Somewhere, a mother teaches her daughter
to carry water on her head without spilling-
balance, she says, is everything.
In another country, a different mother
teaches her son to carry his name
without flinching when strangers mispronounce it.
We are all learning to carry something.
The refugee carries a photograph,
edges soft from touching-
proof that home was real.
The prisoner carries tomorrow
in the calluses of his palms,
counting days like prayer beads.
What if peace is not the dove
but the earthworm, turning soil,
making everything fertile again?
What if justice is not the gavel' crack
but the quiet hand that helps a stranger stand?
We build monuments to freedom
while forgetting freedom is built
in the small spaces between us-
the breath before forgiveness,
the moment we choose to listen
instead of turning away.
So here is my offering:
not grand words carved in marble,
but this-the admission that I am still learning
to carry the weight of your name,
your story, your right to be here,
as carefully as you carry mine.
Twenty-five years
since we agreed to this and still,
I vow to be there,
just outside your line of sight,
as you confidently mispronounce quinoa,
as you decide, again, that the best way
to check if the pan is hot
is to touch it.
I vow to say nothing
as you eyeball the rice-to-water ratio,
as you insist the foundation holds weight,
as you press snooze believing
time is different for you.
I vow to remain clogged-drain quiet
as you tell the plumber,
No, I got it.
As you grab the Tupperware
stamped Do Not Microwave.
I vow to never stop you,
never correct you,
never intervene—
just smile softly,
like god’s understudy
only to exist,
always,
just beyond your reach,
a presence, a history, a silent witness
to your worst ideas,
like a Liberty half-dollar trapped in a garbage disposal,
like a key locking the door from the outside.
We learn to skip before we run,
We learn to crawl before we walk.
We often look before we leap
But rarely think before we talk.
Words are our friends and should be cherished as such,
But too many, it seems, don't seem to care very much.
I have pity on poor defenseless words
When we batter, and bludgeon,
And pummel, and trounce them,
And feel especially bad
When I abuse, or misuse,
Or misspell, or mispronounce them*.
*Author's note and disclaimer: Many of you, dear readers, are well aware that in certain of my pieces, I do these things with a certain degree of frequency, but when I do, I claim poetic license and/or plead the Ogden Nash Amendment, which is: My muse made me do it.
I ponder
How long will this innocence last.
As I watch him play….take leave
Of our world
And become a dinosaur,
Roar and stomp and laugh
And mispronounce their names.
I watch her pirouette
Turn cartwheels
Dance to a tune only she hears
Tumble to the floor….. laughing.
I struggle to protect them
To shield them from
The righteousness of authoritarianism
To permit them to be themselves.
It is not my job to mold them
Shape them, compel them
But to provide them a safe place
To discover their uniqueness
To explore, to dare to be
A dinosaur, a ballerina
A child.
John G. Lawless
©4/8/2022
Isn’t it always
On tip of his tongue
To mispronounce her love name
To call me
Didn’t want to show how fragile I was
So I kept my cool
To pretend how strong I am
Though it was agonizing my heart
Heaps ran through my mind
Does my existence mean anything to him
How easy it was
To leave a scarring wound in my heart
- Azra Hussain - ©
De bor' ah is her Congo name,
To mispronounce it such a shame,
For few would read and say it right,
I asked: a sweet smile brought to light!
My travels though suggested in,
But butterflies? To trap's a sin!
'Swahili' countries (1) borders share
With what was Congo, now Zaire,
With language prone to flit about
No border's safe for the devout,
And love roams free to find its match,
My guess! She would be quite a catch!
Sweet stranger, met in stranger land,
My poetry extends its hand,
All poems, garlands at your feet:
Who dreamed that old and young would meet?
Now simple verse marks simple cause,
A serendipitous life pause!
Brian Johnston
20th of January 2019
Poet's Notes:
(1) I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania
from 1964-1966 and still speak some Swahili
though I have little chance to use it usually.
Deborah, it turns out, knows some too! What
fun life is!
Children’s names are not common any more,
Parents do not want their children to be plebeians.
I cannot pronounce most of them.
They are unique, like their child - gifted names,
Created by enterprising parents who did not want them to be plain in any way.
I get corrected a lot, by the whole class when I mispronounce Zyrahietta and Jostra’blend.
Their peers, who know how to say it now, yell it out in an exasperated way.
Thinking it funny that I do not know them yet. We have been in school three days.
Teachers learn twenty-five names a year.
The support staff is more successful when we learn all three hundred.
We are sunk if we do not, as even the plebeians respond to their name.
FOREVER WINTER
Cookie cutter angel t w i n s in the fluffy dough.
Woolen arms flap, rolling out wings in the snow.
T e n d r i l s of brisk air move about their cheeks.
Ice skate heaven smiles with frozen-r e d peaks.
The crunch of i c e-crusted icing like crème brûlée.
Their kid-size boots disappear into the earth’s cache.*
A serpentine scarf wrapped around shoulders twice.
The chin-reduction t w i n s dance on chilly white ice.
J & J meet in their s t a r r y snowflake schemes,
Eden’s wonderland, in their forever winter dreams.
11/27/2017
Any Couplet Contest - Laura Loo
Dedicated to mom and her twin**
*Though cache is pronounced “kash.” Some mispronounce as “kash ay”
Please except as the latter. It was in the rhyming dictionary.
**Mom’s twin passed away in August
Love is such an evil word
So easy to mispronounce
As it slips from tongue
Its meaning left to be found
While others take in stride
And think they are truely loved
All so mislead
I am not my grammar
My English may be poor
But I am a straight talker, woman of my word
My speech conveys much meaning and wisdom
I do not mispronounce words, I put a St Lucian twist on them
I like to drink, dance and smoke
I love men but I am not a whore
Not your whore
Your woman friend perhaps
But I am no scarlet woman
I am not my grammar or lack thereof
English is a medium of communication
And I have no problems getting my message across
I have no shame coz my grand-parents raised me with dignity
I work hard and pay my way through life
I like to look good and take care of myself
But I am not my hair, my nails, my perfume
My grammar
And I am certainly not a whore
(not your whore)
There is more to me than meets the eye
I am not a whore
SUFFIX - PREFIX PUNS
Mispronounce inter-family relationships *
And we bury the family - its security slips:
Anti -freeze divorced Uncle freeze at last,
After yesterday’s weather fore-cast, (maybe an aft-cast?)
She married an ‘im-migrant , a male arriver from abroad, *
Although he loved an ‘er-igrant, a female arriver, obviously a broad.*
At their wedding feast was abundance
Seen in the pastry two-step - a very merry dance.
She thought it selfish for though his trade was to sell-fish
They ate lobster-rific, huge monster lobster dish:
‘Twas subterranean (from bed of the Mediterranean)
A celibate creature , a sort of anti-climax crustacean.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Note
*Verb “to inter” means “to bury someone”
*Colloquial British English says ‘im and ‘er for him and her
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