Out of the simple consonants of the alphabet and our eleven vowels and diphthongs all possible syllables of a certain sort were constructed, a vowel sound being placed between two consonants.
quote by Hermann Ebbinghaus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Unable To Link...
your inability to link
even to the simplest vowel
have given birth
to more consonants
and being so
the world cannot anymore speak
and now no one hears
what ought to be said...
it is always a series of departures
a train not stopping
and without breaks it falls on a deep ravine
without the vowels
you shout for help and now it comes back to you
the misfortunes that you are giving
the consonants bury you
soundlessly.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Alphabet Wars
many letters escape
many are found
may there be harmony
in the alphabet
oh no XYZ are protesting
being always listed last
yes Deva letter Vowels
keep stealing spotlight
Consonants are angry
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Cosmopolitan Greetings
Stand up against governments, against God.
Stay irresponsible.
Say only what we know & imagine.
Absolutes are Coercion.
Change is absolute.
Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions.
Observe what’s vivid.
Notice what you notice.
Catch yourself thinking.
Vividness is self-selecting.
If we don’t show anyone, we’re free to write anything.
Remember the future.
Freedom costs little in the U.S.
Asvise only myself.
Don’t drink yourself to death.
Two molecules clanking us against each other require an observer to become
scientific data.
The measuring instrument determines the appearance of the phenomenal
world (after Einstein).
The universe is subjective..
Walt Whitman celebrated Person.
We are observer, measuring instrument, eye, subject, Person.
Universe is Person.
Inside skull is vast as outside skull.
What’s in between thoughts?
Mind is outer space.
What do we say to ourselves in bed at night, making no sound?
“First thought, best thought.”
Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.
Maximum information, minimum number of syllables.
Syntax condensed, sound is solid.
Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best.
Move with rhythm, roll with vowels.
Consonants around vowels make sense.
Savour vowels, appreciate consonants.
Subject is known by what she sees.
Others can measure their vision by what we see.
Candour ends paranoia.
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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Danish Language
With vowels and consonants
like English or Cebuano
but with ø, å and æ,
strange vowels to read
What is seen or read
is not the same as heard or said.
poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen
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Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants.
quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Silence is the axe
You are the vowels and I, consonants;
When was the word formed?
It must have, perhaps, in our first meet.
You are cotton and I, fire,
The gap between us hare-line,
Enough to prevent from sparking.
I do not want to be with you but in you;
I do not want you to be in me but with me.
You do not know what I feel of you
Nor have I courage to reveal it either.
Silence is the axe, the word was split.
11.11.2006
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Anne Pennington
Until her last breath she enlarges
Her Oxford house
Built in Slavonic
Vowels and consonants
She polishes the corner-stones
Until their Anglo-Saxon shine
Begins to sing
Her death is like a short breath-stop
Under the distant limetrees of her friends
Trans. by Peter Jay, Anthony Rudolf, and Daniel Weissbort
Anonymous submission.
poem by Vasko Popa
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And So I Write This Poem...
because i cannot tell you
exactly the facts,
all the details that may
hurt you
and me at the end
of this
pathway where pebbles
have sharp edges
and mud is sticky and
foul
rotten leaves abound
and worms
are busy eating what
leaf is left,
because i do not want
to hurt you
neither does i want to
suffer
with self-inflicted
injuries
and so i am back
with these lines there is
no way that
you can sense that
there is something blunt
in the vowels
something unspeakable
in my consonants,
as expected,
life in dots and dashes
some blanks
too.....
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Space
From the trees the leaves came down
until we joined hands with a wand
and that act enabled them
somehow then to reach the ground
where they scuttered round our feet
urging the latter to unite
with a baton as if that act
together with the hands can clasp
a dowsing-stick cut from the same
branch from which we launched
converging on gravity's purge-point
at which point we merged to remove
all consonants from our star-maps.
The infinite consists of vowels alone.
poem by Bill Knott
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Watching Something Else...
i spin some letters, mostly consonants
for fear that so many vowels can be too noisy
sometimes we dwell more on the algebraic
x and y
z comes in to add more anonymity to the equations
that we grapple with everyday
looking for answers
with already prepared quadratic equations
to simplify life we offer simple equations
we reject too many complications and lessen the variables
eating breakfast, drinking the water
mastering the daily sequences and shying away from new innovations
there is no need for more vacations
they are all the same roads and seashores same malls and
delicacies, routine, colors of those items are not really changed,
the taste of that chicken is the same all over the world
be it in Austria or France or
Punta or Galas or Talisay or Sinonok
what matters is the compactness of your belief
inside no one can convince you no one can take you somewhere else
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Mr.Vowel the Judge
The articulatory features that distinguish different vowel sounds are said to determine the vowel's quality. Daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the common features height (vertical dimension) , Backness (horizontal dimension) and Roundedness (lip position) . These three parameters are indicated in the schematic IPA vowel diagram on the right. There are however still more possible features of vowel quality, such as the velum position (nasality) , type of vocal fold vibration, and tongue root position
Sent him to life imprisonment
for violating the talking manner,
And the innocent found at last
That he's dumb and deaf?
* In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
-Thomas Jeffersn
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Accent Conscious
Trouble brews along the border for the word has got around
That blokes an' coves an' coots must mind their tongues;
Out about the long dry stages
Where the willie-willie rages
Strange sounds are issuing from leathern lungs.
Vowels, consonants and diphthongs in the old bark hut take place
Of the talk of clips or cattle or 'wot won the 'urdle race.'
For the world grows regimented and the olden orders pass
With those ancient heroes that we knew of old.
Out beyond the sandy ranges
Culture grows and fashion changes
And a bloke has got to talk the way he's told.
For the craze of 'standardising' has Australia in its grip,
And Lawson's friends, Joe Wilson, and his mates have got the pip.
These old battlers, so accustomed to the old Australian drawl,
Find it hard to knuckle down to modern ways.
Tho' the purists may deride them,
'Twas their speech identified them,
For they talked the Aussie lingo all their days.
But the Man from Snowy River strives to change his 'Oi' to 'I;'
And Clancy of the Overflow now wears an old school tie.
I have long since sought the reason why all men should be as peas
In speech, in thought, in action, e'en in strife.
Uniformity around them
Serves but further to confound them,
Since it washes all the color out of life.
But the bloke who beat the favorite now sports jodhpurs with an air,
And the Man from Ironbark marcels his hair.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Letter to an Archaeologist
Citizen, enemy, mama's boy, sucker, utter
garbage, panhandler, swine, refujew, verrucht;
a scalp so often scalded with boiling water
that the puny brain feels completely cooked.
Yes, we have dwelt here: in this concrete, brick, wooden
rubble which you now arrive to sift.
All our wires were crossed, barbed, tangled, or interwoven.
Also: we didn't love our women, but they conceived.
Sharp is the sound of pickax that hurts dead iron;
still, it's gentler than what we've been told or have said ourselves.
Stranger! move carefully through our carrion:
what seems carrion to you is freedom to our cells.
Leave our names alone. Don't reconstruct those vowels,
consonants, and so forth: they won't resemble larks
but a demented bloodhound whose maw devours
its own traces, feces, and barks, and barks.
poem by Joseph Brodsky
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Sonnet: Nature’s The Best Teacher
Mother Nature’s the best teacher we know,
Teaching both young and old without a fee;
Through flora, fauna and all creatures, oh!
Her lessons being unique, naturally.
Vowels, consonants, she shows to utter;
Her music is most melodious to ears;
And anyone in her lap learns better,
Than what classrooms can teach them o’er the years.
A loving Mother Nature is to all!
She soothes their minds and mends their broken hearts;
A friend and guide and playmate, one can call,
Who shares her hidden secrets in small parts.
So, go to Mother Nature, learn a lot;
No teacher betters her in any slot.
poem by John Celes
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The Host, He Says That All Is Well
He didn't want to do it with skill,
He'd had enough of skill. If he never saw
Another villanelle, it would be too soon;
And the same went for sonnets. If it had been
Hard work learning to rime, it would be much
Harder learning not to. The time came
He had to ask himself, what did he want?
What did he want when he began
That idiot fiddling with the sounds of things.
He asked himself, poor moron, because he had
Nobody else to ask. The others went right on
Talking about form, talking about myth
And the (so help us) need for a modern idiom;
The verseballs among them kept counting syllables.
So there he was, this forty-year-old teen-ager
Dreaming preposterous mergers and divisions
Of vowels like water, consonants like rock
(While everybody kept discussing values
And the need for values) , for words that would
Enter the silence and be there as a light.
So much coffee and so many cigarettes
Gone down the drain, gone up in smoke,
Just for the sake of getting something right
Once in a while, something that could stand
On its own flat feet to keep out windy time
And the worm, something that might simply be,
Not as the monument in the smoky rain
Grimly endures, but that would be
Only a moment's inviolable presence,
The moment before disaster, before the storm,
In its peculiar silence, an integer
Fixed in the middle of the fall of things,
Perfected and casual as to a child's eye
Soap bubbles are, and skipping stones.
poem by Howard Nemerov
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Lion & Honeycomb
He didn't want to do it with skill,
He'd had enough of skill. If he never saw
Another villanelle, it would be too soon;
And the same went for sonnets. If it had been
Hard work learning to rime, it would be much
Harder learning not to. The time came
He had to ask himself, what did he want?
What did he want when he began
That idiot fiddling with the sounds of things.
He asked himself, poor moron, because he had
Nobody else to ask. The others went right on
Talking about form, talking about myth
And the (so help us) need for a modern idiom;
The verseballs among them kept counting syllables.
So there he was, this forty-year-old teen-ager
Dreaming preposterous mergers and divisions
Of vowels like water, consonants like rock
(While everybody kept discussing values
And the need for values), for words that would
Enter the silence and be there as a light.
So much coffee and so many cigarettes
Gone down the drain, gone up in smoke,
Just for the sake of getting something right
Once in a while, something that could stand
On its own flat feet to keep out windy time
And the worm, something that might simply be,
Not as the monument in the smoky rain
Grimly endures, but that would be
Only a moment's inviolable presence,
The moment before disaster, before the storm,
In its peculiar silence, an integer
Fixed in the middle of the fall of things,
Perfected and casual as to a child's eye
Soap bubbles are, and skipping stones.
poem by Howard Nemerov
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Words
Words,
mere words,
Mind’s birds.
Alpha to omega,
conglomeration of syllables,
Meeting of vowels,
Flirting of consonants.
It’s permutations
and combinations
begets
Couplets, stanzas
poetry’s extravaganza
Or maybe haikus
tankas, senyrus
allegories, lyrics
epigrams, limericks
sonnets, elegy
epics and cacophony.
Words have so much-
to say in ones life
Joie de vivre
can infuse life in dead
Vitriolic venom
can fill another with dread
can start Armageddon
can broach a peace deal
A trump card for politicians
a balm for the lonely
a granary for the poets
a missile in a duel
a bower of hope
Some words so calm
and tranquil
methinks I hear
in accents low
some so harsh
give goose pimples
some so witty
can make one
smile away all the blues
and some spewed
like venom
even one word
will drive deaths nail
deep within you.
So choose the right words
For the right moment
And at the right time
Beware
or you
will be caught in
devil’s snare.
Anjali
29-05-2009
poem by Anjali Sinha
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London Calling
London calling
it's smokers lungs bleating
in sharp consonants, lulling vowels
a mother's voice calling to her bosom
a pillow
in the City of Dreams
The wordless fields, speechless roads
gape and swallow like a hungry fish
The empty air echoes, taunts
and jeers
at night the small stone walls turn into brick
and pavements grow from grass
and orange faces peer red-eyed
through the dark
the twigs crack underfoot
brittle fingers like the lies
that keep me
and night time calls again
poem by Jack Turner
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Strip Teaser
Strip teaser...
Each time you remove an unneeded vowel,
And you appear,
Exposing consonants clear...
I shiver.
Strip teaser...
When you lick your lips,
Between the 'M's-'C's and your 'T's...
With teeth that touch,
I sit amazed!
I am dazed as my heart rate races.
My blood pulsates with an increasing pace.
Strip teaser...
When you speak,
Crisp and deliciously delivered from your tongue...
Is clear diction!
Not commonly heard today from anyone.
Strip teaser...
I can stare or close my eyes.
Clinging with a desire I can bare...
To hear,
What is clearly understood.
Your elocution is...good! Terrific.
And keeps me on the edge of my seat!
More. More. More...
I find myself repeating,
In unexpecting need.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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For You..
Courage and integrity are wondrous things to see
In your eyes I see them both looking back at me
Courage and integrity before were simply words
Vowels and consonants, sounds that I have heard,
Visions from old battlefields, heroes standing tall,
Yet now I see them in your eyes in writing very small.
Courage and integrity at last I understand
The beauty of the meaning behind the open hand.
Courage and integrity are wondrous things to see
One day my love I hope you see them looking back at thee.
Craig Norris.
poem by Craig Norris
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