English is kind of awful
There’s a place in Paris called the Place de la Concorde
A euphonious name for the site of the guillotine
In London they might have named it Concordance Square
But you really shouldn’t end a word
And begin the next with sibilants
When we lionize Shakespeare
We tacitly acknowledge that The Bard
Accomplished his art in obdurate English
And he availed himself of corners to cut
An Italian sonnet might employ as few as four rhymes
But Shakespeare enjoyed the luxury of seven
And when we want sharp precision
We resort to ciceronian Latin or Hellenic propaedeutic
Hence Macbeth’s will to incarnadine
Thus a young man once suffered a brain tumor
And doctors debated what nomenclature to assign
Dauntingly Greek and esoteric
And they reached consensus some time before he died
Nature supplies us with speech
So that we can understand one another
Even in our local poor bastard tongue
And humans pass through transitions
As do other living things
But humans may comment upon them
And we may promulgate our diagnoses
We may make statements or issue commands
But death doesn’t make any fucking sense