Best Minuscule Poems
Circa Holy Roman Empire
between ninth
and thirteenth century
after common era
(approximately 800 AD and 1200 AD)
benchmark year 780 bracketed
Benedictine monks
Of Corbie Abbey
devised cheeky guttural lingual rapartee
vis a vis European
calligraphic standard script inked lined
writ via extant Irish and English monastic
members nsync
strong influence of Irish literati
eased communication
popular Latin cognoscenti
common lingua franca
spawned Carolingian Renaissance
Codices, pagan and Christian text
plus educational material
written viz Carolingian minuscule
Emperor Charlemagne issued prescription
(hence named Carolingian)
boosted unified modus operandi
he advocated learning,
though somewhat illiterate
recognized value of education
predicated on singular
codified regional alphabet,
the then webbed wide world
linkedin, sans uniform symbolic shapes
uncontested salient advantage
offered up ease to master
clear distinct explicit letter formation
simple logic boosted
rapidly transmitted standardization,
especially with exceptional legible
readable characteristic
adequate spaces between words
Merovingian "chancery hand"
reserved to draft traditional charters
Gothic and Anglo Saxon
favored traditional local script
as opposed to Latin
learning latter involved less tricked out
embellished flourishes
or interconnected strokes
drawn by a scribe
allowing, enabling, and providing
greater popularity to teach masses,
latent etymological nuances apparent
centuries following implementation
quasi initial Carolingian letters
steadfast, where Carolingian
influence moats strong
adopted local stylistic signature flavor
divergence woke since proliferation
stoking diffuse prospects
decreeing entrenched footing,
where auspices boded prescient
until groundswell didst surcease
sub limb mated into modern patois.
Lift your eyes to view in the midnight sky and gaze at:
Andromeda Galaxy
Asteroids
Orion’s Belt
The Big Dipper
North Star
Pleiades
Pluto
Venus
Saturn
Jupiter
Mars
Moons
Comets
Meteors
Stars
Magellanic Cloud of Galaxies
Special is to view all these spectacular sites with our
eyes here on our home nest.
Yet, what we see with our eyes is but “a Minuscule speck,”
this compared to the enumerable rest.
"Great and glorious is the Lord God, of Host."
Look at His grand colossal enormous cosmos.
We giving thanks for having under our feet on
a place called Earth; a most experiential and
most scenic of nest a very big speck.
If your aim is to lose extra weight
and escape from what seems like your fate,
take this piece of advice
(the advice is concise):
put your food on a minuscule plate.
MINUSCULE PSYCHOLOGISTS
those bars, those bars…
they screech and scream
and scare us little girls
the spots, the stripes...
of leopards and tigers
confined with jangling keys
and legs of chairs…
the circus feature
of our prayers
we hear, we hear…
the whispers of grown men
who snarl and sneer
closed in, closed in…
with legal pad, we query
the escapee’s sin
the whorl, the world...
minuscule psychologists
open up pandora’s box
shoulder to shoulder…
the dynamic duo ink blot
a list of truth and lies
empirical lessons...
not forgotten but tweaked
in the dendrites of my mind
those bars, those bars…
separate the pandemic cells
held in subconscious time
4/15/2018
The slow red sun falls through the dusk gray sky
Shadows from bird's wings glide casually by
Feathered limbs carry them away from night
They float through skies of layered painted light
The day changes coats when night creatures sing
Dim stars appear like an uncoiling string
The worn cloth of time turns into twilight
Harmonies of night fill ears with delight
Sunlight ends on a quiet spinning spool
The red of its light becomes minuscule
Moonlight splays upon a realm of starlight
And brings its own layers of painted light
I watched in awe at this slow changing scene
Only my whispers of thanks intervene
3/21/21
contest Rhyming Couplets
sponsor Janice Canerdy