My dVerse job this week was to “pen” a 44-word poem (not incl. title, or [in my case] postscript) that includes some form of the word gasp. Then to post it and link to Mister Linky, where you can read more flash poems.
Oy, it’s you!
My latest guy wanna-be like is the British character,
AFC Richmond footballer,
From Apple’s Ted Lasso show,
Roy (Fucking) Kent.
Roy is gaspingly sensitive, loving, and caring;
pleasing to his woman,
and says shit and fuck
more than I.
Roy? What a guy! Gasp!
Look both ways and you’re safe in any country crossing the street.
Mind the gaps and keep right, or left, or whatever.
This clip is long (over 12 minutes), but not as long as I spent laughing (until I gasped). If you’re not familiar with Roy or Ted (and language is not offensive to you), give it a bit of a look. If you can, watch to the end.
Click on lexicon for Sammi page and more takes on the prompt.
Poets’ Lexicon.
One must have lexicon to poem.
Language to arrange words right.
Poet’s lingo contains abundant terms
shared with the world of writing
like style, voice, or tone. Words,
as Mary Oliver said, “If words were only words…”
We need to learn vernacular and forms; The Rules of the Dance, poetry handbooks to
comprehend values of meter: monometer,
pentameter, and octameter.
Toeless feet with iamb, trochee, and dactyl.
How often does one see a spondee running free?
Books by Packard, Turco, Oliver,
and more for poetics.
Look both ways as you dip you pen into the poet’s ink.
Mind the gaps as there is so much to learn about the plethora of poetry terms.
Who are they? Don’t trust
precious pronouns,
dark subs of uncertainty,
misleading indefinite expletives
creating confusing conversations,
reflexively relative to that which was.
First-person personal,
possessively mine, ours, or theirs.
It and there might fit
some distant noun.
Unknowns
like they who say (whoever they are),
demanding demonstrative determiners
representing this noun,
but not that clown.
They don’t know who, which, whose,
nor by whom it was.
Ownership for
he, she, or it is about his, hers, or its?
It’s blurringly written minus possessive
nouns with apostrophes of distinction.
Confusion grows unless deictic
takes over this, that, these, and those.
Not me is perpetually guilty.
Definitely, universal indefinites, like everybody
or nobody are unhelpful.
Neither King nor I may trust pronouns, but
we all sure as hell need pronouns them.
Look both ways for clarity and understanding. Mind the gaps, so they say.
Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog. I dropped the hyphen.
Passed Gas
When Dad said, “secondhand store,” I looked at my hands. Wondered which was bought second. It’s a euphemism for used. Now it’s preloved. Just bought a preloved printer. Nobody loves evil printers. They’re used.
Daughter, Julie, likens me to George Carlin. Not as funny, but I’m snarkastic. We both rant about softening lingo with euphemistic bull shit excrement. It’s doublespeak. Even good bad words, a euphemism for euphemisms. What’s your favorite?
Look both ways: a euphemism for pay attention or consider all options. Mind both past and future.
So is mind the gaps. Maybe metaphor is mo’ betta’.
Is it a feeling of intense pleasure or joy, or something religious? I recently used it, but reconsidered because of the second coming link. That’s not where I wanted my reader’s mind to go.
I’m not paranoid about selecting words, but many good words have been hijacked into meaning other things. I just saw click bait titled, “100 common slang phrases no longer used.” It included terms such as passion pit, talk to the hand, booyah, pad, or cat. Things change with words, phrases, and language in general. But I’m no linguist.
Admittedly, all words are subject to being absorbed into contemporary slang. Even lexicographers surrender to words morphing from misnomer to intentional slang to first or second-level meanings in dictionaries.
For example, gay as an adjective is often now defined first as homosexual (especially a man). As a noun, it means homosexual. Queer is another one that has waffled from meaning something odd, then to disparaging slang (homosexual), then back to acceptable, as in LGBTQ. I confess my confusion.
I try to keep up. I can say that’s cool and not be referring to a temperature, but I may be. Same with cold (as in cruel) in various uses. When my son started using the word bad to mean exceptionally good, I failed in making the sarcastic adjustment. Can we just stick with bad ass for that? Of course, that may also mean a tough or rough person.
I like it better when we make up new words rather than creating slang from old words that have established meanings. As it is, even when used correctly and in context, some words have so many meanings. For example, “the word set has 126 meanings as a verb, 58 as a noun, and 10 as a participial adjective,” and those do not include new jargonistic aberrations.
I just counted seven specialized dictionaries on my bookshelves. I like to read them because words fascinate me as much as spelling them frustrates me. Additionally, I use several on-line regular dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias (wiki’s) every day.
I got A’s in spelling in elementary school, “A” for atrocious. Now there’s a word nobody has screwed with (yet).
The nuns in my grade school taught me the word atrocious. I heard it often and haven’t forgotten. If only my spelling was better. It’s embarrassing to call myself a writer and spell so poorly.
However, Bill Bryson helps reduce my guilt feelings in his book “Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words” by telling of the physicist Richard Feynman’s intended retort to other professors who complained about their students’ failure to correctly spell particular words. It was, “Then there must be something wrong with the way you spell it.”
In the same book, Bryson (who I love to read) goes on to say of our language,
“One of the abiding glories of English is that it has no governing authority, no group of august worthies empowered to decree how words may be spelled and deployed. We are a messy democracy, and all the more delightful for it. We spell eight as we do not because that makes sense, but because that is the way we like to spell it. When we tire of a meaning or usage or spelling – when we decide, for example, that masque would be niftier as mask – we change it, not by fiat but by consensus. The result is a language that is wonderfully fluid and accommodating, but also complex, undirected and often puzzling – in a word, troublesome.”
I find that rapturing, as in when rapture means ecstasy, bliss, exaltation, euphoria, elation, joy, enchantment, delight, happiness, and pleasure. My feet are planted firmly on the ground and shall remain so, no matter who’s coming or how often.
Look both ways when wordsmithing or researching meaning and spelling.
Mind the gaps in dictionaries, they often mean something.
With your merciful pardon and leave, I shall write on, seeking
the dispensation and assistance of good spellers.
My eternal envy and gratitude are theirs.
Our Literary Journey 