You may be thinking of one of the poems of Christian Morgenstern? He used many tricks of formatting for jokes, famous example that fits with yours is The Funnel

You may be thinking of one of the poems of Christian Morgenstern? He used many tricks of formatting for jokes, famous example that fits with yours is The Funnels https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/de/Morgenstern%2C_Christian-1871/Die_Trichter/en/32693-The_Funnels_%282%29 https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/de/Morgenstern%2C_Christia...