by Les Murray

    In the World language， sometimes called

    Airport Road， a thinks balloon with a gondola¹

    under it is a symbol for speculation².

    Thumbs down to ear and tongue：

    World can be written and read， even painted

    but not spoken. People use their own words.

    Latin letters are in it for names， for e.g.

    OK and H2SO4， for musical notes，

    but mostly it's diagrams： skirt-figure， trousered figure

    have escaped their toilet doors. I （that is， saya，

    ego³， watashi wa） am two eyes without pupils；

    those aren't seen when you look out through them.

    You has both pupils， we has one， and one blank.

    Good is thumbs up， thumb and finger zipping lips

    is confidential⁴. Evil is three-cornered snake eyes.

    The effort is always to make the symbols obvious：

    the bolt of electricity， winged stethoscope of course

    for flying doctor. Pram⁵ under fire？ Soviet⁶ film industry.

    Pictographs also shouldn't be too culture-bound：

    a heart circled and crossed out surely isn't.

    For red， betel spit lost out to ace⁷ of diamonds.

    Black is the ace of spades. The king of spades

    reads Union boss， the two is feeble effort.

    If is the shorthand Libra sign， the scales.

    Spare literal pictures render most nouns and verbs

    and computers can draw them faster than Pharough's scribes.

    A bordello prospectus⁸ is as explicit⁹ as the action，

    but everywhere there's sunflower talk， i.e.

    metaphor¹⁰， as we've seen. A figure riding a skyhook

    bearing food in one hand is the pictograph for grace，

    two animals in a book read Nature， two books

    inside an animal， instinct. Rice in bowl with chopsticks

    denotes food. Figure 1 lying prone¹¹ equals other.

    Most emotions are mini-faces， and the speech

    balloon is ubiquitous. A bull inside one is dialect

    for placards inside one. Sun and moon together

    inside one is poetry. Sun and moon over palette，

    over shoes etc. are all art forms——but above

    a cracked heart and champagne¹² glass？ Riddle¹³ that

    and you're starting to think in World， whose grammar

    is Chinese-terse and fluid. Who needs the square-

    equals-diamond book， the dictionary， to know figures

    led by strings¹⁴ to their genitals mean fashion？

    just as a skirt beneath a circle means demure¹⁵

    or a similar circle shouldering two arrows is macho.

    All peoples are at times cat in water with this language

    but it does promote international bird on shoulder.

    This foretaste now lays its knife and fork parallel.

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