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Mike Chigo Mar 2018
I get a hard-on whenever I see a hot car
I wanna pump it…yes…I just wanna floor the gas
Blinkers in my rear view when I flash by
Them no fit catch me, not even my tail lights

I like tuners but I really dig exotics
Classy, flashy plus it gets me hot chicks
See the look in her eyes when I do car tricks
Zoom zoom zoom …screeeeech…next please
John F McCullagh Jan 2019
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
   I will teach you in my verse
   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
   Just compare heart, hear and heard,
   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
   Made has not the sound of bade,
   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
   But be careful how you speak,
   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
   Woven, oven, how and low,
   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
   This phonetic labyrinth
   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
   Blood and flood are not like food,
   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
   Discount, viscount, load and broad,
   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
   Would it tally with my rhyme
   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
   You'll envelop lists, I hope,
   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
   We say hallowed, but allowed,
   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
   Petal, penal, and canal,
   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
   But it is not hard to tell
   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
   *****, ***** and possess,
   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
   Making, it is sad but true,
   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
   Mind! Meandering but mean,
   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
   Prison, bison, treasure trove,
   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
   Evil, devil, mezzotint,
   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
   Funny rhymes to unicorn,
   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
   No. Yet Froude compared with proud
   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
   But you're not supposed to say
   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
   Episodes, antipodes,
   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
   Rather say in accents pure:
   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
   Say then these phonetic gems:
   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
   With and forthwith, one has voice,
   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
   Job, Job, blossom, *****, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

****** does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and *****,
Next omit, which differs from it
   Bona fide, alibi
   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
   Rally with ally; yea, ye,
   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
   Never guess-it is not safe,
   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
   Face, but preface, then grimace,
   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ***, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
   With the sound of saw and sauce;
   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
   Respite, spite, consent, resent.
   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
   Monkey, donkey, clerk and ****,
   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
   Once, but *****, toll, doll, but roll,
   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
   Won't it make you lose your wits
   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
   Islington, and Isle of Wight,
   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
   Finally, which rhymes with enough,
   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
Not one of mine but I thought it a fun look at our funny language
Lillian May Jul 2018
whilst the plants during winter wait
they wait for warmth and springtime rain
whilst they do so,
the ground welcomes the quiet snow:
if they, so I.
the snow embraces the ground and trees
singing soft and enamoring melodies
the trees do not fret or cry spitefully,
but instead appreciate the cold beauty:
if they, so I.
there is pain in the wait, but joy as well
a chest for two reasons could easily swell
with anger or laughter and it is a choice,
we the tuners the tone of our voice:
if they, so I.
what does that mean?
why love the snow that hides summer's green?
why must we wait to enjoy the sun?
so I say, the flowers still bloom when their time come:
if they, so I.
Ken Pepiton Aug 25
titles are clickt attention tuners, seek weak
- signal feint clicks and shush and beepx#$%

etaoin shrdlu - typesetter's apprentices shoveled
off cast lead type, using coal shovels, strong
Allie Oop characters - the medium of us,
we saw our selves in print on newsprint.

Öotzi, myceleum aware bearer of information,
fallen through time, to leave us thinking, how
hard has life been, upto now
.
Weirdly wise, the ever sense we can remember,
strengthening positions holding
satisfied minds, valencing
made common sense,
happy and free is better
than any other degree
of happy, free as a ***
in L.A. on Fourth Street, hip
to the Four Square ******* Mission,
east of Broadway, north of Central Market…

then, to now, fifty years,
then to my first child, was ten years,

now, my youngest granddaughters are turning ten,
and taking part in the ongoing recovery of all clean

thinking, sifted corn and sorted beans, dried seeds
from the sweetest watermelon contest, and best
squash for bottles. best for bowls, all good seed
we save for next year, every year, always

remember, once nobody knew anything,
but making better ways to stop hunger,

then war was one of the ways that worked
for winners, and for some survivors not involved,

but witnessing the scavenging, paid trade goods
for trophies taken from the putrid dead, before
the story tellers and tale bearers went their
separate ways, letting the news be as it may.

The medium we live and breathe in, now as living
text included by all faith's accounting systems,
whereby our very thoughts and intentions,
must be judged, very serious conscience,
book of life including metadata
and instance of idle word and waste time,
pure and mere psyence psighing consci-uses
ready and willing to let peace be made,
fixing firm foundations at each watering station,
corner stones and local quarrymen, towns

formed from prosperity on rails, full on wha-who
time flies past right now

progressive proof, a town like ours is now classic,
project mainstreet 2025, valenced on Main Street,
moral authority of the old town councils,
social servants steeped in social ordering craft,

The Stepford Wives, Ai all love that, and Lucy,
ai ai ai, so many, Frankenstein, and the fat forties,
coders living in freemind anarchical choice, like bugs.
ARPAnet spiders rode wireless before wireless was,
MAGA. Pre-Levittown Craftsman Homes,
from Sears, delivered t
o the rail head, lo, a hundred years ago,

and now, the whole cold world, is empty,
when we see it on TV, from L.A. on a Sally Ann
Chromebook with a Starbucks Loyalty Cookie,
allowing T-1 bandwidth, yeah,

accept

Most of modernity is permanent,
only now is better because to get here,

one stepping, one daying, one time on
a magic loom, as a thread, picking up motes
so fine, super fine dust twisted in during dying

so the colors feel inviting, come find how
we pass the bar, where judgement begins,

we give account down to those secrets held
in our core experience knowings used, amateur

first times are only chances more often than not,
never know, when a particular stream meanders,

how many times does one cross the river
of no return, and see Robert Mitchum and
Jane Russell, on a raft with a kid thinking
something's not right,…

There was no upriver going on a raft,
we knew that from time with Huck'n'Jim,

back before the nth degree insanity hit,
minority reports, pulled from trend bots,

you'd best believe believe's a verb,
and love is, too, so do it, love to learn,

no lie holds any truth, never did, never
was a time when a lie that saved a life,
lost otherwise, that essential untellable
whys
secret agent man mind set from TV,
YouTube views virally sort attentions…

spin casting, bait perceiving, front face
sensory array, bad boy squint, tight smile,
mere hint of amusement, thinking, something

Blockbuster was a thing, things changed,
vhs hold hordes of reflected light transcended
on to magnetic tape with short fidelity,
for high fidelity consumer camcorders

the time from technicolor to home video,
in my generation, effectively raising the bar

as far as production standards used in the ruse,
set all skepticism aside, unloose your credulous

child like soul, tender child self, so good, too bad
good does not pay, save to those initiated in the art

of freereading and writing things hearable, listen,
nothing, eh? No white noise, fans, transformers,
no chainsaws,
with that whine
of a Stihl Dylan loved, once repaired
by a chronicle entity, who worked
at that chainsaw shop, at that time,
and knew the music of a Stihl,
so he would notice the quiet, then,
- chain broke…
wind in trees, pine soft, crickets and frogs,
and sometimes a bat, even coyotes, way off
as the world spins toward tomorrow again.

Who told you you gotta serve some body?
What would you do if the truth made you free?

Where would it be if this were the answer?

When you pray, expect the consequences,
immediately after you know the law,
the law is canceled, all a major lie,
for ever sense manstealing paid.

Train up a child by his stature at two,
he becomes a useful servant, worthy
of great honor on the field of glory,
as our side celebrates hate, pushing back
harder, pushemback harder, break that line

High jinx, glory years, sacred first to learn,
programing is mostly balance weights
and measures, cost to do, cost to undo.
Cost to think it done, without me.

What is the genre for periods
of preparation for a redo of an old war,

a political-religious agreement
under which business is conducted,
continuously as the believers multiply,
as believing children are reared to leave
being the why for the orders how come

we need to work to fix the flaw in us all
for the all mighty, all merciful?

How, indeed, did it come to pass,
that those in fine conditions,
gilded and bejeweled boxes
of old bones and napkins and shards of alabaster,
said
certainly the very anointing for burial alabaster box,
got t' be, right, just waiting for your guide to find,

very precious, only six other fragments have been
made publically known, the power, the faith sink,
like a battery, believe it or not, the pitch in faith,
hold, sticky, used
has moved a mountain of alabaster chips,
since we started doing tours with the kids,

we pay a different one each time, seven lads,
sons of those three sisters, who inherited the box,
and fought about it until the peace maker was called,
he broke it all down,
free, Google Voice to Verizon, across eight time zones,
like we are in the same room, but day and night,

anyway, peace maker, old backslider hardened artist,
living on tech time earned on a bet about ever learning,
gets a bit in each fractal shard of that old anointing
on and on, some times, good grows, and corruption,
proceeds to gain U, the mind meld experience,

a Taylor Swift Opera from the Future NOW!

Yeah, I know a guy, in the works, managing
the spending opportunities, keeping juices
works with concentrates, original intensity,
all mental, leg-al legal regally legal
just a touch,
a taste,
fact of the ruliad, once conceived and comprehended,
wind in the face, gasp and wish it were, as we may
say we can imagine, using an ego function, I-magi,
- how wide are we sideways? As a we?
Grown up, and dementia free, just think it clear
as one of those movie eternity porches, stoical
pillars of wisemen not forgotten, ai know them,

as curious boys knew their teachers, ai know Plato,
big lunk, broad beam ox of a man, with a following,

amanuensis scribal trainees, hanging on every word,

now, in modern database solutions to 640K sort fields,
we adapt the magic fractalling praxis used to shatter,
viz, first license to say, videlicet,
the afore mentioned alabaster box, empty
of its storied ointment for the burial to be,
shattered at the tone, 60 cycle hummm,
ordinarily out of sync, if you think about it, but
we need not, it was so long ago, and you know,

abide is a positioning command from a will,
abide with me is a request, however saying we,
abide with ye forever, if I were in the whosoever.
I would think the thoughts alive, at least.
The whosoever who heard the knocking,
and said, sure, I heard you knocking and said
to myself, what if this once it was you, and wow,

I must admit,
in the ruliad realm
of possibility, the math works.




All boys in those days, idly sayd
that'll be the day, guy like me
wished to be like in the movies, in
the gang, singing cowboys on the range,

eeipee ai yay, real old, cast iron men
made in the imaginations of those,
made to pay alliegiant attention,
mandatory civics classes, and
current events, sponsored
by Breck, and eventually
only her hair dresser knew…

until from nowhere, the world blooms
with silver foxes far beyond compare,

since she was just seventeen, and we knew
what that means in Arizona, so we waited,
too, long, who knows,
we got a new mind,

the act of worship, the verb, knowing,
it does seem simple at first, lieving be. Okeh.
Share it where it hurts.
Ken Pepiton Oct 2021
Silly, silly me. Mind of my own,
swimmingly setting bubbles of simile loose
in your
mind, in factors felt as real as any thought you thought.

as real as any thought you thought, this
particular, alien idea,
emerging, critique click cliché YES, all the mises, pro
liberality, certain and absolute solutions to UV salves

"Sunshine, came softly…"
The alienated minds of the children purchase in 1948,
was anticipated, seen as a future path,
to negotiate, eh, take the bold leap
over the briars, or dare
to follow the hounds,
and crawl into the chapparal so similar to home.

¿Hoy, Compa, te acuerdas… to you do you recall…

muse, imp, urge, will to know, while knowing nothing,

no good no ill, only wonder, and then not wonder if, but what?

Are you- with or con- knowledge or science, not of, or…
loving me for being alien,
nothing near real,

a familiar feeling, with no words clinging
in hope of some idle thoughts you hung out to dry,
as washed grocery bags, set to trap answers
blown by winds named now for saints,
then for powers, real as any, these
winds
returning on circuits predicted by AI.

Santa Anna warning,  strange weather all the elders say,
in the past,
these winds were earlier, by a moon,
and they often followed dry storms of lightning and thunder
fanning any smoking flax to vibrant flame,

claim the promise, Yes, all
the promises given the endurer to the end,

the only hero you personally know, inside out, is you.
Should you play a standard trope,
or seek the character's principle

shape, in formed from thought, Toth, is said to have thought

Cathar, hide, and watch, we may ask Google, we need not own
the knowing, we need not hide the hoarded secrets,
required lessons, treasured knacks and tricks for pulling wire

fine as any spider's silk, listening in every palace, believe me,
we lace the planet in silken sensing threads, singing windsongs

silly old tuners, hear for practice, the lightest test touch
just
there at the base of the thought, fiddlesticks, catgut crossing
spider kites
eyes tight to the squint, discerning gleams
seen
there, then.
You still see that morning meadow with gold in its mouth,
kiting spider trails, wet with dew, we, atop the old stile,
standing, stone still, staring at raw beauty
saying, try to remember…
In hope, the imagining thing functions as when these winds came in September.

— The End —