My Lisp’s Mistress…

Amanda,

According to pediatricians, when I was much younger, there was a problem with my tongue; the frenulum was “far too short” and just, “had to be cut,” so that later in life I would speak like a normal person…

So then – as a teenager with impacted wisdom teeth about to go in for surgical removal, the doctors decided, “yes, this should be a fine time indeed to get rid of that pesky frenulum.” After surgery… Well… I’m sure you can imagine – 4 teeth pulled and a piece of my tongue removed.

Of the few people that notice that I do have a slight lisp with my voiceless dental sibilants (in particular the letter ‘s’) you not only did not make a joke of it but instead showed me how much you loved it. Every /s/ I spoke seemed to pour out of my mouth and into some aural erogenous zone that would elicit from you some kinetic necessity to reach out and kiss me. You are the mistress to my lisp…

My Lisp’s Mistress
    For Amanda Blair

Her fingers skim the skin
of my jaw she says,
“something in your smile,
some – thing perhaps – slid
from your tongue?”
She focuses, indexing
the sulcus of my
chin and says, “some
unveiled vestige of
Phoenician history –
a sin passed when
unused, unpoured
forth from that soft
palate,” her thumb
tip traces incisivus
superioris fastening
phalanx with philtrum
sealing orbicularis oris
to colonize my alveolar
ridge she sighs, “mine!
My salix lips –
my sibilant hush,
my lips-sentry
of Semitic shin,
polydeuces of Greek
Sigma and San as
unspeakable siblings,”
she presses sedulous,
against my pursed mouth
leaning into my cheek,
collapsing into a respiring
command, and whispers,
“I want to hear you hiss…”

I Retain my Childish Need for Poetic Play…

I can hear and feel my inner-childish-poetry critic scold me now…

“It’s immature,” he boasts…

And this may be true, after all this form of poetry is considered useful now, in many ways only, for mnemonic memory devices and nursery rhymes and adolescent word play.

“You see? One of the first hits on Google is Alliteration Poetry for Kids…”

I can’t help but then imagine this to be one of the more important poetic forms for myself. I’m reminded of the BBC series, “The Human Animal,” which, after all 6 episodes, ends on retaining elements of childhood play into adulthood as the most fundamental and important features that make us as human.

“As soon as our basic needs are satisfied, as soon as we’ve gone beyond survival – we’re off and running. “The Naked Ape,” should really be rechristened, “The Creative Ape.” At our best we remain, all our lives, childlike adults ready, at the slightest excuse, to indulge in mature play… To many people our greatest achievements are to be found in such pursuits as technology, medicine, politics and economics. But to me these are merely the means to one of two ends; either better human survival or better adult play. If ever we give this up and become depressingly earnest, pious adult-adults we’ll have betrayed our great biological heritage as the most exuberant, most mischievously imaginative animal on this planet.” – Desmond Morris

When our basic survival needs are met – we are galloping towards that with excites the child within us. One can almost think of the concept of neotony extending itself past our physical dimensions and lending to our personalities and choices as well.

It is with this that I find myself invested often in utilizing assonance and consonance to their brim when experimenting with alliterative play. When I write these poems I am taken, inevitably, to various linguistic mouth-map tools and International Phonetic Alphabet charts where I can’t stop myself from playing willingly with the various angles of my tongue in cheek and teeth abilities.

At one point I questioned to what extent I could use this… To what extent could I write a poem that would be not only exciting and fun but also useful and able to convey information appropriately instead of just being a childish and immature set of sounds?

When I set down to write this out – I couldn’t have imagined such a story to have been established. Nor for that matter could I have imagined I would have gifted myself the chance to use the word, “pachyderm,” well in any poem.

This is the poetic form I’ve been recently interested in understanding to it’s depths. If the poem itself weren’t as long as it is – I would type more about the history and references I came across when working on it. Needless to expound; its history is varied and useful…

“The Strumpet Sounds in a Sea-Side Shanty.”

 

Among the outlandish and the arrogant

sea side and somnolent

Is found a fair enough glance

(cared for and beauteous -)

behind a blue back alley bistro…

Tossing tricks at top hat tips

and staring so –

sadly and seraph like

our sensuous strumpet –

says “oh” to skies –

 

“Dear, and dreadful, desire

hire a hand to tend to tricks.

For tricks are tics, and ticks.

And ticks – tock, and tick and tock…

Dear fate, fear me, for fallen I have

and time, tended not to –

has tocked away into minute ticks.

And more I find I trust what’s moribund –

I see the end before the middle.”

 

Black palled and heaven mauling the skies

reigned, opened and reeked with histories dust,

“Must lust,” he asked fast, “trust not a

tramp who treats time as tusks?

A pachyderm’s ivory”

cried he,

“is he!

Time is neither lust nor trust

yet, trust himself must he – for time

as any machine fears, falling

failing himself and fending to rust.

Trust time, trust lust if you must, trust shores

and somnolence

A fair enough glance

is found fair enough

far fetched in further days…

 

Dear and Dreadful desire

shall hire no hand to tend to tricks!

For tricks will tick

and tock

and tick

and rich will the flowing

free fellow time be”

“tock away!”

They’ll say

“Tick away too!

Time is of essence

transcendence and grace

face the storm

and forlorn

your fair

beauteous, dreadful, endearing, and bereft…

Glance not at the skies

but the seas instead.

Stare straight at the self

and see the seas say,

my darling –

you are safe,

if you are your truest and entrusted self.”