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Bric-à-Brac Babel

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Beneath a tattered coat, it haunts the street,
A mongrel tongue with mischief in its eyes.
It lifts what other languages repeat,
Then cobbles words and swears it’s neat and wise.

From Gaelic glens, it pockets "whiskey" neat,
And Saxon hoards are crammed into its sleeves.
It pilfers French with charm both sly and sweet,
Then grabs what German drops and quickly leaves.

No words are safe—it snatches what it likes,
It lifts the Arab cipher, Latin charts.
It swipes a Norseman’s saga, Dutchman’s dikes,
And builds a patchwork form from stolen arts.

It shifts and twists, unbridled and untamed,
A brash imposter, deaf to what it maimed

Tagged in:

poetry, sonnet, english, languages

Last Update: May 17, 2025

Author

Amanda Růžičková 53 Articles

Poet in Prague, Midwest-born, fluent in reinvention. Living with stage IV lung cancer and too many unread books. Writing with love and uncertainty—chasing meaning and the everyday beauty that survives

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