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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Related quotes
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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The big political news, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he's running for governor of California, and already, people are chanting, 'Four more vowels, four more vowels.'
quote by Craig Kilborn
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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I Am About To Sleep
darkness comes
it is routine, nothing is mysterious about it
and as usual i am about to sleep
but you are there knocking at the door
of my heart
bringing me a bouquet of vowels
looking like petals of the
blue flowers in the desert
i let you in and i take the bouquet of vowels
and shower it
sprinkle it
with the salt of my tears.
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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Kaleidoscope and Harpsichord
As I've told my wife too many times,
the meaning of any poem hides
in the marriage of cadence and sound.
Vowels on a carousel,
consonants on a calliope,
whistles and bells,
we need them all
tickling our ears.
Otherwise, the lines
are gristle and fat, no meat.
Is it any wonder, then,
my wife has a problem
with any poem I give her to read
for a second opinion, especially
when the poem has no message
and I'm simply trying to hear
what I'm saying and don't care
if I understand it.
The other night in bed
I gave her another poem to read
and afterward she said this poem
was no different than the others.
She had hoped I'd improve.
'After all, ' she said,
'you've been writing for years
but reading a poem like this is
like looking through a kaleidoscope
while listening to a harpsichord.'
Point well taken,
point well said.
But then I asked her
what should a man do
if he has careened for years
through the caves of his mind
spelunking for the right
line for a poem
only to hear his wife say
after reading one of his poems
that it was like
'looking through a kaleidoscope
while listening to a harpsichord.'
What should he do-quit?
'Not a chance, '
she said this morning,
enthroned at the kitchen table,
as regal as ever in her fluttery gown
and buttering her English muffin
with long, languorous strokes
Van Gogh would envy.
'He should write even more,
all day and all night, if need be.
After all, ' she said, 'my line
about the kaleidoscope and harpsichord
still needs a poem of its own.
It's all meat, no gristle, no fat.'
poem by Donal Mahoney
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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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Check if you are a Tamil
To be a Tamil, to be born to Tamils
And to speak Tamil as mother tongue
Aren’t alone a sufficient proof.
You must speak vowels tearing apart and
With nouns in English and verbs in Tamil.
You must have a hero higher than God
And read, if at all, the news of movies.
You will do public nuisances at length
And must be insensitive to them.
You shall respect Tamil and ignore Tamils.
You celebrate festivals by watching
In TV Tamil debates and stars’ talks.
You seek south Indian restaurants abroad.
Then you can boast you are a true Tamil.
19.10.2008
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety.
quote by Alma Gluck
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Watching
I watch his mouth move,
his lips;
they hypnotize me.
They are sensuous;
alive in their movements
I like the way they
form vowels;
the top one curls
with the word 'so'
form vowels
like 'oh' deliciously;
and the bottom one
to pouts at me
both open softly
his white teeth showing.
He says
'hummmm'
and they rest
one atop the other
soft sound vibrating them
on their fleshy palette..
I remember best
those lips
pouting outward
slightly
saying 'I do'
I remember his lips
saying 'I do'
at the wedding.
I 'll always love those lips
Still do.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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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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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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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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English uniqueness
Letters are twenty six.
Words are millions.
That is language.
Vowels are five.
Phonetics is twenty two.
That is confusion.
English is a language
No one could master.
31.01.2006
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to read in college English courses - to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life.
quote by David McCullough
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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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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