for Hans Arp
Awkward grammar appals a craftsman. A Dada bard as daft as Tzara damns stagnant art and scrawls an alpha (a slapdash arc and a backward zag) that mars all stanzas and jams all ballads (what a scandal). A madcap vandal crafts a small black ankh -- a hand-stamp that can stamp a wax pad and at last plant a mark that sparks an ars magna (an abstract art that charts a phrasal anagram). A pagan skald chants a dark saga (a Mahabharata), as a papal cabal blackballs all annals and tracts, all dramas and psalms: Kant and Kafka, Marx and Marat. A law as harsh as a fatwa bans all paragraphs that lack an A as a standard hallmark.
Ha**an Abd al-Ha**ad, an Agha Khan, basks at an ashram -- a Taj Mahal that has grand parks and gra** lawns, all as vast as parklands at Alhambra and Valhalla. Ha**an can, at a handclap, call a va**al at hand and ask that all staff plan a bacchan*l -- a gala ball that has what pagan charm small galas lack. Ha**an claps, and (tah-dah) an Arab la** at a swa*k spa can draw a man's bath and wash a man's back, as Arab lads fawn and hang, athwart an altar, amaranth garlands as fragrant as attar -- a balm that calms all angst. A dwarf can flap a palm branch that fans a fat maharajah. A naphtha lamp can cast a calm warmth.