Wordsmithing

Image borrowed from bing

Wordsmithing

“ Martin Luther King was the ultimate wordsmith, having incredible

descriptive powers, finding just the right words for the right moment.”

--Tim Roye.

There are those petulant few among us

to whom language

               comes easily;

                           able to read & write

                                       several languages fluently.

How many, I wonder,

                                        to be considered a linguist,

two or ten?

I have always envied them,

for after a brumous lifetime of communicative struggle,

                I am still striving

                to fully explore/exploit

                the vast parameters

of my native tongue. 

I once attempted to memorize

all the “A” words

in the dictionary--

but the task outdistanced me--

                                         my fervor &

                                         my intentions

fell flat,

became flaccid,

                            & b l e w away briskly

like gossamer wildflower chaff on a mid-day breeze. 

The Zealots claim 

that mankind is to blame

for his inability to understand “foreign” languages;

           you know the scene,

there in antiquity,

           after the Great Flood, 

humanity was united & spoke a single language.

                          Several of these groups migrated

                                    to the land of Shinar,

& began to construct a great city,

                                    called Babylon by some,

                                               Babel by others--

       the place, I guess where babbling began;

where those from that homogenous gaggle

decided to erect a behemoth tower

              in the middle of the city,

              a brick & mortar phallis,

thrusting higher & higher toward Heaven daily.

              

               As the story goes 

Old Jehovah didn’t dig their hubris,

               or their probing,

                                 passionate,

                                      penissian 

                                           pariah-al 

                                                 projectile

quickly approaching the buttocks of Heaven’s underside--

I mean more than just irritated,

                     God was pissed off;

                     so much so that he made a appearance

amongst them, which must have been a sight to see,

                     & with a wave of his godhead,

he confounded the speech of mankind.

The fatuous fahtay

dropped their iron utbuhs,

& in a fit of gurgling gepfiss,

they gathered all their kivnek & decepiffs,

loaded them onto their trusty owkvahs

along with the remnants of their zetbuss,

forcing them to abandon their sinful construction site;

to strike out, scatter, spread out all over

the foogah face of the earth, never

to embrace their prideful odemuh tendencies again. 

But Deus maximus est, 

because after that we were allowed

to enrich our new languages

with myriads of nuances,

                     & literature & art & religion

                                                   rebounded & blossomed,

& poetry strode forth in silver armor,

it’s literary lances festooned with Word Banners,

as language became beautiful again,

from haiku & bagatelle

                     to the length of the Iliad,

                     to the lyrical Song of Hiawatha,

from law books to holy texts,

wonderful Words made a comeback--

Thank great Zhygah for that.

As a poor poet worshipping

the vitcheenian magic of words,

I acknowledge that they remain forever

the koemoy of my forays

into verse. 

                                         

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets MTB

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?