LATER generations might miss its role, obscured by form:
SALON, early social network, proto strewer of high
GRADE untruths. Yet also: a mimetic source to spread
MIRTH, witty contagion countering human gloom.
Category: ohthatwright
Reflexes
LORRY, if suddenly coming at you, soon to
GNASH you into a wall, like angry teeth, one fell
SWOOP—don’t ask “why not a truck?”
EXIST! Evade! No time to muse on dialects.
An Odd Fish
COWER in kitchen till last moment, forced to serve calamity:
TURBO, misspelled fish adrift on chef’s menu. Shaking proffer to
DUCHY’s puffed up Duke, grown splenetic, long time since famous
PARKA worn in expedition, when he worked for the attention sought.
Unjade me
COVER now the weariness of later years.
MORPH to a child. Behold the new with wonder!
TWIRL for no reason: motion, recent option, is delight.
REFER back. Can I replenish, bring forward joy?
Homo Mortifer
GAUNT cannoneers move to deadly choreography,
EXERT their all in deadly trance, keep throwing
GRAPE at enemy ships. Of all engaged, they lose a
THIRD—born to a race that sheds blood on land, in sky, at sea.
Pie: Culinary Constant
ALLAY that downcast mood with apple pie.
CRUST is flaky, Granny Smith so tart in center.
QUITE true that much is grim, but pie’s got splendor!
CLICK and doom scroll, why? Let’s have some pie.
Chief Virtue
ODDLY, some name the rarely called on
VALOR for ultimate virtue; not, in valor’s
STEAD, descending Spirit’s
FRUIT, patience, say, of need each day.
Revenge
NURSE revenge into flame, Edmond Dantès, hero of conflicted
GENRE, vigilante tale relenting on its final stretch.
EAGER reader, wanting justice, is swept along in wrath.
NEWER heart gives up its arson at the end—only after anger has blazed lives to cinders.
New Medium
PHASE: Impressionism’s hard-fought vogue, now alight.
FIRST signs photography is gaining force.
“PHOTO”—transcribing light, absent painter’s brush—can it end or fixate
STYLE? Does Daguerre war with artist’s freedom, or will new styles yet shine?
Note: imagining the impressionists, (named for the painting below, exhibited 1874) some years later, their movement having overcome harsh reception by the art establishment. But photography,(Daguerreotype from 1838) was already gathering steam. What would this mean for visual arts?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulevard_du_Temple_(photograph)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression,_Sunrise
Cold Society
AGONY of society should be tempered by kind association, she muses.
FROCK, new, beautiful, sewn for weeks, distraction from the
SCARE of a ball: all those people, and who is a friend? All will
GRILL on her family’s decline. Or worse, coolly snub her.