I'm fairly certain,
if I shift my weight just a little to the left

my poem will slide off the table
onto the floor
into the cracks
or a pull in the carpet will catch it
and draw it down into the underlay

why do I always say Underlay Underlay!!!
like some smack head with a plan
every time I hear the word mentioned

It isn’t Mexican
it doesn’t even sound remotely Mexican
to me

And only speedy Gonzales said Onderlay or whatever
the hell it was in a cartoon
I’ve never heard anyone else even hint at saying it.

I moved
I knew it
the poem has shifted with the redistribution
and moved beyond the ken of my fingers
you like ken?
Scottish
I have assimilated so many different accents into my mundane
version of English that it never surprises me when I come out
with something completely ridiculous in place of the correct word.


I have played with words for so long
I have become complacent
thinking in my own self absorbed way
that they will always come when I beckon them

And still, every now and then,
I'll slip them into conversations
not the standard 500 most of us use
but the next 500
the 500 people just don’t use
And then I wait for the result
watch to see if the person or people I’m speaking to react in any way

I told a man once,
make it your task to use the word "blithely"
at least twice in the following week

He couldn’t do it,
I blithely explained to him that this is what is wrong with humanity as a whole

no incentive to stretch themselves


The poem has moved off down the hallway now
I can see it peeping round the paint chipped skirting board

I offer it sweet treats of eight letter words
internal rhymes
metaphors to die for

but alas

not
today