Zip-Zap
Zipporah Zapata is a-buzz with chitty-chatter
As she busy-boozy blazes the bazaar –
Fizzing with a zealous zest, azure of gaze and Zara-dressed,
She jazzes with the zebras at the bar.
She’s such a zumba zoomer, as she dazzles with good humour,
As she blitzes with her zither on the breeze –
And when she wants to zero-in, and cozy-up with hazy gin,
She zones-out in a zen to catch some zees…
Day 26 – Zip – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Hero Shrews
These days, there are too many shrews,
And most aren’t even shrews at all –
They’re tree-shrews, or they’re otter shrews,
Or distant strangers who confuse,
And some are even elephants, but small.
But only OG shrews are true shrews –
None of these opossums out to steal
That early-mammal look that many lose,
But which, with dedication, a few choose
To keep pursuing, like the shrews for real.
These days, there are too many shrews,
And only one of them are fit for Kate –
They’re far more noble, paying dues
For meek imposters in their shoes,
Who we are all-too-ready to conflate.
Day 21 – Hero – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
A Smack of Jellyfishes
Why is it a smack of jellies ?
Well, of old it never was –
For this is very much a modern coinage,
Likely just because.
But then, it’s pretty harmless, and it raises giggles,
I confess –
Though who has ever needed to employ it ?
Surfers, I would guess.
But why a smack ? Is that a ref’rence
To the whip-crack of the sting ?
As metaphor, of course, because they’re silent
When they’re blistering.
Or are they ? Do we bump them with our hull
When sailing through a crowd ?
But even then, I can’t imagine
That they’re headbutts are that loud…
But sailing makes me think of fishing boats,
And weren’t those called a smack ?
And I can see them forming a flotilla,
Drifting in a pack –
Although, a fishing boat needs miles of room
To cast its nets at sea –
You only spot them on their own,
Except when clustered at the quay.
But wait, I think a smack is Anglo-Saxon
For a pep of taste –
A silent pop, a gentle jolt,
To show this aspic ain’t so chaste.
Or are we simply fools to swim in spicy waters,
Where they’ve snuck ?
I guess we sometimes smack of arrogance,
And prove ourselves a schmuck ?
Day 5 – Smack – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Ealingianki
I watch two Polish women
Talking small-talk, fluently, –
Talking waiting at the school-gates
For the bells of half-past three.
They’re talking English, with an accent,
Till their girls are free –
That’s their SSB-tongued daughters,
With a hint of estu’ry.
They’re talking both in English,
Until suddenly their not –
As their code-switching switches
For their mother melting-pot.
They sound conspiratorial,
A fiendish Polish plot !
Or is it me they talk about ?
They’ve seen I’m in earshot…
Except if course, it’s just their talk,
As back-and-forth they flow –
Why shouldn’t they ? And then I think,
Well, do they even know ?
As their Polish moves to English moves to Polish,
Round they go,
With their small-talk that is too-big
For one language to tableau.
Then all at once, the school-gates open
And the classrooms spill,
And they gather-up their Londoners
To walk them down the hill.
And I hear my daughter’s SSB,
With a hint of of Polish-frill,
That she’s picked-up from her classmates
As they teach her how to trill.
Go Up, Thou Bald Head !
Why were the bears of Elisha called she-bears –
Don’t dwell on the mauling – but just why was that in their name ?
Did they refer to themselves as me-bears ?
Or hairy toupee-bears, to spare the poor prophet his shame ?
Or should we say ack-choo-lee, they must be sow-bears ?
But wouldn’t pigs furrow the Israelite’s double-deck brow ?
And these days, to play fair, should we call ’em they-bears ?
And not get so bald-faced or frowny on who’s Herr or Frau ?
Deers
One deer, two deers,
That’s how or should be –
Mixing with the fishes and the sheeps.
Red deers, roe deers,
Two-by-two, or sometimes three,
If fallows really are at home for keeps.
Muntjacs and sikas,
Followed fallows over here,
And water deers are plurals now, it’s true.
For us native speakers,
We won’t raise a pedant’s tear
If all of them get ess – and mooses too !
The TRAP-BATH split
Steadfast and pervasive,
From its bases out of Cockney mouths,
Across the South, and heading North,
Until it’s passed the Firth of Forth.
But out here in the town of Bath,
A person’s class can’t half be grasped
By how that very name is rasped –
In the lingual aftermath.
Though still it’s a disaster, lad,
It’s bad, and sad, and maddening –
Though gladdening that ays are stronger
When the traps are sprung for longer.
Slathering from out our lungs,
A psalm to answer rank or shah –
This split is cast upon our tongues,
To dance the Mardi Gras.
The use of ‘ays’ in the poem is a reference to multiple copies of the first letter of the alphabet.
I notice that the London version of this vowel is steady taking over the West Country. Perhaps the decades of racist ridicule that its accent has suffered has subconsciously hot home ?
The STRUT-SCHWA merger
Phoneticians claim there is a diff’rence,
But it’s lost on me.
The sounds they make all sound the same in this sense,
But they disagree.
I’ve always found I put my putts in as I should,
With no mishap.
They ask me how I say ago, but that’s no good,
It’s all a TRAP
To make me cook my FOOT-ing – but I got away
With other sounds –
And though unstressed, my parrot has a LOT to say,
My MOUTH abounds.
I have no schwa, yet they insist I’m nothing but,
And lack the other.
That’s the wrong way round – my STRUT vowel loves to strut –
So hear me brother !
Dun’t be tut-tut muttering,
And shut-up huff-puff stuttering,
Cos mums and bucks and toughs and loves,
Come cut-a-rug just uttering !
Our skulls are humming, bloods are drumming,
You can’t smother us now, guv.
We sure ain’t parlous cos we’re schwa-less,
Under and above !
Diacritique
English’s attitude to accents is curious –
I don’t mean Geordie and Scouse,
But those sprinkles of furniture that turn pedants furious
When added (or not) to the house.
A déjà vu of coördination
Or über-pretentious clatter ?
A naïve façade in over-citation,
Or a stick to beat the piñata ?
In a language with only a nodding relation
With sensible phonetics as this,
Then it hardly matters if most of the nation
Give this foreign decoration a miss.
With English, their rôle is recherché at best,
For all some writers may covet –
In English, they just make the page look stressed,
And I doubt they’ll ever be belovèd.
Cold Æsh
An A and an E, glued together,
But why ?
So how are we meant to say it, this guy ?
Best leave it alone for Danish and Latin –
Round here, we don’t need our A’s to fatten.
Save ligatures for when we’re putting a sign up –
Though why do the crossbars never quite line up ?
All-in-all, it feels so confused
And æsthetically ugly – oh, that’s where it’s used !
