Calenture

CALENTURE

–noun
Pathology. a violent fever with delirium, affecting persons in the tropics.
A tropical fever once believed to be caused by the heat.






















Against calenture
He spreads on the kitchen tiles.
This is all our fault.

Dingle

DINGLE

–noun
a deep, narrow cleft between hills; shady dell.






















There,
Lost
In the
Dark dingle,
The metallic dell
Of seemingly faltering love,
I have lost the key to your dreams.
Unable to mourn,
I rattle
The lock
In
Vain.


The background picture is copyright of Willow of Willow Manor, who has put it forth as a writing prompt.
Join the writing fun at Magpie Tales.

Aeromancy

AEROMANCY

-noun
The prediction of future events from observation of weather conditions.



More than forecast,
Aeromancy
Predicts beach days
And water games
To come

Persnickety

PERSNICKETY

-adj.
1. Fussy about minor details.
2. Snobbish.
3. Requiring keen attention to detail, as a job.



She was persnickety
Already in her young age
Finding defaults in her parents
And the world around her.
When the faeries seized her
She was elated to fly away
Leaving earth and clumsy shoes behind.

Antenna

ANTENNA

-noun
1. a conductor by which electromagnetic waves are sent out or received, consisting commonly of a wire or set of wires; aerial.
2. Zoology . one of the jointed, movable, sensory appendages occurring in pairs on the heads of insects and most other arthropods.



Shining frame
Disguised antennas
Beam me up.

Mephitic

MEPHITIC

-adj.
Poisonous or foul-smelling.






















Let me tell you a story
Of mephitic prophesies
And untimely death:
Butterflies flying into flames
By preordained orders
A skull on their wings

Procrustean

PROCRUSTEAN

–adj.
1. pertaining to or suggestive of Procrustes.
2. ( often lowercase ) tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means.



Ready for summer
Through Procrustean diets.
Gulls couldn't care less.

Revel

REVEL

–verb (used without object)
1. to take great pleasure or delight (usually followed by “in” ).
2. to make merry; indulge in boisterous festivities.
–noun
3. boisterous merrymaking or festivity; revelry.
4. Often, revels. an occasion of merrymaking or noisy festivity with dancing, masking, etc.
























After you are gone...
I revel in the scent of you
Over the battered pillows


The background picture is copyright of Willow of Willow Manor, who has put it forth as a writing prompt.
Join the writing fun at Magpie Tales.

Equipoise

EQUIPOISE

-noun
1. A state of balance.
2. Something that serves as a counterbalance.
-verb tr.
To counterbalance.























Reaching out
Exercise in equipoise
All for cream

Epigraph

EPIGRAPH

-noun
1. An inscription on a building or statue.
2. A quotation introducing a book or a chapter.






















Raised in honour
Remaining for luck
The epigraph failed to close an era
Leaving ghosts behind.

Calamistration

CALAMISTRATION

-noun
The act or process of curling hair.



Her calamistration skills
Were most unusual:
Not many people use snakes
As curling irons

Overarch

OVERARCH

–verb (used with object)
1. to span with or like an arch.
–verb (used without object)
2. to form an arch over something.























Suddenly
All our projects
Are overarching
Virtual rainbows
Set in words
Raising questions

Stenosis

STENOSIS

-noun
A narrowing of a passage, vessel, or an opening in the body.























Our skyline was blocked
Cancelled by haphazard roofs.
Urban stenosis.

Nimbus

NIMBUS

-noun
1. A rain cloud.
2. A halo or aura around the head of a person depicted in a piece of art.























A most stormy saint
His nimbus angry with rain
Salt on open wounds

Rampant

RAMPANT

–adj.
1. violent in action or spirit; raging; furious.
2. growing luxuriantly, as weeds.
3. in full sway; prevailing or unchecked.
4. (of an animal) standing on the hind legs; ramping.
5. Heraldry . (of a beast used as a charge) represented in profile facing the dexter side, with the body upraised and resting on the left hind leg, the tail and other legs elevated, the right foreleg highest, and the head in profile unless otherwise specified.
6. Architecture . (of an arch or vault) springing at one side from one level of support and resting at the other on a higher level.



A slow burning
Rampant amber
Desire
Without boundaries
But under cover
Never extinguishable
Not even bottom up


The background picture is copyright of Willow of Willow Manor, who has put it forth as a writing prompt.
Join the writing fun at Magpie Tales.

Paean

PAEAN

-noun
An expression of praise, joy, or triumph, traditionally in the form of a song.






















He launched into a paean
Singing the stones cooling his belly
The sun warming his fur and bones
The fat birds he intended to snack on
(after their concert was finished)
Or the titbits I might feed him instead.

Compotation

COMPOTATION

–noun
an act or instance of drinking or tippling together.






















Under the stars
We revel in
Compotation
Sharing dreams while
Sharing glasses.

Macerate

MACERATE

-verb
1 : to cause to waste away by or as if by excessive fasting
2 : to cause to become soft or separated into constituent elements by or as if by steeping in fluid; broadly : steep, soak
3 : to soften and wear away especially as a result of being wetted or steeped






















I could not bear to macerate much longer
So elected to macerate my innards instead.

Nidifugous

NIDIFUGOUS

-adj.
Leaving the nest soon after hatching






















Distracted?
My thoughts are nidifugous
And often devoured
By lurking predators

Perspicuity

PERSPICUITY

–noun
1. clearness or lucidity, as of a statement.
2. the quality of being perspicuous.






















In a state of perspicuity
I saw the ripples of time
Scoring the surface of nature
As on a long playing disk
Singing the evanescent song
Of fragility and grace.

Abirritate

ABIRRITATE

–verb (used with object)
Medicine/Medical. to reduce irritation or sensitiveness.






















Ricotta and tomatoes
Paragons of coolness
Abirritate summer's heat.

Spry

SPRY

-adj.
active; nimble; agile; energetic; brisk.



The spry creature
Shows the same energy
In every action
Be it hunt or
The noble art of snoozing

Bellicose

BELLICOSE

–adj.
inclined or eager to fight; aggressively hostile; belligerent; pugnacious.






















Years of living here
Should protect me
Against sudden anger
- Look! A real life Chirico! –
But I still get bellicose
At the sight of dumps.

Inane

INANE

–adj.
1. lacking sense, significance, or ideas; silly:
2. empty; void.
–noun
3. something that is empty or void, especially the void of infinite space.



Inane mind:
Listen close to the ear
and hear the sea roar.

Trophy

TROPHY

–noun
1. anything taken in war, hunting, competition, etc., especially when preserved as a memento; spoil, prize, or award.
2. anything serving as a token or evidence of victory, valour, skill, etc.
3. a carving, painting, or other representation of objects associated with or symbolic of victory or achievement.
4. any memento or memorial.
5. a memorial erected by certain ancient peoples, especially the Greeks and Romans, in commemoration of a victory in war and consisting of arms or other spoils taken from the enemy and hung upon a tree, pillar, or the like.























Full of tears
Sodden trophies
Waiting for sunshine.
A victory.

Yahoo

YAHOO

–noun
1. (in Swift's Gulliver's Travels ) one of a race of brutes, having the form and all the vices of humans, who are subject to the Houyhnhnms.
2. ( lowercase ) an uncultivated or boorish person; lout; philistine; yokel.
3. ( lowercase ) a coarse or brutish person.






















A case of mistaken identity;
His look identifying him as a yahoo.
But that bear is a philosopher:
Thoughts are all he has left to escape.

Billow

BILLOW

–noun
1. a great wave or surge of the sea.
2. any surging mass.
–verb (used without object)
3. to rise or roll in or like billows; surge.
4. to swell out, puff up, etc., as by the action of wind.
–verb (used with object)
5. to make rise, surge, swell, or the like























Hairy billows
Greeted him each morning
Waiting to be coiffed
Over and over
Into temporary submission
Until the next wave
Of dreams.

Demure

DEMURE

-adj.
1. characterized by shyness and modesty; reserved.
2. affectedly or coyly decorous, sober, or sedate.



Sitting on my shoulder,
Demure and prim
But for excessive drooling
My inner-monster points out faults,
Phantasmagorical errors,
Implanting self doubt
In a meek ego.

Resentment

RESENTMENT

–noun
the feeling of displeasure or indignation at some act, remark, person, etc., regarded as causing injury or insult.



This I write
With your blood.
If not your blood,
Your resentment.
Clouding the page
With tight signs
Hiding our escape
Into another
World.


Albertus Seba's squid engraving from his 'Cabinet of Natural Curiosities' appears courtesy of Peacay , of BlibliOdyssey fame.

Pomegranate

POMEGRANATE

–noun
1. a chambered, many-seeded, globose fruit, having a tough, usually red rind and surmounted by a crown of calyx lobes, the edible portion consisting of pleasantly acid flesh developed from the outer seed coat.
2. the shrub or small tree, Punica granatum, that bears it, native to south-western Asia but widely cultivated in warm regions.























There’s a fragile rose inside my window,
Made of pomegranate blossoms and seeds
Ruffled under the hand of antic winds
Turned blue under restoration frosting

Calendar

CALENDAR

–noun
1. a table or register with the days of each month and week in a year.
2. any of various systems of reckoning time, especially with reference to the beginning, length, and divisions of the year.
3. a list or register, esp. one arranged chronologically, as of appointments, work to be done, or cases to be tried in a court.
4. a list, in the order to be considered, of bills, resolutions, etc., brought before a legislative body.
5. Obsolete . a guide or example.
–verb (used with object)
6. to enter in a calendar; register.






















Broken calendar
Singing days long gone
Planning a mockery