Covicabulary

A poem to highlight words that have come to the fore in the pandemic – covid vocabulary 

A new vocab is spreading
At an R of ten or more
It’s growing exponentially
With sizeable vigour
That started when the toilet roll
Sold out in every state
As folk were told to stay at home
And to self-isolate

For a pangolin or bat it seemed
From Wuhan overseas
Had introduced a virus
To human communities
And from there, it had gone rampant
Setting off a pandemic
That was as nasty as could be
Making folk really sick

So we now must social-distance;
Wash our hands throughout the days
Less Corona dares to get us
In unprecedented ways
So whilst we shun covidiots
When they are so unwise
We won’t forget when we could only
Shop essential buys

Not forgetting that the Chancellor
Committed billions of pounds
As schools and pubs and shops and clubs
All had to shut right down
And folk were put on furlough
To stay home; watch Netflix
Though some preferred to chat on Zoom
Or workout with Joe Wicks

Still others started working
From their residential pad
With musicians hung out to dry
And others down and sad
And parents had to fathom out
Pythagoras and the like
As they taught their darling kiddiewinks
To stop a second spike!

Not forgetting all the keyworkers
Who brought in deliveries
Emptied the bins and kept on top
Of the necessitates
From the supermarket assistants
To the chemist and the rest
Who put themselves in trouble’s way
To do their very best

Whilst others had to stay inside
By shielding from the rest
With Grandparents and others
Confined in their own nests
Away from friends and family
In a measure so surreal
That lockdown for the vulnerable
Was such a harsh ordeal

But over everything else
There was a new frontline
Of doctors and of nurses
Of carers who defined
The war effort against the bug
In complete PPE
Selflessly saving lives to care
For the likes of you and me

And so together, globally
A pause button‘s been pressed
With mitigations such as masks
To help the NHS
And other healthcare systems
Who despite the quarantine
Have struggled to keep a-pace of
Noxious COVID19

So the nation has tried to flatten out
The curve that previously
They’d not heard of along with words
Like herd immunity
And so in just a few short months
The lexicon has grown
So now these words are commonplace
When they were once unknown

Covid Vocabulary

 

 

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The Demise of the Memo

A Thingy

Isn’t the word thingy a marvelous word
A noun that describes  everything
From a person, an object or even a place
With a ‘je ne sais pas’ sort of ring

For the thingy’s a thing that could be anything
Yet a thing that by all things defined
Is a thingy – you know – a thingy, thing thing
When the name escapes recall and mind!

So let’s hear it for thingies all over the world
The nonsense we utter when words
Evade definition, instead being known
As a thingy – so quaint and absurd!

Legs

A friend just posted about the perils of long legs and insufficient room on buses using the phrase “long prongs”.  That got me thinking about how many ways we have developed for saying the same thing especially as our family do “long legs” big time!  

Long prongs
Ham and eggs
Sexy gams
Mystic megs
Great stems
Scotch pegs
Nice pins
Leggy legs!

Silks of Saliency

The path of a poem
Has breadth and has span
An enabling addiction
With words where you can
Thread each through the pages
As much as through life
Extracting the essence;
Cutting through like a knife
The years, the experiences
The emotions and more
One minute up in the clouds
Sometimes mopping the floor
Or swimming the oceans
Riding the waves
On the back giving meaning
Descriptions to pave
Metaphors into tapestry
Weaving sentiment too
With rich silks that entwine
To observe past the blue
To the colours of being
The tones and the shades
Of deeper existence
That may never fade
As truths are extracted
With pure saliency
And the yarn wends its way
Across all history.

On The Tides of Ink

If I didn’t write, would you miss me at all?
Or am I merely letters on a page?
Words in the ether
Phrases; lyrics; verses
Call them what you may?
Am I simply these or am I meaning?
Music to your ears?
Poetry to the heart?
Tugging at the life strings
That join us together
Uniting us in universal concord
Resonating through the years
In stanzas of contemplation
Musings married in a scripts of thoughts
That wax and wane on the tides of ink

By Power_of_Words_by_Antonio_Litterio.jpg: Antonio Litterio derivative work: InverseHypercube (Power_of_Words_by_Antonio_Litterio.jpg) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

AutoCorrect

You’re driving me crazy
You’re driving me mad
As really you make me
Look terribly bad

As you jiggle my letters
And change all my words
In ways that appear
Completely absurd

By altering statements
When you don’t agree
With the sequence or way
Of my ABC

Or all other characters
Set on a page
As you trample across it
With critique and rage

To do your most damnedest
To point out; detect
My flaws and my faults as
You AUTOCORRECT!

But perhaps for a minute
You’d climb in my head
To see what I’m thinking
More so what I’ve said

For try as you will
To read what I say
If you don’t get the flow, then
You get in my way

For there’s more to a sentence
Than words spelt just so
Called sentiment, meaning
Being in the know

So dear grammar tool with
Your huge dictionary
You too make mistakes
Occasionally!!!!

Words

A Haiku …..

Countless words to say

Our abundant lexicon

To choose from wisely

Words

There is a propensity nowadays
For everyone to say whatever they feel
Whether in e-mail, on facebook or by SMS
They will author their opinions and appeals

And on twitter they’ll tweet nearly everything
From the weather to just what they perceive
Without consideration for their reading recipient
Or a care for how it may be conceived

But meet in the high street or playground
Or work place or local café
And a lot of that digital venting
Will be replaced with cordiality per se

So in our online discussions
In text and written messages beware
And chose your words with compassion
So that they won’t smart, maim or impair

And think what is said before speaking
Consider how the words will be felt
But most of all think from the depth of your heart
How your words are handled and dealt

For careful words are worth every letter
They can be kind and easy to speak
But their echoes will be truly endless
So make them Uplifting – inspiring – unique!

 

Based on Mother Theresa’s famous quote “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”