Herewith the reason I finally had to learn how to pronounce “Wittgenstein” (see my previous post).
THOUGHT POLICE
for Murray MouldingAs the critic drove, caught up in unpacking a scrap
of verse (did it, in fact, allude to Wittgenstein?),
he missed the light’s turn and so never caught
sight of the city bus hustling to its next stop.
Now the jaunty firemen jabber as they scrape
the remains of him off the dash, and the ‘copter
jabbers above the gawkers and TV reporterswho all jabber too—just as Wittgenstein jabbered
while shaking a fireplace poker at Karl Popper,
insisting there are no philosophical problems,
only linguistic ones (this a mere fifty miles
from war-rubbled London, when Hiroshima
and Nagasaki still lay flayed and smoking).
How all this jabber would distract our scholarif he wasn’t already heaped like raw sausage
in the throbbing sarcophagus of the ambulance.
In any case he’ll never see those men in shades
slouched against a red brick wall, gazing out
over the accident scene in uncanny silence—
cigarettes angled from their lips, fists in pockets,
faint smiles shadowed by the brims of their fedoras.