April is national poetry month, so I thought I'd share this dorky poem.


The Symbolic Poem
by Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese

< > !* ' ' #
^ " ` $$-
!*=@$_
%*< > ~ #4
&[ ]../
{,,SYSTEM HALTED

This poem can only be appreciated by reading it aloud:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.

A poll conducted among readers of InFocus magazine, where it was originally published, established "waka" as the proper pronunciation for the angle-bracket characters, though some held out resolutely for "norkie".