Having a coffee
And reading Tom Wolfe
On Chomsky in Harper’s
Riding the express train of his prose
As he hurtles through Chomsky’s early life
Circling back all the time to linguists in the jungle
Linguists in the jungle some where
Until finally he pulls his linguist out of the jungle
To attack Chomsky’s theories of Universal grammar and Recursion
With news of the Piraha tribe in Brazil
Who have no time for Jesus or Crooked Head tales
And no concept of the future or the past
There is only today and the other day
And together they conspire
To chew up Chomsky
and spit him out.

The theme for this week over at earthweal is “Wild Language”

This poem first appeared in The Galway Review