A dictionary can only be read when it is printed.
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Djolan
Soft was the night, the eve how airy,
When through the big, fat dictionary
I wandered on in careless ease,
And read the a's, b's, c's and d's!
But stop! What is this form I see,
Beginning with a hump-backed d?
I pause! I gasp! I falter there!
It is the djolan, I declare!
It is the djolan, wond'rous word!
The Buceros plicatus bird!
Ne'er, ne'er before had I the bliss
To meet a djolly word like this!
'Twas djust before my dinner hour --
Well, let the djuicy djoint go sour!
Djoyful I read. I djust must see
What this strange djolan word may be!
Ah! ha! It is a noun! A noun!
(A ''name word" as we say in town)
"E. Ind. The native name of the
Year bird." These are the words I see.
"A hornbill with a white tail and --"
The big book trembles in my hand --
"-- plicated membrane at the base --"
Ah, well-a-day! If that's the case!
"-- base of the beak, inhabiting --"
Oh! dictionary, wond'rous thing!
"-- the Sunda Islands ----" Where would we
Without our dictionary be?
"-- Malacca, e-t-c." That's all!
I let the dictionary fall.
I am replete. All is explained.
Knowledge (it's power) is what I've gained!
Soft was the night, the eve how airy,
I read no more the dictionary,
But Oh! and Oh! my heart was stirred
To learn the djolan was a bird!
Submitted by John Martin
poem by Ellis Parker Butler
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Daisy (Fun Poem 118)
I have a little cat named Daisy
who just loves my company.
Whenever I’m on my computer,
she goes to sleep on my printer
on the shelf just above my head.
Whenever I go to print something out
she tries to nick the paper
before it is printed on,
Then when the paper is printed
it has perforations by her teeth.
Now I am beginning to wonder
if she thinks that I read Braille.
6 April 2011
poem by David Harris
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Your Dictionary
H-a-t-e
Is that how you spell love in your dictionary
K-i-c-k
Pronounced as kind
F-u-c-k
Is that how you spell friend in your dictionary
Black on black
A guidebook for the blind
Well now that I can see my eyes wont weep
Now that I can hear your song sounds cheap
Now that I can talk all your corn Ill reap
Im not so sure that joey wed a virgin mary
There are no words for me inside your dictionary
S-l-a-p
Is that how you spell kiss in your dictionary
C-o-l-d
Pronounced as care
S-h-i-t
Is that how you spelt me in your dictionary
Four-eyed fool
You led round everywhere
Now that I can see its the queens new clothes
Now that I can hear all your poison prose
Now that I can talk with my tongue unfroze
Im not so sure of santa or the buck-tooth fairy
There are no words for me inside your dictionary
Now your laughter has a hollow ring
But the hollow ring has no finger in
So lets close the book and let the day begin
And our marriage be undone
song performed by by Xtc
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The entities
A sentence is of words,
All borrowed from the dictionary.
Yet it has a soul
Unfound in the dictionary.
All are made of five elements;
Yet each has an entity.
06.02.2005
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Webster's American Spellings
One spelling was English established.
Webster's Dictionary spells it incorrect?
Noah Webster in the early 19th century...
busily composed comprehensive dictionaries.
Numerous unrelated dictionaries added
Webster's name to share prestige established.
Oh bother Webster's first dictionary
‘A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language'
aired first appeared in 1806 was hexed?
With American spellings it was freely littered?
Spelling honor not honour center not centre.
Webster's program not programme spread what?
Two decades of his spelling confusions expanded?
An ‘American Dictionary of the English Language'
in 1828 lead in 1841 to his edition revised expanded?
In two volumes a 2nd Edition ‘Corrected Enlarged'?
Webster's vocabulary 1st edition with corrections
improvements plus five thousand additional words?
But acid test Webster's endeavors were poorly received?
Specific criticisms typographic unattractiveness included?
Webster's type face was bad choice too small hard to read?
Why write non-use of capital letters only 'God' capitalized?
Why because goal was to save space to fit in obscure words?
Why dictionary excessive use of citations which offended?
Why decision deliberate
misspellings as legitimate
sanctified word variants?
Culturally conservative Federalists
intensely detested Webster innovations
Webster Dictionary denounced?
Webster's Dictionary
too radical complaint
bordering on vulgar?
Webster's fierce foes
Jefferson Madison
Republicans attacked?
Labeled Webster mad
for writing Compendious
Dictionary 1806 published?
poem by Terence George Craddock
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The scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.
quote by Carl Sandburg
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My work is being destroyed almost as soon as it is printed. One day it is being read; the next day someone's wrapping fish in it.
Today I will read
Tap me not on my shoulder
Today I will read
For there is the urgent need
to explore words being soldered
into blissful compact sentences
as my reading commences
Today I will read
In no chronological order
something immoderately ordinary
Consulting the Oxford dictionary
If and when necessary
Today I will read
Knowledge is power and wisdom
a substitute for boredom
Knowledge is a curse
when words used tend to slip off course
In moments of seeking
the understanding of definitions
I will scamper through publications
of columns in newspapers
Absorb the skeptical illustrations
Learn more about this nation
As I feed my own imagination
Today I will read
a book or a novel
I will read articles
and the contents of scripts
doing my research while I search
for the truth
even if its minute
Today I will read
Separating quality from quantity
as I delve into topics
in my encyclopedia
Tap me not on my shoulder
whether you are younger or older
For Today I will read
Copyright 2005 - Sylvia Chidi
poem by Sylvia Chidi
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Words
If on isle of the sea
I have to tarry,
With one book, let it be
A Dictionary.
For though I love life's scene,
It seems absurd,
My greatest joy has been
The printed word.
Though painter with delight
May colours blend,
They are but in his sight
Means to an end.
Yet while I harmonise
Or pattern them,
A precious word I prize
Like to a gem.
A fiddler lures fine tone
From gut and wood;
A sculptor from stark stone
Shapes godlihood.
But let me just caress,
Like silver birds,
For their own loveliness--
Bewitching words.
poem by Robert William Service
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In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn't be mixed. And if they are, the fictional points should be printed in red ink, the facts printed in black ink.
quote by Catherine Drinker Bowen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.
quote by William Hazlitt
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Those Mammoth Trilogies
Those mammoth trilogies,
Dramatized to connect...
Similarities between plots and schemes,
As if to sing in three part harmony to excite.
But instead...
Lulls a listener to eventaully nod to sleep.
Would be wonderful to read...
If one did not need a dictionary to understand,
What was meant to impress...
Made less and less sense.
And did not connect on the onset of one's intention.
'So...
Did you read my messages? '
No!
But I did use them to line my trash can.
Thanks!
That was thoughtful of you to send them.
'You really know how to get to the point,
Don't you? '
It is a skill I've developed.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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With Kafka.
Kafka would have liked
the way you said that.
You kept his books on
the shelf next to those
of Burroughs and Joyce.
You like the painting on
the book’s paper cover.
Paperbacks are cheap
and soon worn out,
Thornton used to say.
He liked hard covered
books, first editions if
he could afford. He said
Kafka was too morbid
for you. You need a lighter
read, he said, something
that doesn’t mess with
your female head. You
take down the Kafka and
read again where you read
before, the whole drama
unfolding, the printed words
bringing a different world,
and ghostly by the window
with steady stare, Franz Kafka
in silence just sitting there.
poem by Terry Collett
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Things That Thrill You
Nothing to read for escapism or dreams,
only Arthur Mee's Encyclopaedia printed
before World War II taken with me when
I went for coffee - printed in 1933 - joy in
Britain about Broadcasting House and the
BBC, commemorate listening to news of
the King's demise, marvelling at the new
technology, the main announcer being the
most loved voice in the British Isles
Told commiserating colleagues of my dire
lack of reading matter - An outrage - they
exclaimed, having to read that old book -
I described a new scene in my Government
opera where former official's souls are stuck
in an eternal Indaba held in the Government
Valhalla, all stoppering their ghostly ears with
ectoplasm as a long-winded Chief Director
delivers an interminable speech
This is a scene in hell! - they exclaimed and
ran away - My point exactly - I told their re-
treating backs; returned to my desk to read
my guru's advice - ‘Being happy is the cor-
nerstone of your being, choose things that
thrill you' - writing my Opera thrills me, but
anglicising French texts on how politicians
bankrupted a country in Africa does not,
they destroyed their own soul
Like a snake swallowing itself
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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That's an aspect of this business which can be very frustrating and aggravating. Most of what is written about you is wrong and so much of what does get printed is often about personal things that you don't want to have other people read about.
quote by Winona Ryder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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So Young
In the misery dictionary
Page after page after page
In the misery dictionary
Page after page
Where theres life theres gotta be hope
And where theres a will theres a way
One mans in is anothers out
I gotta get out today
Where theres life theres gotta be hope
And where theres a will theres a way
Amid divisions youre so low
You know I gotta get out today
In the misery dictionary
Page after page after page
In the misery dictionary
Page after page
And where theres a will theres a way
song performed by by Stone Roses
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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So Young
In the misery dictionary
Page after page after page
In the misery dictionary
Page after page
Where there's life there's gotta be hope
And where there's a will there's a way
One man's in is another's out
I gotta get out today
Where there's life there's gotta be hope
And where there's a will there's a way
Amid divisions you're so low
You know I gotta get out today
In the misery dictionary
Page after page after page
In the misery dictionary
Page after page
And where there's a will there's a way
song performed by by The Stone Roses from Garage Flower
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Happiness
Happiness in the dictionary pages
ricochets between
hap and hapless,
good luck and bad
Fortuna, Joy, Felicity
Aptness and Prosperity-
all aligned.
Happiness it seems
Has nothing to do with fair and unfair.
right and wrong
it is hit or miss
luck and unlucky-
vagaries.
Indigestible this.
My grandmother smiles:
“now there child” she used to say
“ok to be born rich
better to be born lucky.”
But, in America we are only guaranteed
happiness's Pursuit and it's Uncertainty.
Accidents of life
rule my chances at felicity?
What now to guide my dreams?
Fortuna's fates gamble
with my dusty dry uncertainties;
hoisted up or down the landscape-
wrangled Hope on a card game table?
Life's branding is: 'no guarantees.'
How many lives
random touched
careen direction-less?
Sad.
Wish I hadn't read the dictionary
but, again,
no such luck.
Hard Truth.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Business Cards
People have those business cards
printed every day.
They give them out to others
who mostly throw them away.
Some have magnets on the back.
You can find them everywhere.
I use them to hold pictures up
and yeah, I know they're there.
But I don't ever read them.
I've forgotten who they're from.
There's even one with my name.
My refrigerator is overcome.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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To Read And Read Again
TO READ AND READ AGAIN
To read and to read again
And to be left empty
By the abundance of words
Whose meanings multiplication
Erases all sense
Of their coherence
And our understanding.
To read and read again
As if in this pretence of learning
Salvation will come
To read and read again
And be forever dumb.
.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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