WHAT’S IN A WORD?

A whole wide world of sound sensations.
Picures speak in sounds of nations.
I never listened to the words
When I heard songs sung as a child,
And yet I could predict a rhyme.
Now ‘child’ is a word and ‘rhyme’ is another.
Though they don’t rhyme they soothe each other.
They both contain the vowel “I”.
There’s I and eye and Ei in German.
The last means egg.
My word, what sermon!
I understand that when you teach
You merit nothing if you preach.
Your literary value drops
And critics call your works mere flops.
But I maintain I’m my own reader.
If I am led I am the leader.
If I turn out to be a flop
I’ll spin around my floppy top
And spin my yarn around my world.
My word, all this is in a word?

1985