[Newspoetry] Curmudgeon against Churl

[emerick at chorus.net]

Peering into the bowels of sanctity,
I see Webster says I'm most archaic
to still be using "curmudgeon" today,
and offers me other terms for telling
my thinking apart from my meaning.

It teaches allowed diction directions,
for it's a dictionary, by name or use,
though I'm commonly not annoyed
to speak my words in proper sounds,
but bleed them, instead, in red inks.

I write against white spaces, empty,
devoid, unpunctuated populations,
vacuous voids I may invade, infest,
inhabit if people could live in there,
feeding on cold-cut bodies of words.

My archaic word is one I learned,
from everyday usages as a child,
but the alternative I saw formally,
at church or in some ancient text,
and ne'er at all heard on the street.

"Churl" has never escaped my lips,
not when I was cranking the bellows,
blowing wind through the pipes,
blowing dust from the gutters,
cleaning my mind, clearing my throat.

Webster applauds "churl" usages,
but hisses and boos what I use?
Here, class warfare turns up and on:
 "churl"-"curmudgeon" is of meanness,
nonresponsive hearts for other's woes.

Yet, "curmudgeon" marks selfish --
miserliness, stingy, avarice, greed,
and hints at ever corrupting wealth;
but, "churl" is lowly peasant stock --
an ignorant sort of fool, near to pity,
looked down upon, rejected, despised.

When I say "curmudgeons" today,
I want you to feel the revolution,
in denial, resisting, as opposition.
I time words against money monsters
in their hurried-up whip-cracking slays
of common miens, simple folk songs.

Let us be left behind in free time,
not dragged into futures in fetters.

Thanks for listening,
Donald L Emerick