I did my bit to oil the tongue
And make it an informal one,
But if I’d known what I’d begun
I never would have started.
The ‘wi’ from I’ll, the ‘o’ from aren’t
Are AWOL with the ‘no’ from can’t
And e’er again I know I sha’n’t
See letters that departed.

,


The ‘v’ from ne’er gesticulates
And ‘ha’ from they’ve laughs in my face,
While I - that’s me - hang in their place,
A stitch between incisions. Now
The b’s’n on the fo’c’s’le stands,
A pile of letters in his hands,
Perplexing lubbers on the land
With five extreme omissions.

,


The Hilton houses ‘i’ from it’s
While ‘i’ from he’s hides in the Ritz;
I pull together all the bits
They readily deserted.
A crescent moon in lettered sky,
A prick in alphabetty pie,
I turn away, a winking eye
And chaos is averted.

,


I scratch then scribe the sheet to show
Where absent letters used to go
And thus let everybody know
That something’s missing for my pains.
Contractions brought about my birth,
‘twixt font and grave I’ve shown my worth:
To scatter symbols o’er the Earth
And free them from their paper chains.