Word Spice

Conversations can be boring when you use words you’ve heard your whole life. Here’s some you haven’t. Sprinkle them in for flavor.

Git, cur, oaf, pip, lout, knave, fop, arse, twit, putz, strumpet, harlot, wastrel, rascal, scamp, lubber, floozy, greaseball, scoundrel, trollop, ruffian, scrapper, scallawag, rapscallion, ne’er-do-well, gumshoes, frippery, nunnery, jive, dive, jalopy, dukes, mitts, fisticuffs, hooch, grog, baccy, malarkey, loins, lye, quicklime, nose candy, chin music, trench foot, pay dirt, bathtub gin, pissing contest, bone orchard, irish handcuffs, walking papers, florida snow, smut, scag, shag, tarnation, insufferable, gulch, wank, swank, scarce, scurvy, shoddy, nary, goosey, steamed, daft, naff, brazen, bawdy, mangy, wanton, yon, yore, yonder, queer, bosh, bile, bilge, bully, brass, crass, cuss, gander, guffaw, gullet, hoot, holler, bellow, bogart, varmint, mayhaps, perchance, fixin’, barking, bilge, big ‘uns, gout, rickets, the clap, fandango, raising Cain, real quick like, gets my goat, cut a rug, the Orient, the Occident, the cat’s pajamas, don’t cotton to, in a coon’s age, doesn’t hold a candle to, three sheets to the wind, shaking hands with an old friend, cold as a witch’s tit.

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Souls of Mischief – 93 ’til Infinity || 1993/93 ’til Infinity

Nothing but the…

Here’s something fun: telling the truth.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it last night. My aunt visited, I had to be home.”

The visit could have been a different night, but listeners fill in the data you leave out. This leaves room for mischief. You can’t walk away with a clear conscience, but you could pass a lie detector test.

First Kiss

He knew he was dying.

In fact, he knew he probably wouldn’t make it through the night.

It wasn’t how he’d wanted to go. He’d imagined lying in his bed at home, propped up on the pillow his wife had stitched him sixteen summers ago, his daughter’s hand in his. He’d pictured himself telling her the stories he’d never told her, the stories about his friends from the war, about his days in the Chicago barbershops. He’d imagined himself telling himself about the day he’d met her mother.

He’d have told her about their first kiss, how he’d envisioned it being like the ones in the films, and how instead they’d brushed noses moving in and she’d laughed, and how it was soft, and wet, and sweet. He’d wanted to tell her what he’d learned in that moment, that life has a manner of not letting itself turn out the way you’d imagined it. He’d wanted to say that was the beauty of it, that the greatest peace in life came from taking things as they came. And having said that, he’d have squeezed her hand tight, and closed his eyes.

But life has a manner of not letting itself turn out like you’d imagined it, and that night he found himself in a hospital bed, and his daughter was there but couldn’t have held his hand for all the equipment around him. And he couldn’t talk with the respirator in his mouth, and even without it he doubted he’d have had the energy for it. He was tired, and sad.

So he looked at her from his bed, and after a moment she turned to look back. She smiled.

He died in his sleep the following night.

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Chorus Angelicus – Lord of All Hopefulness (cond. Paul Halley) || 1994/Voices of Light

Fifteen Poems from a Sunday Afternoon in February

Puzzle

This isn’t a puzzle
but some things are
I once came upon a puzzle
that fit
no matter where the pieces went
I called it
Life

Jörmungandr

…plans arrived today
in a grey box with Tucson stamps
and when I was done with them
I had built a Time Machine
in
my garage
In my garage, I got into my Time Machine
put on my seatbelt
looked into the rear view mirror
sucked on a cigarette
threw it into
reverse
went back to yesterday
and drove to a coffee house in Tucson, where
I copied down the plans on
how to build a Time Machine
And when I was done
I put them in a grey box
and mailed them to my house in Denver
the…