The poem is built on the children's game of rock, paper, scissors, though here the rock is missing and the other two pieces take on a strange life of their own. It opens with a shared, almost playful confession: "we call one another mad." The speaker seems to include themselves in a group of people who label each other crazy, and the comparison to "singing scissors" makes that madness sound oddly lively, even musical, rather than frightening.
Then the tone shifts. The scissors are "troubled by a committee of papers," and a committee suggests rules, paperwork and official judgment. Paper is also what scissors cut, so the trouble feels like a reversal: the sharp, singing thing is hemmed in by dull, bureaucratic voices. Their "mode of mad talk" may hint that the so-called sane have their own kind of madness. The mood is wry, light on the surface but a little uneasy underneath, as if free, odd voices are being quietly managed by the crowd.