brutal
for drumkits to be “hitting-stuff”
and diarrhoea to cross the sea as “through-fall”?
They’re cheeky scrawlers of treble-clefs,
the Germans, yes, their speech resembles
the way a gorgeous woman coughs
pork luncheon meat out of her throat then fumbles
with scissors and a paper with
a bacon coupon, it’s not singsong,
but what’s a sharper social scythe
than when the word for “hooligan” is “half-strong”?
Perhaps they have far fewer swathes
of blockheads hurling chairs through barriers
since it’s impossible to bathe
in glory as “United Half-Strong Warriors”.
It might as well mean “empty soul
with brain the size of an amoeba’s
clitoris” or “paedophile
who wets himself after two Cuba Libras”.
But nothing brings more harmony
than those two words that, clanging, thudding,
mean “jelly” in fair Germany:
there’s “food of the gods” and then there’s “wobble-pudding”.
“Food of the gods” as there’s no doubt
that Zeus, Apollo, Thor and Vishnu
are chomping jelly on a cloud
then wiping their beards clean with bits of tissue.
