Thursday, 31 December 2009

Pother

POTHER

-noun
1. A commotion or fuss.
2. Mental turmoil.
3. A smothering cloud of dust or smoke.
-verb tr.
4. To confuse or worry someone.
-verb intr.
5. To worry or fuss.



Festive pother
Howling in my ears.
I can't hear the snow sing.

Wednesday, 30 December 2009

Snare

SNARE

–noun
1. a device, often consisting of a noose, for capturing small game.
2. anything serving to entrap or entangle the unwary; trap.
3. Surgery. a wire noose for removing tumours or the like by the roots or at the base.
–verb (used with object)
4. to catch with a snare; entangle.
5. to catch or involve by trickery or wile

–noun
1. one of the strings of gut or of tightly spiralled metal stretched across the skin of a snare drum.




What is left of our souls
Caught in a snare of dreams?
Two crows fighting over carrion,
A handful of sand
Shining in the hand of time.

Tuesday, 29 December 2009

Eject

EJECT

–verb (used with object)
1. to drive or force out; expel, as from a place or position.
2. to dismiss, as from office or occupancy.
3. to evict, as from property.
4. to throw out, as from within; throw off.
–verb (used without object)
5. to propel oneself from a damaged or malfunctioning airplane, as by an ejection seat























The sea drove against the rocks
As if trying to eject
Frothy rage, unspent passion
For some treacherous mermaid.

Monday, 28 December 2009

Scrawl

SCRAWL

–verb (used with object)
1. to write or draw in a sprawling, awkward manner.
–verb (used without object)
2. to write awkwardly, carelessly, or illegibly.
–noun
3. awkward, careless, or illegible handwriting.
4. something scrawled, as a letter or a note.























To
Crawl
Under
Your
Skin
Scrawling my name in
To make you mine,
Breathing in your perfume.

Sunday, 27 December 2009

Tide

TIDE

–noun
1. the periodic rise and fall of the waters of the ocean and its inlets, produced by the attraction of the moon and sun, and occurring about every 12 hours.
2. the inflow, outflow, or current of water at any given place resulting from the waves of tides.
3. flood tide.
4. a stream or current.
5. anything that alternately rises and falls, increases and decreases, etc.
6. current, tendency, or drift, as of events or ideas.
7. any extreme or critical period or condition.
8. a season or period in the course of the year, day, etc. (now used chiefly in combination)
9. Ecclesiastical. a period of time that includes and follows an anniversary, festival, etc.
10.Archaic. a suitable time or occasion.
11.Obsolete. an extent of time.
–verb (used without object)
12.to flow as the tide; flow to and fro.
13.to float or drift with the tide.
–verb (used with object)
14.to carry, as the tide does.

–verb (used without object)
Archaic.
1. To happen or befall.























Tide of ideas
Slurping away at time.
Day rises.

Saturday, 26 December 2009

Maelstrom

MAELSTROM

–noun
1.a large, powerful, or violent whirlpool.
2.a restless, disordered, or tumultuous state of affairs
3.(initial capital letter ) a famous hazardous whirlpool off the NW coast of Norway.






















A maelstrom of
Haphazard incantations
Created a portal
In the old temple,
Swallowing
Twenty seven hapless tourists
And two smirking camels.

Friday, 25 December 2009

Yuletide

YULETIDE

–noun
1. the Christmas season.
–adj.
2. of or pertaining to the Christmas season.



Yuletide ornaments
Forgotten and unloved.
Darkness has eaten us all.


Never mind the gloom!
Best wishes too all.

Thursday, 24 December 2009

Tepid

TEPID

-adj.
1. moderately warm; lukewarm.
2. characterized by a lack of force or enthusiasm:






















Golden sand tattoos,
Washed away in tepid waves
And salt on your skin.

Wednesday, 23 December 2009

Implacable

IMPLACABLE

-adj.
not to be appeased, mollified, or pacified; inexorable






















Implacable rain,
Dying leaves clogging up drains:
Streets hiss and gurgle.

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Anomaly

ANOMALY

–noun
1. a deviation from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form.
2. someone or something anomalous.
3. an odd, peculiar, or strange condition, situation, quality, etc.
4. an incongruity or inconsistency.
5. Astronomy. a quantity measured in degrees, defining the position of an orbiting body with respect to the point at which it is nearest to or farthest from its primary.
6. Meteorology. the amount of deviation of a meteorological quantity from the accepted normal value of that quantity.
7. Grammar. irregularity.



With him,
Anomaly was the norm
Such was the delight he took
In his inherent uniqueness.

Background using a picture by Tom Check

Monday, 21 December 2009

Evanescent

EVANESCENT

–adj.
1. vanishing; fading away; fleeting.
2. tending to become imperceptible; scarcely perceptible.






















Evanescent forms
Capture her fleeting focus.
Warm heater mirages.

Sunday, 20 December 2009

Postiche

POSTICHE

–adj.

1. superadded, esp. inappropriately, as a sculptural or architectural ornament.
2. artificial, counterfeit, or false.
–noun
3. an imitation or substitute.
4. pretence; sham.
5. a false hairpiece.






















He
Stole
A mask of gorilla
On the run,
To stage
An impromptu spoof
Of Euripides’ Medea
At a party:
Posthaste pastiche
With a postiche.

Saturday, 19 December 2009

Allay

ALLAY

–verb (used with object)
1. to put (fear, doubt, suspicion, anger, etc.) to rest; calm; quiet.
2. to lessen or relieve; mitigate; alleviate



To hold your hand,
Steady your heart beat,
Allay untold worries,
Beat up the monsters in your closet:
That is love.

Friday, 18 December 2009

Bench

BENCH

–noun
1. a long seat for several persons.
2. a seat occupied by an official, especially a judge.
3. such a seat as a symbol of the office and dignity of an individual judge or the judiciary.
4. the office or dignity of various other officials, or the officials themselves.
5. Sports.
a. the seat on which the players of a team sit during a game while not playing.
b. The quality and number of the players of a team who are usually used as substitutes.
6. Informal.: Benchpress - A lift in weightlifting that is executed from a horizontal position on a bench, in which the weight is lifted from the chest to arm's length and then lowered back to the chest.
7. Also called workbench - the strong worktable of a carpenter or other mechanic.
8. a platform on which animals are placed for exhibition, especially at a dog show.
9. a contest or exhibition of dogs; dog show.
10.Physical Geography. a shelflike area of rock with steep slopes above and below.
11.Mining. a step or working elevation in a mine.
12.Also called berm - any level strip of ground at the summit or sides, or along the base, of a slope. .
–verb (used with object)
13.to furnish with benches.
14.to seat on a bench or on the bench.
15.to place (a show dog or other animal) in exhibition.
16.to cut away the working faces of (a mine or quarry) in benches.
17.Sports. to remove from a game or keep from participating in a game






















You and I
Reading on a bench
Apart yet together
Bliss.

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Perspective

PERSPECTIVE

–noun
1. a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface.
2. a picture employing this technique, especially one in which it is prominent.
3. a visible scene, especially one extending to a distance; vista.
4. the state of existing in space before the eye.
5. the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship.
6. the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship
7. a mental view or prospect:.
–adj.
8. of or pertaining to the art of perspective, or represented according to its laws.






















Perspective
Is but a room
With a view.
A point of view

Background picture - in its original state - by MacJewell

Wednesday, 16 December 2009

Voyage

VOYAGE

–noun
1. a course of travel or passage, especially a long journey by water to a distant place.
2. a passage through air or space, as a flight in an airplane or space vehicle.
3. a journey or expedition from one place to another by land.
4. Often, voyages. journeys or travels as the subject of a written account, or the account itself.
5. Obsolete. an enterprise or undertaking.
–verb (used without object)
6. to make or take a voyage; travel; journey.
–verb (used with object)
7. to traverse by a voyage






















Time
Voyage
Along a line
Ouroboros
Life

Background from an original by Rubyblossom

Tuesday, 15 December 2009

Glare

GLARE

–noun
1. a very harsh, bright, dazzling light.
2. a fiercely or angrily piercing stare.
3. dazzling or showy appearance; showiness.
–verb (used without object)
4. to shine with or reflect a very harsh, bright, dazzling light.
5. to stare with a fiercely or angrily piercing look.
6. Archaic. to appear conspicuous; stand out obtrusively.
–verb (used with object)
7. to express with a glare



A fierce glare
Dazzling worlds into submission.
Cold ice in my veins.

Shōki was created by Okumura Masanobu

Monday, 14 December 2009

Paucity

PAUCITY

-noun
1 fewness in number.
2 nearly lacking; dearth.



Paucity of sentiment,
Straining life to a maximum:
So much love, in theory,
Yet so little of the real thing
To go by.


Background picture by Piotr Zurek

Sunday, 13 December 2009

Cookie

COOKIE

–noun
1. a small cake made from stiff, sweet dough rolled and sliced or dropped by spoonfuls on a large, flat pan (cookie sheet) and baked.
2. Informal. dear; sweetheart (a term of address, usually connoting affection).
3. Slang.
a. a person: a smart cookie; a tough cookie.
b. an alluring young woman.
4. Computers. a message, or segment of data, containing information about a user, sent by a Web server to a browser and sent back to the server each time the browser requests a Web page.
5. South Atlantic States (chiefly North Carolina). a doughnut.
6. Scot. a bun.






















Autumn
Perfect excuse
To nibble on cookies
Especially if shaped like leaves.
Pleasure.

Saturday, 12 December 2009

Rhopalic

RHOPALIC

-adj.
Having each successive word longer by a letter or syllable.



I
Do
Not
Live
madly
- Really -
Although...
Strangely
Soliciting
Distraction.

Background built from two images by Rubyblossom