The Tongue Ever So Young
An eggplant need not taste nor look like egg,
Nor in a hamburger ham need be there,
Where's pine, apple in pineapple, I beg?
Nor yet french-fries in France invented were.
They native are— American pure blood,
Wherein was born the world's every junk food;
All sugar and sweet and nice little treat,
Sweetmeat's no meat, but sweetbread's made of meat.
Quicksand by no means a quick end does bring,
It has slow jaws of death and there's no jerk,
Never is it quick, slowly does it work.
Talking of quirks of tongues, take boxing ring,
Where brawn of every shape and size show dare,
It's bound by an area of a fine square.
Guinea pig is a rodent, small or big,
Used it is for research, nor is a pig.
Writers write and singers have oft times sung,
But hammers are no ham, nor hunger gets hung,
Talk of logic, plural of tooth is teeth,
For heavens sake, why that of booth's not beeth?
One single bird is goose, two make it geese,
Too bad, moose would not multiply to meese;
Teachers have all along their students taught,
But I doubt if preachers have ever praught.
In a play people recites, say their say,
But in recitals sing, or music play;
Strange, motorists always park on driveways,
In dash and drive, drive on all the parkways;
Whether a house in a raging fire burns
Up, or burns down, to ashes always turns;
As it matters little, there's not a doubt,
Someone may fill in a form or fill out.
Marathon nor yet sprint be human race
But it does run a race with no disgrace.
And we wind up a watch to make it start,
And wind up things or down with heavy heart;
Looking over things, one may something find,
But by overlooking, may look like blind;
It's all right staying over for the night,
But overstaying welcome is not right.
Seems, English tongue is designed to confuse
Those that may learn later, say, for instant,
With so many false starts inelegant,
What with look-alikes in use and misuse;
And there are sound-alikes as well to add
To the riot of confusion galore,
While news writers that daily deadlines dread,
What with stop-press, puns confuse all the more.
And there are fond purveyors of what's old,
Archaic and no more in current use,
Poets with pregnant clichés pure as gold,
And liberated from dying disuse;
The tongue still as no endangered one lives,
Nor yet is gasping for breath on death-bed,
In truth, more alive, getting much as gives,
Getting richer, ah right northward to head.
Funny, you feel digesting irony,
And wonder what keeps the tongue all so young?
And vibrant with borrowings so many;
The very foreign gene one deems as dung!
______________________
Copyright © Aniruddha Pathak | Year Posted 2020
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment