"mispronounced" poems
I thought
she mentioned ****
mispronounced!
wanted help to reap.
Dec 7, 2011
Dec 7, 2011 at 1:35 AM UTC
To be brown is to
know racism in every shade -
internal,
or
external,
microaggression
or
aggression.
To be brown is
an inquisition,
every time you step foot outside –
*“What are you?”
“What does your name mean?”
“Have you tried that restaurant?”
“Have you been back?
“What religion are you?”
“Say something in your language!”*
To be brown is
the shame
of either
too much
or not enough,
that you try to
press down, ignore,
forget about -
don’t be so sensitive.
To be brown is
an investment,
the way you are always supposed to
rise and rise and rise,
have the opportunities of the west
and the values of the east,
marry a nice brown heterosexual,
go to graduate school,
have a good career,
earn more money than your parents did,
be safe and settled,
provide for your parents,
your parents,
who only pressure you
and push you
because they want you to be
happy.
To be brown is
diaspora,
the way your tongue
trips over the words of native languages
you never grew up speaking
because English was always taught
first
to generations before you,
the way you weren’t born with
any real community,
and even now
most of your friends
are white,
the way
you have to move in the world
hearing your name
mispronounced in every way imaginable,
the way you
scan the room
for any brown face
because you know
a brown person will
understand,
the way you realize
how often you are the only
brown body
in any space,
queer or straight,
the way you really are a
minority.
To be brown is
reclamation,
the way you learn to
find beauty in the brown and the hair
and the body type,
the way you learn to
let yourself feel Anger
at appropriation,
the way you learn to fight
for identity –
correct the mispronunciations
learn the language,
listen to the music,
cook the food,
wear the clothes,
go back to the country
learn the history,
do what you need to do
in your
imperfect
perfect
way,
****
what anyone says.
To be brown
is to be
enough.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 6:26 PM UTC
i wonder
how we managed
to convince our hands
not to hold onto each other
when we said goodbye.
now, i'm writing
inside this flying can;
thinking this might be the closest
to a home.
these small seats,
with even smaller legs space.
these funny-shaped windows,
where all you can see are
white clouds,
and sporadically
some lights.
tiny houses,
with even tinier people.
and us,
tiny giants,
reading overpriced perfume catalogs,
listening to mispronounced english,
using disposable low-fidelity headphones,
inside low-light low-love low-cost
low-everything
airplanes.
Feb 23, 2021
Feb 23, 2021 at 9:35 AM UTC
St. Catharines light in the afternoon: lead oxide, pink white, dry mud shadows.
They lay on her living room carpet and Anthony gloated over Milly
Her cotton nightgown, her long back, and round shoulders: proof at last.
"So this is gloating. It is better to gloat than to doubt. It took me a long time."
Her clean faded quilt brought from the balcony rail: it
Smells of clean laundry and cold air and the thrill of their power.
He’s proud to be the lover of a heroine,
And happy that he can see her this way.”
Picnic kisses tasting of smoked oysters and beer.
There were never friendly kisses of love before?
"Milly, I love hearing how you defied the adults."
He told Hansel and Gretel to her child, who had strep throat,
And told it again, knowing it would work,
Seeing the bookshelves, seeing her notebooks,
Knowing that he would have his life after all:
The mispronounced words of a solitary reader,
The red skirt on the chair, the gold necklace of coins.
Paul Anthony Hutchinson
www.paulanthonyhutchinson.com
Copyright Paul Anthony Hutchinson
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 11:29 PM UTC
She hated her mother's voice, her strong accent thick like champurrado. Her defiance, her identity.
She didn't fit in, and her mother's voice was a reminder why.
A constant reminder. She hated the moment she crossed that border, maybe “I would have been the popular girl at school with a mother in the United States”. But here she was just an illegal.
So many postcards, pretty pictures of tall buildings: “Las Vegas, city of lights”. She dreamed of one day being a tourist, like them gueras on TV, with their flashy credit cards, ordering coca light and rare steak. But here, she was just an illegal.
Her resentment grew like a cactus: green, slimy, tall and filled with thorns. Each microagression a thorn, each mispronounced word a bullet.
She remembers that one day when her English teacher made her read. She caught her as she was about to leave the classroom, “Miss Cuellar, it's your turn!” “Dang this pinche vieja is slick!” she thought... For cacti can't speak, much less read. But they remember. They remember each day they went without water, so their roots grew deep and profound in hostile ground, and they kept themselves strong, they hid themselves, they stood tall and vulnerable in the middle of nowhere.
“I am a cactus” she wrote as the first sentence of her English paper about identity, she then deleted those words, what the **** was her teacher going to think? Now this crazy *** illegal thinks she's a plant so she wrote her name instead. But deep inside she knew she was a cactus in the middle of hostile lands, far away from that precious lake of healing waters where the wind sings and hills are green; far away from that country of dreams, colors and stories. Stories where her existence made sense, stories where she belonged. But here, she was just an illegal.
So many things would trigger her, the sunset, the heat, people starting conversations, “don't talk to me, cacti don't talk” they grow thorns, they grow green, they like to be left alone. But she knew that that was not her natural state, she wanted to be free. Her spirit wanted to run out of that cactus. Why couldn't she be a bird? Un tzentzontle or a humming bird, even if they didn't live as long, they at least get to fly.
But instead there she remained, rooted, guarded and defenseless, no matter how profound her roots were, she was still an illegal: wrong countried, wrong bodied, multispirited. One day her skin began to cry, a deep beautiful wound from which a flower sprouted. She had found poetry and realized that while cacti didn't speak they still flourished.
To be continued..
Oct 28, 2015
Oct 28, 2015 at 7:35 PM UTC
i do not speak like a poet.
my words are clumsy and callous
and i often trip over my own tongue.
there is no beauty to my words
or thought to my form,
and my voice does not fall soft and slow
like honey song, drizzled sweetly into willing ears.
rather it is raspy and quick-tongued,
laced with mispronounced words and oddly said accents.
my sentences race ragged and jumpy,
with capricious contours and half-finished phrases,
and i often lose my train of thought.
impulsive and unrefined,
i do not speak like a poet.
— but on paper i am a different person
Jul 16, 2018
Jul 16, 2018 at 1:31 AM UTC
*** is just a word mispronounced on foreign tongues. Either way, it's beautiful.
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 9:57 PM UTC
Yet another in my "Barry Hodges" series
O what a beautiful city is baroque and unspoiled Vilnius,
A veritable rose in the greyness of Eastern Europe,
And a centre of fierce Lithuanian pride and nationalism
Where loathing of Russia comes as part of the national tapestry,
Woven into the heart and soul of each true descendant of Gediminas:
"Tik geras rusų yra miręs rusų!"[note 1] my Litvak lady love would cry out
In moments of extreme and poetic ******** excitement,
As she farted tunefully through purple quilted haemorrhoids.
O dearest delightful Vilnius, where my obsessive adoration
Of this rather plump but still juicy middle-aged lady
Went unrequited when she was sober, despite the perpetual onslaught
Of my tenderly whispered syllables of love and lust,
Even when my mispronounced tirade of affirmations of desire
Rose to a pointless crescendo, wasted on the midnight hour,
As she shrieked: "Lietuvių valytojoms yra geriausias pasaulyje!" [note 2],
In a desperate attempt to retain her composure post-climax.
O how can I ever forget her egregiously insatiable ****** appetite or
Her immense cantilevered ***** whose glorious silhouette
I can still recall in the silvery moonlight shining through
The toilet window, as I peeped at her through the keyhole,
Watching her wipe between her gorgeous silken arse-cheeks,
With an improvised corner of the unfurled bathroom curtain,
Mysteriously muttering "Jei nėra silkių nereikia valgyti!" [note 3]
As she reviewed the remains of half-digested Cepelinai [note 4]
O woe! All is now finished and dear overweight Valerija is lost to me,
Having fallen drunkenly down an open manhole on Pilies one evening,
And I am left alone to wetly kiss the cryptic letter she left for me,
Staring sadly at the tear-stained smudged ink of her illiterate scrawls.
Yea, mate, her last words of warning and patriotic exhultation were:
"Jei jūsų kūdikis turi imbiero plaukus, mesti jį į upę!" [note 5]
Followed by "Valio už Lietuvos Vermachto karo didvyrių!" [note 6]
And I think they were probably the sanest things she ever said.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 1:45 PM UTC
Fay rubs her
rosary
between thumb
and finger
the black beads
holding prayers
but she thinks
they also
bring comfort
to her heart
usually
when her dad
loses it
and hits out
because she'd
forgotten
the Latin
of the Creed
mispronounced
Latin prayers
Baruch said
(the Jew boy
from downstairs)
your old man
doesn't know
the essence
of his faith
just the shell
of it all
Baruch said
God was one
for each and all
for the big
and the small
for the good
and the bad
for the wise
and the fool
her father
doesn't like
young Baruch
and forbids
her to talk
or see him
but she does
and meets him
secretly
for their talks
and their walks
in the park
at the old
cinema
Fay puts her
rosary
in the small
cloth pocket
of her dress
her fingers
leaving there
the small but
special prayer.
Mar 28, 2014
Mar 28, 2014 at 4:38 AM UTC
there is a delight unique
(which is mispronounced
by all, actually, u-nee-cue)
after thousands of poems
composed and disposed,
smack dab read, two- fab-you-lust-
fulfilling new(new (to HP), anyway)
poets who have left me
brighter but blue
with one option, two problems:
*De doc he say, son you in a bad way,
wake to neon flashing ear to ear,
a l t e r n at i n g
smiles and grimaces,
face flashing
unceasingly
like a lonely
orange red Hotel sign
irritating the dark, all night long*
two poets,
offering either hope or despair,
and I am bereft and bewildered,
by two new to me poet~scriveners,
with such distinctive and oppositioned
positional views of life expressed so well,
making my Pity #9, feeling prissy and yet prophetic,
as these two make want to cry/smile with every read
of theirs…and throw in the crying towel…wet with tears …
*and the summer breezes, carries us leeward,
to the sheltering side of my island*
READ THEM!
(see below)
Aug 8, 2025
Aug 8, 2025 at 2:11 PM UTC
People called me
LOSER,
Actually they mispronounced
WINNER!!
~your smiling queen :)
Aug 9, 2019
Aug 9, 2019 at 7:26 AM UTC
Tentatively I took a step towards you
You caressed my heart in your hands
Your menacing stare beguiled me and I was in awe of your sacred beauty
For once I was lost in a sea of mispronounced words and jumbled sentences
The syntax was filled with errors
And I had never thought I would blink my eyes again
As the tears refused to leave my eyes
They painfully glazed my face
And struck me as terribly arty
I felt as if I were an artist In this play
Grasping my lines
Stuttering over them
Grabbing onto each word
Like a cheap ***** grabs cash
From the man with money
And lusts after the sweet stench of the money she earns
I once was lost
Yet now I am found
By your burning radiant fire eyes
Blazing with sensation and perfection
I love you
And I bask in the blistering heat
Of your pyre
That cleanses and
Causes death
To my
Old morbid heart
And persuades me with passion
And pursuit
I am yours
in
My sensational romance...
Jul 27, 2016
Jul 27, 2016 at 8:51 AM UTC
What am I
To a million people
Whose names are numbers
Waiting to be counted?
What am I
Other than a mispronounced name
And a character of no value
Who often becomes forgotten?
What am I
Aside from being a drunken thought
Whose name you scream
And whose heart wrenches at your drunken sight?
What am I
When I become frustrated
At how much I love you
But can't find the right words to say?
What am I
To you
When all I've ever been used to being
Is nothing?
May 23, 2017
May 23, 2017 at 9:58 AM UTC
my mouth
is a box in the attic hidden away
it is the box in the attic with the fragile symbol on it
a warning that it should be handled with care
my mouth
came with a filter
it filtrate the words that I wanted to say the most
but there are days when the filter seems to have a glitch
allowing my thoughts to leave my mouth with full conviction
my mouth
was programmed to have respect
encoded on my tongue are two powerful words
two words that I often use with strangers
but I think my tongue was burned by too much coffee
because every time I needed to use those two words
I always end up two words short
my mouth
skipped its classes
or maybe it didn’t learn anything
especially with the major subjects like How-To-Have-A-Normal-Conversation or What-Is-The-Right-Thing-To-Say or Small-Talk-101
because I always end up with awkward silences and a tongue-tied mouth
my mouth
is a home to a set of perfectly aligned teeth
but maybe my parents shouldn’t have invested their money on my teeth
instead they should have asked the doctor to fix my tongue
so that it would construct the right words they want to hear at the right time
a perfectly fixed tongue that would not answer them back with a mouthful of teen angst
my mouth
is not a home to a powerful voice
it is not soothing or moving
it is a home of mispronounced words from a lost voice
a voice with not enough strength
my mouth
is a place that is not yet explored
an uncharted territory
with a do not enter sign on its chapped lips
my mouth
is unfamiliar with smiles
its corners pulled down by gravity
it does not trust happy
it is home to sighs and strangled cries
my mouth
is the box in the attic filled with hope and a promise
a promise to the body it resides to
that someday its voice will no longer be lost
that someday it will be a mouth that is a home to a smile
the day will come that I would still stumble with my words
but it will carry the message that I want
someday
but today
my mouth
still needs to fix its stutter
it is a mouth full of words not said
it is still hidden in the attic
and is better left sealed and shut
Dec 4, 2016
Dec 4, 2016 at 8:31 PM UTC
When the seventh salvo of silver flashes
cued the blue floaters for the seventh time,
blotting the smaller letters from their sashes,
I mispronounced “Miss Reading”—made it rhyme
with “misleading.” ****** off her press agent,
Miss Information, who steamed out to smoke.
But the style writers covering the pageant
called it an unconscious masterstroke.
So I became the Master of Near Misses.
The work kept coming. “You must be Miss Taken,”
I transproposed to the Pork Products Princess
panel, and you should have seen Miss Bacon.
They at it up, though. It was liberating.
Within a month I didn’t even need
my malaprompter. Cheating was creating.
Believing anything I couldn’t read
I crushed my quadrifocals. People shed
their crosshairs and acquired a layer of fuzz.
Consequence came uncoupled. What I said
I saw, and what I saw was what I was.
just a cute, funny little poem
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 7:19 PM UTC
Packed my bags
Flew the next week,
Ignoring the doubts,
I got fulfillment to seek.
Misunderstood accent,
Mispronounced name,
Ashes to ashes,
Foolish, its still the same.
Vague history,
Mistakes erased,
Broke and dream poor,
Resolve unfazed.
A new chapter,
closed door,
Figuring it out,
What I want and more.
Sep 10, 2017
Sep 10, 2017 at 6:28 AM UTC
Love is a secret
That holds no secret
what is love
You ask
A question
Fallen from your lips
With the answer
Pulsing in your blood
It isn't how it is said
For in its moments
Of pure beauty
It is never mispronounced
Never falesly spoken
Expressed in three words
Or endless prose
Its hidden truth
Spelled out in
The desire of paper for poetry
And the lust of quills for ink
It is the scar left behind
Every time you cut your heart
From your chest
It is the waiting and wanting
Of whispers
And understanding
It is the lost language
We can all speak
In tounges dancing with darkness
what is love
There is no secret
The only answer
The only truth
*Is
Love
Is
You*
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 8:42 AM UTC
wrinkled velvet
scratchy silk
a stain on the laundry list
lazy verbs
and mispronounced pronouns
language is a funny thing
a vocabulary test
on a lifelong joke
with no punchline
strange how we can laugh
at our own misery
or weep uncontrollably
when we find our hearts
overfilled with joy
it’s enough to make someone
believe that maybe
we don’t really know anything
about all the things
we pretend to know
personally I don’t pray
to a this god
or a that god
I have my faith invested
in the wisdom
of fairy tales
instead of the studies
of theology
but i do appreciate any conviction
that leads someone
to a life where they
help compassionately
give with generosity
and love more kindly
what else do we have
but this one brief moment
this one long
often agonizing
brief pause of eternity
to live this life in
why is so much worry
about what comes next
weighing down today
when none of us
is guaranteed
to see tomorrow
and what good is a future
that ignores the rubble
of the past
the absolute wreckage
we have left behind
in our human history
the truth of our mistakes
has been whitewashed
again and again
in every new volume
of every new text book
rewriting villains as hero’s
neglecting to write down
their origins and crimes
there is a deliberate madness
in this process
an intentional poisoned thread
placed in the binding
of the pages
the spine
of the book
the truth is still there though
bleeding through
the page in braille
only being read by those
who want to read it
those how refuse
to let the truth
of the past
be replaced
by a modern lie
but the masses consume
faster than they learn
and we pride ourselves
as intelligent
crown ourselves
as noble
arrogantly pointing out our ability
of pattern recognition
while constantly failing
at not repeating
the pattern throughout
our history
that causes so much
human misery
and I wish I could laugh
but my heart doesn’t
have the vocabulary
to write a punchline
in a language it just
can’t find funny anymore
May 24, 2021
May 24, 2021 at 11:45 AM UTC
I heard that the coolest kid in the room didn't have any friends.
That kid's always here, but you just never notice them.
They always sat at the back, never saying anything.
Their names on the attendance were messes of mispronounced letters and alphabetical silence.
Silence.
Simply existing was like scribbling on forgotten slips of fading memories.
They are the manifestation of silent thinkers and quiet souls.
They're always here.
But you just never notice them.
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
if everyone could see inside your head
what embarrassing things would they find?
a school kid prank where your pants fell below your waist
or that time your card was declined
when you mispronounced organism in class
or choking on communion at church
mine would be that I still love my mom
despite everything
Apr 7, 2018
Apr 7, 2018 at 1:46 AM UTC
A precious piano stands silent and sovereign
in a room of obscure ambience that hangs from Heaven.
Gathered is a crowd familiar by name and face,
and name and face alone.
A prophet stands a step beneath the piano.
His emaciated ideals are better explained in writing.
The crowd uses his mispronounced prophecies as the material
for their mockeries and their jokes.
A glass ceiling makes them naked to ethereal bodies
that do not care to pay attention.
And if such bodies could speak, they would speak
nothing towards them.
Each soul in the room is selling some
stopgap prescription drug that will last a lifetime.
The preacher is selling God, with all His effete side effects;
the fascist sells purpose with some acrid aftertaste;
and the madman sits in the corner with a thousand low-cost answers,
none of which you can fact check.
“You will see!” the prophet exclaims.
His voice is weak in its strength.
“You will see the rubble of Man’s Creation,
and the fractured bones of God.”
Lucifer enters with a proud gait
and collects the silent.
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 10:15 AM UTC
the pond is fickle and deep.
Wings graze and kiss
the bouncing drops
of silver.
Our Moon cries in a melancholic
way, and bares its quivering
lip with pride.
I wade in the intertwining vines
and the mispronounced
songs.
Death burns,
and I will peel away my skin.
strip by strip,
to the rhythm of the buzzing pond,
and beating horizon.
Swallow the slimy sun--
cheerful and running.
Death is a growing pain.
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015 at 10:42 AM UTC
Mispronounced chaos sways
With its ellipsis misplaced
And taking away
Its own verdict
That was left displayed
Its own hole
Grown
From displacement
Carrying concrete
Like broken shoulder blades
Mispronounced
Mismatched
Deteriorating outcomes
Commonplace is then found
In its unity
Disuniting it all
Dec 13, 2019
Dec 13, 2019 at 3:05 PM UTC
BENEATH MY SKIN
my eidetic memory skims through my
mental
encyclopedia
reminiscent old thoughts amassed in
my wikipedia
pops up like a champagne top
i vividly recollect being born black
if you referred to me as dark skin no
tear would drop
racism was not within the range of my
knowledge
egoism and rage were the only thing
that pushed me to edge
the only race i was aware of was
marathon
and the other i uttered was lace in
shoes
throughout my childhood i never
realized the realism
of its catechism
the only -ism subscribed in my recess
was alcoholism
rhythm was the closest i
mispronounced racism
black and white to me was a great wall
television
and human being was great of all
creation
i neither thought being colored would
lead to isolation
nor the hue of my skin was a ticket of
damnation
it was tardy when i got revelation
about the race thing
my ripe mind expeditiously
incorporated the race theme
which flowed across nations like a
mighty stream
the sensation so extreme no longer was
it a dream
my color ceased being my joy and
became pain
my skin grandeur is now a paint of
ignominy
as i quest to replace the slogan of
ignore many
a systematic annihilation that will
bear liberation
the ultimate solution is my fascination
of love for each and every human
being that will
carry no disdain
i seek to liberate my thoughts that
brings me
to my mantra that knows
am black and there is nothing i lack
i cherish the red color in my blood
it's my beauty and my strength
lying beneath my skin
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 4:23 AM UTC