the poet of the dragons

one time i had a dream that i met a poet who knew the secret properties of etymologies and the origins of the dragon songs.

he knew the way that words twisted their sounds and meaning over time. they changed and took on new resonances and moved  differently in the caverns of people's mouths. he knew how words are treasures. he knew how dangerous it is to them to be confined in guarded piles. they should be allowed to circulate freely among the people, no matter how worn or damaged they become in the handling. he knew that transactions of words were inevitable, and therefore it was foolish to insist that they adhere to only the one form of one time. he told us that to understand language was to understand that words coalesce and bleed at times just as much as they display immiscibility. we were cautioned that we would amputate reality from our minds if we denied this, or struggled against it.

bubbles, my pet-fish, however, said this was loony. bubbles claimed that words were merely a mechanism of social control. in order for the proletariat to take command of the world, bubbles claimed, it must first make itself the master of bourgeois grammars, and institute - not merely a new vocabulary- but a new system of verbal structure where meaning could not be manipulated for the purposes of class deception.  

bubbles said that all poetry is inherently political and that any verse that doesn't address the method of production is counter-revolutionary, and hence dangerous.

i told bubbles that the quasi-mystical ravings of his end of the world cult didn't scare me.