The story was David Bowie,
In imitation of William S. Burroughs,
Or so the story goes, wrote
By just writing, then cutting up the lines,
Throwing them up in the air, paper strips,
Then positioning each line in whatever order
They came to hand.
The story goes, that means that either, or both,
In a sense, never wrote what you read,
Because what you read was as random as gravity
Or a breeze, summer or wintry, however they fell,
Those words, and that was that.
But they did write those words, they did cut them up
And out, they did toss them skywards,
Or roof-wards, if the breeze was too stiff
And promised lost words,
They did write them, and they did pick them up
And they placed them, as they fell, for sure,
But picked up, and thus, random is and random is,
Ordered.
Right back in the brain where first those words began,
Before hands and scissors rendered them again,
Without apparent order, but ultimately
In the only order that matters - what you read.
Otherwise books would be sold with scissors,
And songs played through editing machines
Set to nothing but mechanical randomness,
And such a thing is not possible, because
Always, all ways, there's a mind to it.
Whatever that mind tells itself trying to avoid shape.
And so the story goes.