The Apostrophe Blog
A while back, when I was putting together my abecedarian book-title manuscript, Miss Scarlet in the Library with a Rope, I struggled to find a book I’d read whose title began with the letter X. Then I searched for any book, figuring I could then read it. Nada. So, at the time, I used one of my noms de plume and had her author a book called ‘X’ Marks the Spot. The syllabics poem that I wrote in homage to that book? Also called “’X’ Marks the Spot.”
Well, Gutter Eloquence accepted it for publication in their 2013 online edition. You can read my lamentations about the often frustrating world of writing a poem (not centered on the page as I intended the poem but what the hay) here. And see it as intended, centered, below.
“X” Marks the Spot
The words refuse
to work, vote to
hit the bricks, walk
out, striking from
shackles, reins, their
tumbledown shacks
of floorboards robbed,
no more sense nailed
in a parade
across the page.
The words refuse
to break the fast,
regale a back
with soap, a shout-
out through the spray.
The words refuse
the lure of fresh-
drip coffee sipped
as heat snaps on,
inoculates
your skin from chill.
The words pretend,
refuse to seek
and hide, elide
while nouns defer
as verbs recuse
those pesky, mod-
ifying herds.
No ropes of sense
corral their west
-ward bleeding edge.
So much gone bad
as you forget
to set up shop
inside the word,
behold and stitch
a hyphen through
your head. This is
what happens when
you drain the days,
hacksaw the top
of your self off
and pour not jugs
of –ing and –ed
or re-, dis-, mis-
but
etymologies
in.
The public domain image above is a post card for Noyes Buick Service in Boston, Massachusetts.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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