We saw some great poems yesterday using the word splanchnoptosis. It made me wonder what would happen if you had a real challenge. So here’s your challenge for APF: write a poem in which you use at least one of the following words…or prose (no longer than 2 sentences) in which you use all of them.
Boustrophedonic (of or relating to text written from right to left)
Hornswoggle (cheat or swindle; bamboozle)
Palimpsest (a parchment that has been erased and rewritten)
Sesquipedalian (related to long words; characterized by the use of long words)
Xerostomia (dryness of the mouth)
Good luck, friends. I think you’re going to need it.
Amy
There was a man folks called SesquipedalianHe was the town Episcopalian
His sentences were long
Just like a song
‘cept you can turn off a radio.
The doctor always muttered under his breath
That if xerostomia could cause death
Then Sesquipedalian would die
For his mouth would run dry
Poor ol’ Sesquipedalian.
Jess
Give me time to think and hopefully I’ll deliver on this one…
sally apokedak
The huckster showed a page that was boustrophedonic,then tried to hornswoggle the crowd by selling them tonic,
that would make all the lines go the same way.
But the boustrophedonic text happened to be a palimpsest,
and with a magnifying glass and some pointed inquest,
it was soon discovered to be a fake.
So while the sesquipedalian work, with its uneven meter,
managed to produce severe xerostomia in its reader,
still the charlatan took but a minuscule take.
Drew
anyone lived in a sesquipedalian town(with up so floating many words down)
Nah, this isn’t going to work . . .
Jess
I scratch my head and I try to thinkOf a poem that could possibly rival Sally’s
That uses sesquipedalian words (such as sesquipedalian)
That happen to be, to me, rather alien.
However, I believe I am failing in my quest
As my paper is quickly turning into a palimpsest.
I tried writing in a boustrophedonic manner
But it only made my mix-up of words even sadder
I read my attempts until I had xerostomia (yes, my mouth was dry)
Until finally I decided that Sally has hornswoggled me out of the prize.
Aaron Roughton
If you find that Italian is sesquipedalian and causes a dryness of mouthYour xerostomia will only just be a beginning of things heading south
For next you will squeal as your head starts to reel when you have an attempt at some German
And flee from Iran just as fast as you can or their language will set you to squirmin’
You might find it ironic Hebrew’s boustrophedonic but that doesn’t mean that you can rest
You’ll feel hornswoggled and wish you had goggles after reading a few palimpsests
So a word to the wise give some rest to your eyes and do not cause yourself anymore trouble
And if on Fridays you hate to participate then leave from this blog on the double
Jess
Wow. Mr. Roughton, how long did it take you to write that?
Aaron Roughton
Are you serious or are you mocking my jumbled use of the English language?
Patrick
Boustrophedonically ambulatingWith vascular organ abdicating
Xerostoma immediately commencing
My palimpsest doggerel is threadbare
Aspirations to metamorphose
Into a sesquipedalian decompose
Hitherto, hornswoggled by my foes
Jess
Jumbled or not, it takes serious brainpower to create such immaculate rhyme.
Jess
By the way, ich spreche Deutsch. Particularly using words such as zerstohren, ubergeben, and gebrochene Knochen. However, I might not be good enough to produce some nice German poetry yet. Although I can sing the German version of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”–“Ein Feste Burg ist Unser Gott”–and it is much cooler in its original language… sorry, rabbit trail.
Jonathan Rogers
This is some amazing poetry. I’m thinking about putting together an anthology.
Jess
You’ll have to sell it in a package with The Superior Person’s Book of Words for anyone to be capable of gleaning meaning. 😉
sally apokedak
Sehr gut, Jess. I love your poem and do not think that I have hornswoggled anyone out of any prizes. But I have to agree with you about Mr. Roughton’s. It’s pretty doggone good. Patrick is no slouch today, either.
So who would want to leave this blog on the double? Jonathan Rogers dot com is the place where all the cool kids hang out on Fridays.
Joe
Xerostomia set in as I stared at the page;Palimpsest it was for earning my wage.
Sesquipedalian had taken its toll;
Boustrophedonic, too, had played a small role.
Hornswoggle my readers? “Never!” I said.
But alas! the right words are all stuck in my head.
Jonathan Rogers
Sally’s right. Cool kids everywhere know where to congregate on Fridays. You’re an ambitious lot, using all the words in your poems when the rules were to use at least one. And none of you resorted to free verse!
If I were to write a poem using these words, it would involve an archaeologist. But after a day of traveling, I think I’m going to have to leave the participation to the audience this time.
How many of you used RhymeZone.com (or some other rhyming dictionary website) to write your poem?
Jess
RhymeZone.com? Never even heard of it. I do all my stuff from scratch. Homegrown organic words, seasoned with punctuation picked fresh from my brain. That’s why my poetry is so yummy. Also why my brain is almost completely fried so early in life. 😉 Maybe I will have to resort to RhymeZone.com in my old age.
Ode to RhymeZone.com
Oh, RhymeZone.com,
I’ll use you when I’m a mom
And I have to write a little rhyme
To get my kids to bed on time
Canaan Bound
This stuff is amazingly good. Someday I might be snart enough to contribute…
sally apokedak
lol @ Jess. You are so funny.
I went to an online rhyming dictionary but didn’t find anything particularly helpful.
Obviously.
There is no help for my poem. Yikes.
Canaan Bound
Snart. Oops. Bloody typos.
EmmaJ
Boustrophedonic (of or relating to text written from right to left)Hornswoggle (cheat or swindle; bamboozle)
Palimpsest (a parchment that has been erased and rewritten)
Sesquipedalian (related to long words; characterized by the use of long words)
Xerostomia (dryness of the mouth)
Wow. Fabulous rhyming. Aaron Roughton… high five. Not being gifted in the art of poetry myself, I will attempt a prose submission, since the rules make allowances for us non-poets.
Posing as a peddler of antiquities, he offered some old scraps to a naive looking elderly chap – a classic hornswaggle, calculated to fetch a tidy sum for useless trash. However, he was struck with xerostomia when the customer, upon handing over a few bills for payment, examined it carefully and pronounced the piece a priceless find, a palimpset which ever so faintly bore traces of a boustrophedonic script (likely Semitic), and from the number of sesquipedalians it contained, he judged it to be a scholarly or legal text of some sort.
Patrick
I agree with Jess, rhymes from the brain are the best, an organic fest.
From where did you come? I’d not heard of your dot com. Better call my mom.
I must be honest. I did use a thesaurus… Tyrannosaurus?
luaphacim
And now for a semi-autobiographical something that I hesitate to call a poem because poems require some amount of effort and also skill in, you know, arranging words and stuff. (See if you can spot the bonus sesquipedalian word that wasn’t in the assignment!)
Tabula Rasa (Again)
At the sight of her sweet face, my mind becomes a palimpsest:
Parchment once richly adorned with sesquipedalian boustrophedony,
Now overwritten with simple declarative sentences in mundane Latin script.
I ache to impress her, to hornswoggle her somehow
Into thinking me brilliant and desirable;
Yet, smitten with the dual scourges of hyperhidrosis and xerostomia,
All I can manage is, “Um. Hi.”
Jonathan Rogers
luaphicam, you did a lot more with those five words than I would have thought possible. Nicely done.
sally apokedak
Wow. Those late entries were very nice.