Shell Game

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” – Humpty Dumpty, Through the Looking Glass

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, beating
drums on kings and men and Thrasymachus,
the devious declaimer weaving truth
atop his lofty battlement, the press
below his cracked enchantment lapping up
the roguish gold effusing from his shell;
a mass of latent tyrants stirred and boiled
upon the scrambled chatter, shattering
the yoke of spoken semiology.
The lustrous X on power’s cartogram
is hovering above the Oxford writ,
Webster’s scriptures edited to purpose;
the genius who decrees that Monday’s moon
is Tuesday’s sun – he is a king indeed.