‘Word’ Poems


Bird’s a word and so is curd
And so is third, absurd and turd,
And so is furred and heard and stirred and purred,
Preferred, occurred, and spurred and blurred
And herd and nerd, deterred, transferred…
And so is squirrel.

Words are like birds

Words are just like birds…
Actually that isn’t true.
But it sounds good in a poem,
As most similes can do.

Sentences are flocks of birds.
Well, actually they’re not,
But do not let that put you off,
For metaphors are hot.

Letters are the feathers
Of the words that fly around.
Lines like that will get you
Extra bonus points, I’ve found.

It’s true that punctuation
Is the individual cell
Of the feathers of the birds that…
No, I made that up as well.

But poetry can lift you up,
So that you feel that you are flying…
Okay, it’s true. I can’t fool you.
You knew that I was lying.

How about this..?

Words are made of letters…
Do you think that this sounds better?
Sentences are made of words…
Is this method preferred?
Letters make individual sounds…
Not so good, I’ve found.
Punctuation clarifies meaning…
Are you finally gleaning
That metaphors and similes
Give poetry its imagery,
Give poets certain mastery
Of language so fantastically,
And change the sense so drastically,
Make folks enthusiastically
More satisfied scholastically,
And stretch the themes elastically,
Do stuff with words gymnastically,
Make sentences bombastically
More interesting?

The word that doesn’t exist

They say there’s not a word that rhymes with orange.
But tell that to the aliens that live on planet Borange,
When they’re playing in the finals of Intergalactic Worange
And the Squoranges are just about to score.

They say there’s not a thirty letter word.
Go tell that to the Phizzmeephazzmeefozzmauricious bird.
He’d think it strombloscurviouslautastically absurd,
I’m squinglanormiousanctistrofally sure.

Thay sae inn skool yoo mussed spel wurds korrekt,
Thatt wurds spellt rong doent meen nuffing, butt i rit thiss annd checkt
Thatt peepel hoo redd wot i rit kud undurstannd thees lynes
Sow thees wurds i rit ar actewal wurds thatt bee.

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8U7 1 KN0W 7H47’5 N07 QU17E 7RU3. 1N F4C7, 1 KN0W 4 W4Y
7H4T’5 83773R.
50 1 WR0T3 17 0U7 W174 NUM8ERS JU57 70 PROV3 7H47 7H15 15
R16H7,
4ND 1F Y0U’V3 R34D 7H15, 7H3N Y0U W111 4L50 533.

They say the letter ‘u’ must follow ‘q’.
But I qestioned and I qibbled and I proved this qite untrue.
You may think I am qackers but I’m more qalified than you
To qarrel and to qery what they say.

But I know there’s not a word that can exist
In any language, any life or any list,
To describe how much your brightness and your beauty would be
missed
If you ever left my world and went away.
Conversational conservation

You can recycle this poem,
Save energy when it is read,
Use it to power your imagination,
And fire up the thoughts in your head.

It does nothing to damage the planet,
Except when it’s written down here,
So try to remember this poem
And recycle it from mouth to ear.

It’s greener than grass in a meadow,
And cleaner than soap in the bath.
To remember it is the way forward –
It all adds up better than math.

It doesn’t use petrol or diesel.
It doesn’t need oil or coal.
Its footprint of carbon is tiny
And it won’t melt the ice at the Poles.

No ozone depletion potential;
No land degradation occurs
From this metaphorical message
Of collective comparative words.

We will never run out of description,
And words are as endless as time.
So power up your mind on the fossilised fuel
Of rhythmical, resonant rhyme.
This poem is all about nothing

This poem is all about nothing.
About nothing is what it’s about.
You may think it’s all about something,
But it’s not. Please don’t have any doubt.

You can analyse it all you want to.
You can pull apart all of the words.
But you won’t find a thing that’s of interest…
Just nothingness – haven’t you heard?

You can listen and try to discuss it.
You can nod and can rub at your chin.
But it’s pointless to do this, I tell you,
For this poem has nothing within.

You can laugh at the bits that are funny,
Though there’s nothing of humour quite yet.
You can say to each other, “I get it,”
But you don’t ‘cause there’s nothing to get.

And in years to come people can study
This poem that’s all about nil,
But I’m telling them now not to bother
But, with arrogance, no doubt they will.

This poem is all about nothing.
Please take what I say to be true.
But you’ll probably go and ignore me
And somehow make it all about you.
How (not) to write a limerick

A limerick’s very first line
Should rhyme with the next every time.
The fourth’s final word
Should rhyme with the third.
But I can never get the last one quite right.
M.N.E.M.O.N.I.C.

A mnemonic is a group of words that helps you to remember
Other groups of words like January to December.
It rings a bell, is hard to spell, but see below for ease:
Many Nervous Elephants Mix Orange Nuts In Cheese.
The same as opposite

The opposite of opposite
Is something that’s the same.
An antonym’s the same as opposite.
And if you want the same as same
A synonym will do.
So don’t be fooled,
That’s all there is to it.
Aren’t words brilliant?

Aren’t words brilliant?
You can get a word and ALTER it so that it changes to something else LATER.
You can add a letter to the beginning of IT so that it becomes a BIT different.
With some words, you can add a letter to the end of THEM to change their THEME.
You can even put ONE in the middle of MY word and make some MONEY.
Or (though you may not want to) reverse TONS and make SNOT.
Some words can be reversed without a PEEP and say exactly the same thing.
You can take part of the FIrst word and part of the secoND word to FIND a new word.
The SUM of letters in SOME words can be different, but sound exactly the same.
You can apply this TO more than TWO different words TOO.
Sometimes, two words spelt the same way can MEAN one thing and then MEAN something nasty.
You can take one WHOLE word, SOME other word and join them together in a WHOLESOME way.
Some words sound the same as letters. I don’t know WHY.
Two words can be repeated, one after another. It’s interesting THAT THAT can happen.
And finally, you can take a COMPLETE word, remove some of the letters, add others, rearrange them and make POETRY.

Aren’t words brilliant?
If languages were sandwiches…

If languages were sandwiches,
Then I’d speak Ham and Cheese.
If sandwiches were languages,
On bread I’d spread chinese.

Some would speak in Boiled Egg,
And some would speak Roast Beef,
And some would walk around with
Spanish stuck between their teeth.

Chicken and Tomato
Would be spoken by a few,
And nibbling on norwegian
Would be just the thing to do.

Pickle and Salami
Would be hard to comprehend,
But snacking on swahili
May help get there in the end.

If languages were sandwiches
What flavours would be heard!
What food for thought we would be taught,
And how we’d eat our words.

Tongue Twisties

I’ve swallowed a dictionary (or thesaurus)

I think I’ve swallowed a dictionary,
I ABSOLUTELY do.
I hope it’s BIODEGRADABLE
And low in CHOLESTEROL too.

I’m finding it quite DISAGREEABLE
But maintain my EQUANIMITY.
I must FORMULATE and GESTICULATE
How this happened so HAPHAZARDLY.

With much IMPLICATION of JOLLIFICATION
I took a KALEIDOSCOPE.
Through its LUMINESCENCE and MONOCULAR essence
I, with NONCHALANCE, started to grope.

My OCULAR mind was PERIPHERALLY blind
And I fell to the floor and, I QUOTE:
‘With little RESISTANCE, and threatened SUBSISTENCE,
A THESAURUS went straight down my throat.’

You may think my tale’s UNACCEPTABLY
A VERBIAGE that’s overblown,
And I’ve WANGLED in words that are not quite correct,
Like the false use of XYLOPHONE

For glockenspiel when you are YACKING
And you foolishly use the wrong noun.
Now, how should I close this poor alphabet prose
When I see ZERO ZEBRAS around?
Read

If you want to know about
The world and things within it,
Grab a book and take a look
Inside for just a minute.

The words that you’ll find written down
Are wisdom in disguise,
And you will learn, as pages turn,
That you, too, become wise:

Words of nature, words of science,
Words of humour, words of woe,
Words of fiction…the art of diction
Takes you where it’s good to go.

Words of learning, words of thinking,
Words of truth and words of lies,
Words of fact…words are packed
With things it’s always good to know.

So take a ride upon the tide
Of pure imagination.
Travel on the train of words
Through literary stations.

Gaze through changing windows
As the landscape cruises past,
And learn from what you see and read
Through pages made from glass.
The aardvark and the zebra

The aardvark should be filled with glee
To be first in the dictionary.
And when it comes to scrabble score
It doesn’t do bad (a V’s worth four).
‘A’ power as good as the Armada,
There’s no other vark that’s aarder.
But for poets it’s easy prey -
The aardvark cannot hide away.

The zebra should be quite upset,
The last one in the alphabet.
In scrabble sixteen is its score,
Like aardvark’s is - no less, no more.
Though Z’s are rare, it has just one -
The same as zero, not much fun.
But wait! A zebu has walked past.
The zebra is no longer last.
A body of grammar

I often juxtapose
My finger with my nose,
Hyperbolise by rolling eyes
And personify my prose.
My heart is filled with bathos -
And it’s also filled with blood
And people say my brain
Is just a metaphor for wood.

© Copyright Mike Lucas