ode to words a-z
a. aboulomania
pathological indecisiveness
kid that's us
on the warpath in the way of trust
(this is an ode to your frontal lobe, to the end of lust)
b. baisemain
kiss on the hand
some things just have to do
the knuckles blue, the sweat of my palm, the enamored wristbone
i 've had them all beneath my lips
(this is an ode to the straight cliff drop of your hips)
c. cacaesthesia
a morbid sensation
i get it when people look me up head to toe. gauche devils
uncouth
i don't know the difference between a clock and a mirror, do you?
(this is an ode to the rearview glass i look at you through)
d. dysteleology
study of purposeless organs, the doctrine of purposelessness
the doctor of a purposeless organ has purpose as only a father
try harder through the stethoscope
doctor works from nine to five with purpose to find the purpose of a purposeless organ
he returns home and eats liver for dinner
(this is an ode to the purposelessness of you getting thinner)
e. ecdemomania
abnormal compulsion for wandering
back to you
foulmouthed sailor in the cultivated soil of your cultivated degree
finding yourself miles from the ocean
wayward wanderer
disciple of the distinguished and
friend of the fiend, wander backwards
i would like to go with you into salt waters
or into sun-bleached washed-out white-washed bed-sheets
to wander into a fresh place with you
ecdemomanic dove
(this is an ode to my ludicrous love)
f. feak
lock of hair
charming the side of your face
i would like to exhaust you as you have exhausted me, not into a sleep
but out of my skin
locked in my skin, as with your hair
(this is an ode to the hollow of your stare)
g. gammicism
inability to pronounce the letters 'g' and 'k'
so
inability to pronounce the name of your affliction
in forbidding irony
for you looking through the kaleidoscope in nameless enchantment
is the futility of marriage to the kid you never could say you were
you can hear about glory and the color gray
but they've got a gelatinous grip on your tongue
my kitten
are you able to get a kick out of this absurdity?
you could be a knight (tell me how you feel such victory over that word!)
but a king residing, alas over none but the clueless
groping for words in the dark before you keel over
(this is an ode to the last lover)
h. halation
blurring in a photograph due to light reflection
upon things you cannot take back
consider heavy reflection
consider the shadows of your reflection
consider the photograph, blurred on purpose
consider the purpose of the photograph
as you would
go on to the fixer
I'll wind the film
it looks as if you are about to have a stroke
(this is an ode to the cigarette you'd like to smoke)
i. iceblink
glare in the sky caused by light reflected off ice
one iceblink into madness
pregnant with an arctic sun, aborted by the righteous heat of winter
accept lowly sabotage as payment, this child will decompose into summer
as your American tongue wreaks havoc up my thigh
(this is an ode to the maple syrup in your sigh)
j. janiform
having two faces
the impossible mythical offspring of
a human, and myself
she lives in starry-eyed deformity
the stars that found their origin in your pelvis
there's you, and you
beside you sits you, on your lap sits you
i walk into the bedroom on you and you
the incestuous affair of you and yourself strips me of jealousy
forces me to leave the city
begging forgiveness in terms of you and you
(this is an ode to you on a gradient, my midnight blue)
k. kef
a state of dreamy, drug induced repose
see; the monkey
out of the cage you ape
the metro is for parabolic romantic phrases-
the subway is for bedroom slurs situated in full sentences
you get high underground
heads knock milky shoulders
body parts collide in horrible intimacy
desperate skin
reveling in a stranger's sweat is a new feeling
a slippery and sad indulgence
you're too high to catch the embarrassment in the cheap wine
of this first date
(this is an ode to the mess in which I wait)
l. labrose
thick lipped
so you trip all thumbs on your words all-lip
maladroit dialect of the ex-sorority girl
she wished for her virginity back
i think that is absolutely boring but
i flick the switch on an electronic candle for her nonetheless
"dear god, let her take it back, oh please god. Let them have a redo so they can fuck with pride on an orthopedic bed of rose petals, oh lord do you remember your first time?"
i will never understand people like this, so i cross my fingers for them
in the labor of the night
I've had no misgivings
(this is an ode to how you really taught me about living)
m. macrography
viewing something with the naked eye
can only be done (for me)
on Sunday mornings (if i wake up alone, please pray for me)
and i am wearing a white t-shirt (that's too big for me)
and i wake up with a song already stuck in my head (that's good for me)
or i wake up because i am in the mood for French toast (it's sweet for me)
also i must take my temperature, and if it is exactly 98.6 then
for a moment i will remove the rose colored glass from my window
to see you standing outside my window
to have mistaken you for my own reflection
what a buzz kill
(this is an ode to how i took you as a pill)
n. narcohypnia
numbness experienced upon wakening
if under the impression
you are meant to waken with senses in tact, what a nonsensical misgiving
here now
remember the meadow of forget-me-nots
the strangeness of saliva
yawn cinematically and exhale your Novocain breath
(this is an ode to how you made me feel like death)
o. oblivescence
forgetting
i would rather not
high and dirty
long last
(this is an ode to the past)
p. paedarchy
government by children
in twos and threes
the dimorphic children
give way to dysmoprhic adolescents
civil war
coffee and cigarettes
give way to the plague
adultism, the didactic epidemic
the diabolical experiment
planetless children make up words in the absence of water
this language you wont understand
(this is an ode to the years before you took my hand)
q. quarender
dark red apple
as my unbearably poisonous friend
you must curtail the flames of your affection
i want placid embers
and to know how many people you have slept with since december seventeenth
thank god I'm hypocritical and your love hypnotic
(or else we both might see each other for what we are)
and do we want that?
(this is an ode to your allergy to cats)
r. rabelaisian
coarsely hilarious
like
your own convinced novelty
or your own vexation at morality
don't think I've forgotten, little wolf
(this is an ode to the asinine heart you engulfed)
s. sarcophilous
fond of flesh
not strangely so
performing surgery in the garden
today is perfect
honeybees are quite attracted
I've studied hard for this surgery because i am so fond of you
your grandfather drinks earl gray at the operating table
he too is so fond of you
your grandmother however, is not so fond of you
which is unfortunate because she has asked to perform the surgery
and despite my fondness of you, in order to make a point of spiting reason
I've said yes
(this is an ode to which I confess)
t. temporicide
killing time
each millisecond I hold what I think
is a funeral for time
i stand at an altar and say to time
in no time at all, i can only kill you as i speak
in due time there will be time, but what futility is this
think
how boring to die in vain
(this is an ode to the ego you feign)
u. urimancy
divination by observing urine
simply a pause to acknowledge that there is a word for this
(this is an ode to words you took amiss)
v. vagility
ability to succeed in the struggle for existence
i believe this is in fact
a made-up word
attempt to define first, what exactly is success
sorry to be crass but forget vagility
(this is an ode to the way you undress)
w. waygone
exhaustion from long travels
by the way-
since you've been gone-
I've lost my way-
my compass is gone
I've written something terrible there
but you reminded me we are not star-crossed lovers and the way you said it
so deliciously vacant
made my heart throb with devotion
(this is an ode to you as an ocean)
x. y. z. (xanthocomic young zelotype)
yellow-haired youthful person, zealous to the point of morbidity
do you see the beautiful absurdity of it?
the absolute infiniteness of what three words could be
my intrinsic vice
my love
this is an ode to the words you gave me.