Ravel

RAVEL

-verb trans. intr.
1. To fray or to become dis-joined; to untangle.
2. To entangle or to become tangled.



A bolero
Meanings frayed and ravelling
Meeting opposites in a kiss
Breeding confusion
Succulent quid pro quo

Series

SERIES

–noun
1. a group or a number of related or similar things, events, etc., arranged or occurring in temporal, spatial, or other order or succession; sequence.
2. a number of games, contests, or sporting events, with the same participants, considered as a unit.
3. a set, as of coins or stamps.
4. a set of successive volumes or issues of a periodical published in like form with similarity of subject or purpose.
5. Radio and Television .
a. a daily or weekly program with the same cast and format and a continuing story, as a soap opera, situation comedy, or drama.
b. a number of related programs having the same theme, cast, or format.
6. Mathematics .
a. a sequence of terms combined by addition
b. infinite series.
7. Rhetoric . a succession of coordinate sentence elements.
8. Geology . a division of stratified rocks that is of next higher rank to a stage and next lower rank to a system, comprising deposits formed during part of a geological epoch.
9. Electricity . an end-to-end arrangement of the components, as resistors, in a circuit so that the same current flows through each component.
10.Chemistry . a group of related chemical elements arranged in order of increasing atomic number
–adj.
11.Electricity . consisting of or having component parts connected in series























Series of ideas:
Pillars to a story,
Or massive grave,
Toxic junk yard,
A start for the future,
Wings for dreams.

Abut

ABUT

–verb (used without object)
1. to be adjacent; touch or join at the edge or border (often followed by "on", "upon", or "against")
–verb (used with object)
2. to be adjacent to; border on; end at.
3. to support by an abutment.




Regardless of impressions
The sky never quite abuts the sea
They are all and the same.

Fool

FOOL

–noun
1. a silly or stupid person; a person who lacks judgment or sense.
2. a professional jester, formerly kept by a person of royal or noble rank for amusement.
3. a person who has been tricked or deceived into appearing or acting silly or stupid.
4. an ardent enthusiast who cannot resist an opportunity to indulge an enthusiasm (usually preceded by a present participle).
5. a weak-minded or idiotic person.
–verb (used without object)
7. to act like a fool; joke; play.
8. to jest; pretend; make believe

–noun
British Cookery .
1. a dish made of fruit, scalded or stewed, crushed and mixed with cream or the like























A fool of a fruit
Lured into this trap.
A fool
To us.

Micawber

MICAWBER

-noun
An eternal optimist.























Always the micawber,
She feels entitled to cuddles
And endless supplies of food.
The fool.

Barmecidal

BARMECIDAL

-adj.
Giving only an illusion of something; unreal.



Barmecidal gardens
A lost topiary art

Etiolate

ETIOLATE

-verb trans.
1. To make pale by preventing exposure to sunlight.
2. To make weak by stunting the growth of.
-verb intr.
3. To become pale, weak, or stunted.



Etiolated by age
Angels still dance about
But their pin has lost its head.

Devoid

DEVOID

–adj.
1. not possessing, untouched by, void, or destitute (usually followed by "of").
–verb (used with object)
2. to deplete or strip of some quality or substance



Time touched sphinx
Devoid of head piece
Lost to memory

Onus

ONUS

-noun
1. a difficult or disagreeable obligation, task, burden, etc.
2. burden of proof.
3. blame or responsibility.























Serious people will place
The onus of a pink sky on photons,
Summer delight or ice cream.

Bole

BOLE

–noun
Botany .
1. the stem or trunk of a tree.

–noun
1. any of a variety of soft, unctuous clays of various colours, used as pigments.
2. a medium red-brown colour made from such clay.


















Lone metal bole
Unable to sprout leaves
Bole coloured world

Addle

ADDLE

–verb (used with object), verb (used without object)
1. to make or become confused.
2. to make or become rotten, as eggs.
–adj.
3. mentally confused; muddled.
4. rotten























Contrary to the obvious
Addled eggs are not scrambled.
Or mad.

Hinky

HINKY

-adj.
nervous or suspicious; acting suspiciously




Hinky stray
Stays well away
But still within my camera's reach.

Thresh

THRESH

— verb
(often followed by “about”)
1. to beat or rub stalks of ripe corn or a similar crop either with a hand implement or a machine to separate the grain from the husks and straw
2. (trans.) to beat or strike
3. to toss and turn; thrash
— noun
4. the act of threshing























Life
Threshing youth of its awkward husk
Supporting straws and flaws
Sometimes crushing grains
In the process.

Bibliocast

BIBLIOCAST

–noun
a person who mutilates or destroys books.
























Portrait of the artist as a bibliocast:
Her sculpture far better than the destroyed tome.


Sculpture by Françoise Chamagne

Primordial

PRIMORDIAL

–adj.
1. constituting a beginning; giving origin to something derived or developed; original; elementary,
2. Embryology . first formed.
3. pertaining to or existing at or from the very beginning



Primordial fears
Keep us anchored to life
And rational acts
But our dreams stray.

Slant

SLANT

–verb (used without object)
1. to veer or angle away from a given level or line, especially from a horizontal; slope.
2. to have or be influenced by a subjective point of view, bias, personal feeling or inclination, etc. (usually followed by "towards").
–verb (used with object)
3. to cause to slope.
4. to distort (information) by rendering it unfaithfully or incompletely, especially in order to reflect a particular viewpoint.
5. to write, edit, or publish for the interest or amusement of a specific group of readers.
–noun
6. slanting or oblique direction; slope.
7. a slanting line, surface, etc.
8. virgule.
9. a mental leaning, bias, or distortion.
10.viewpoint; opinion; attitude.
11.Informal . a glance or look.
12.Also called angle. Journalism . the particular mood or vein in which something is written, edited, or published.
13.Football .
a. an offensive play in which the ball-carrier runs toward the line of scrimmage at an angle.
b. Also called slant-in. a pass pattern in which a receiver cuts diagonally across the middle of the field.
–adj.
14. sloping; oblique



Slanted sun light
Discovering veins and fractures
Turning frail colours

Floor

FLOOR

–noun
1. that part of a room, hallway, or the like, that forms its lower enclosing surface and upon which one walks.
2. a continuous, supporting surface extending horizontally throughout a building, having a number of rooms, apartments, or the like, and constituting one level or stage in the structure; story.
3. a level, supporting surface in any structure
4. one of two or more layers of material composing a floor.
5. a platform or prepared level area for a particular use.
6. the bottom of any more or less hollow place.
7. a more or less flat extent of surface.
8. the part of a legislative chamber, meeting room, etc., where the members sit, and from which they speak.
9. the right of one member to speak from such a place in preference to other members.
10. the area of a floor, as in a factory or retail store, where items are actually made or sold, as opposed to offices, supply areas, etc.
11. the main part of a stock or commodity exchange or the like, as distinguished from the galleries, platform, etc.
12. the bottom, base, or minimum charged, demanded, or paid.
13. Mining . an underlying stratum, as of ore, usually flat.
14. Nautical .
a. the bottom of a hull.
b. any of a number of deep, transverse framing members at the bottom of a steel or iron hull, generally interrupted by and joined to any vertical keel or keelsons.
c. the lowermost member of a frame in a wooden vessel.
–verb (used with object)
15. to cover or furnish with a floor.
16. to bring down to the floor or ground; knock down: He floored his opponent with one blow.
17. to overwhelm; defeat.



On the ocean floor
Skate the languid sirens
Polishing up the algae
With a swipe of their tail

Maté

MATÉ

–noun
1. a tea-like South American beverage made from the dried leaves of an evergreen tree.
2. a South American tree, Ilex paraguariensis, that is the source of this beverage.
3. the dried leaves of this tree.



An acquired taste,
Maté is full of vitamines
And minerals:
It's good for you
And tastes like it too.

Fatigue

FATIGUE

–noun
1. weariness from bodily or mental exertion.
2. a cause of weariness; slow ordeal; exertion.
3. Physiology . temporary diminution of the irritability or functioning of organs, tissues, or cells after excessive exertion or stimulation.
4. Civil Engineering . the weakening or breakdown of material subjected to stress, especially a repeated series of stresses.
5. Also called fatigue duty. Military .
a. labour of a generally non-military kind done by soldiers, such as cleaning up an area, digging drainage ditches, or raking leaves.
b. the state of being engaged in such labour.
6. fatigues, Military . fatigue clothes.
–adj.
7. of or pertaining to fatigues or any clothing made to resemble them.
–verb (used with object)
8. to weary with bodily or mental exertion; exhaust the strength of.
9. Civil Engineering . to subject (a material) to fatigue.
–verb (used without object)
10.to become fatigued.
11.Civil Engineering . (of a material) to undergo fatigue.



Let the sick, the needy,
Find harbour for their fatigue
Tender morsels and cuddles
For the weary.

Lancinate

LANCINATE

-verb trans.
To pierce or tear.























Some bees
Can lancinate your heart
Just as well as your skin

Synecdoche

SYNECDOCHE

–noun
Rhetoric .
a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich man.























Synecdoche as epitome?
Or epitome as synecdoche?
So much to choose from
So little to lie upon.

Missus

MISSUS

-noun
1. informal. the missus one's wife or the wife of the person addressed or referred to
2. an informal term of address for a woman
Also spelled "missis"























Missus Liberty
Is blind to reality
Too bold to admit defeat
To become pragmatic

Simper

SIMPER

–verb (used without object)
1. to smile in a silly, self-conscious way.
–verb (used with object)
2. to say with a simper.
–noun
3. a silly, self-conscious smile.



A little rigid
Yet putrescent
Dead fish simper

Pen

PEN

–noun
1. any of various instruments for writing or drawing with ink or a similar substance.
2. a detachable metal pen-point, filled by dipping or with a quill; nib.
3. such a pen-point with its pen-holder.
4. fountain pen.
5. ball-point pen.
6. the pen as the instrument of writing or authorship.
7. a person's style or quality of writing.
8. a writer.
9. the profession of writing.
10. stylus - Computers . a pen-shaped device used on a display screen to input commands or handwritten text or drawings.
11. Ornithology .
a. a quill.
b. a pinfeather.
12. something resembling or suggesting a feather or quill.
13. Zoology . an internal, corneous or chitinous, feather-shaped structure in certain cephalopods, as the squid.
–verb (used with object)
14. to write with or as with a pen; put down in writing.
15. to draw with or as with a pen

–noun
1. a small enclosure for domestic animals.
2. animals so enclosed:.
3. an enclosure used for confinement or safekeeping.
4. playpen.
5. bull pen.
6. a dock having a protective concrete structure overhead, used to service and repair submarines.
–verb (used with object)
7. to confine in or as in a pen.

–noun
a female swan.





My pen has just sang its last song
The swan's song turned out to be a dreadful scratching sound.
Ink spattered everywhere.

Malt

MALT

–noun
1. germinated grain, usually barley, used in brewing and distilling.
2. any alcoholic beverage, as beer, ale, or malt liquor, fermented from malt.
3. whisky, as Scotch, that is distilled entirely from malted barley
–verb (used with object)
5. to convert (grain) into malt by soaking it in water and allowing it to germinate.
6. to treat or mix with malt, malt extract, etc.
7. to make (liquor) with malt.
–verb (used without object)
8. to become malt.
9. to produce malt from grain.



Malted drinks
In every form
Good for you
Within reason

Prodrome

–noun
Pathology .
a premonitory symptom.























I could recognize
In his slanted look
The prodrome of mirth
A jest in the making

Epitome

EPITOME

–noun
1. a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class.
2. a condensed account, especially of a literary work; abstract























A chair and palm tree
The sound of waves breaking
The epitomes of summer

Cymotrichous

CYMOTRICHOUS

-adj.
having wavy hair






















Let the cymotrichous sleep
Dreaming their unbending dreams
Of succulent straight leaves.

Wiredrawn

WIREDRAWN

-adj.
1.Finely spun; extremely intricate; minute.
2.Drawn out long and thin like a wire.























Wiredrawn stories
Eating away the hours
Nights become too short.

Heist

HEIST

–noun
1. a robbery or holdup.
–verb (used with object)
2. to take unlawfully, especially in a robbery or holdup; steal
3. to rob or hold up.

























Time and roses
Have run a heist
On the old dead olive tree
Stealing its wood for support
At thorn point.

Behest

BEHEST

–noun
1. a command or directive.
2. an earnest or strongly worded request.



Flowers jump out
At the behest of spring

Axiomatic

AXIOMATIC

-adj.
1 taken for granted : self-evident
2 based on or involving an axiom or system of axioms























Axiomatic salad
Dictated by heat
And summer bounty

Resent

RESENT

–verb (used with object)
to feel or show displeasure or indignation at (a person, act, remark, etc.) from a sense of injury or insult.




I resent your snacking
On something I can't steal.

Knoll

KNOLL

-noun
a small, rounded hill or eminence; hillock.
–verb (used with object)
1. to ring or toll a bell for; announce by tolling.
2. to ring or toll (a bell).
–verb (used without object)
3. to sound, as a bell; ring.
4. to sound a knell.
–noun
5. a stroke of a bell in ringing or tolling.


























Evening knoll
Rounded like a bell
Sounding teat.

Highfalutin

HIGHFALUTIN

-adj.
Pompous; bombastic.

























Teeth and claws
Wings too
Broken
Away
By
Time
Highfalutin beast
No more

Ladder

LADDER

–noun
1. a structure of wood, metal, or rope, commonly consisting of two sidepieces between which a series of bars or rungs are set at suitable distances, forming a means of climbing up or down.
2. something resembling this.
3. a means of rising, as to eminence.
4. a graded series of stages or levels in status; a hierarchical order of position or rank.
5. Nautical . companionway within the hull of the vessel.
6. Chiefly British . a run in a stocking.
–verb (used with object)
7. to climb or mount by means of a ladder.
8. to furnish with a ladder.
9. Chiefly British . to cause a run in (a stocking).
–verb (used without object)
10. Chiefly British . to get a run, as in a stocking.
11. to gain in popularity or importance.

























He wanted to climb to heaven
Took a ladder and went his way
Got stranded into the orchard
For fruits were sweet and tempting
Unnoticed hours slipped away.

Much later, we found his tools,
Spat pits and a handful of feathers
But no sign of him anywhere
He wanted to climb to heaven
But maybe he was just taken away.

Widget

WIDGET

—noun
1. informal any small mechanism or device, the name of which is unknown or temporarily forgotten
2. a small device in a beer can which, when the can is opened, releases nitrogen gas into the beer, giving it a head
3. a small computer program that can be installed on and executed from the desktop of a personal computer



This computer popped a widget
And went "Fizzzz!"
We are sorry to report
It totally lost its head



This has been generated by a handsome widget at Atom Smasher

Cosmogony

COSMOGONY

–noun
a theory or story of the origin and development of the universe, the solar system, or the earth-moon system.



In a summer night moment
Glimpses of cosmogony make you shiver
Star dust underneath your toes
In between your clenched teeth

Expectation

EXPECTATION

-noun
1. the act or state of expecting or the state of being expected
2. ( usually plural ) something looked forward to, whether feared or hoped for.
3. an attitude of expectancy or hope; anticipation.
4. statistics
a. the numerical probability that an event will occur
b. another term for expected value



I call them expectation
Jewels from the garden
Precious and bountiful
For a too short month

Herl

HERL

-noun
1. a strand of hair.
2. The fibrous shaft or barb of a feather (especially that of the ostrich or peacock) used to make artificial flies for angling.
3. An artificial fly made with this barb






















Herl provider
Seminating fibers all over the lawn
To catch the fish
Laid there by the night
Hidden in dew drops

Spall

SPALL

—noun
1. a splinter or chip of ore, rock, or stone
—verb
2. to split or cause to split into such fragments



I admit it
I wanted your heart to spall
The hurt to turn your eyes blue
Blood on your lips

I had no thoughts
Of basic ballistic rules
The shards cut right through me
As I counted points.

Tumbril

TUMBRIL

–noun (also: tumbrel)
1. one of the carts used during the French Revolution to convey victims to the guillotine.
2. a farmer's cart, especially one for hauling manure, that can be tilted to discharge its load.
3. Obsolete . a two-wheeled covered cart accompanying artillery for carrying tools, ammunition, etc.























A tumbril of leaves
To shift the seasons
And dried up memories

Trope

TROPE

–noun
1. Rhetoric .
a. any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense.
b. an instance of this. Compare figure of speech.
2. a phrase, sentence, or verse formerly interpolated in a liturgical text to amplify or embellish.
3. (in the philosophy of Santayana) the principle of organization according to which matter moves to form an object during the various stages of its existence.























Support our tropes!

Doxology

DOXOLOGY

-noun
1. a hymn or form of words containing an ascription of praise to god.
2. the Doxology, the metrical formula beginning “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”






















I found doxology too
In the stone carved torments
The warnings and flames
Promises of the unspeakable
For refusing a holy embrace.

Liquescent

LIQUESCENT

–adj.
1. becoming liquid; melting.
2. tending toward a liquid state.






















Liquescent glass
Condemned by gravity and time
To drop away

Flummery

FLUMMERY

–noun
1. oatmeal or flour boiled with water until thick.
2. fruit custard or blancmange usually thickened with cornstarch.
3. any of various dishes made of flour, milk, eggs, sugar, etc.
4. complete nonsense; foolish humbug.























Unusual flummery
Celebrating spring glory.

Tyro

TYRO

-noun
One who is beginning to learn something. Also: tiro




Tyro tyrant
Holding human hearts
In her paws

Shirty

SHIRTY

-adj.
Bad-tempered, irritable.



Shirty
Heroes
As guardians
To
Forbidden
Doors

Usufruct

USUFRUCT

-noun
The right to use and enjoy another's property without destroying it.



Marriage came with usufruct,
Not possession
You had no right to break my heart.

Litmus

LITMUS

—noun
a soluble powder obtained from certain lichens. It turns red under acid conditions and blue under basic conditions and is used as an indicator























Litmus coloured life
Rusting under a blue sky