[Newspoetry] Swanky friends in draconian drags

[Donald L Emerick]

Swanky friends in draconian drags

Yes, I used the word swanky,
in a phrase carved recently,
written out as a swanky claim,
about uses of "vague innuendo,"
as if any innuendo could ever be clear,
could come out in the open fields,
could appear in the full light of the sun,
and just be itself, be said and done.

Shadow words should never emerge from murkiness,
but when they do, they reek of violence wreaking,
like Grendel, or its mom, hearing and speaking,
of pleasures to be had in the company of a hall
where stories are swapped, flagons filled,
and food overheaps its serving trays,
leaps down the holes that swallow meats,
and chew breads, drink wines, and sputter words.

Oh jealous are those who ever only overhear,
never coming any nearer, never overcoming fear,
resting in darkness, hiding, lurking
hating is a deep-down self-loathing working
its way from the shadows, momentarily,
attacking, feeding, detroying, fleeing.

"Swanky," as my Googling Golem slobbers,
there on line five of the web page I use,
has some 421,00 entries to be seen --
far more than the "draconian" terms
I had considerd on my last search,
when some 844,000 terms of association
appeared magically before my eyes --
or at least a possibility of such numerosity,
such countableness being still too ponderous
for any sensible comprehension,
if such were to mean 8 look-ups per minute,
and their associated look-ats,
and their following look-aways froms,
a mere 105,500 minutes of search time to be deployed,
a mere, say, 16,000 hours or 2,000 days,
or 7 years of labor,
presuming that meaning, usages are sterile,
and do not spawn, at any significant rate,
so that, in less than a decade,
I shall have considered the possible meanings,
and found one that fits, quite nicely,
for the word that I used so unknowingly.

My correspondent had raised the question
that Diogenes the Sophist had raised,
when he searched for an honest man,
or maybe just a man, any man, a goyim.

Philosophy soon absolutized honesty into truth,
as if truth could be other than personalized,
apart from human understanding, human beings,
as if there were the observer par excellante,
the uber-man who watches over the universal,
to keep the truth pure, sacred, holy --
a god-like being, this God of All Knowing,
and not only knowing all, but understanding all,
this paramount paradise for an apparent paragon.

We postmoderns do not fear the Grendels,
who come out gnashing and gnarling,
chewing up all men who are not honest,
chewing up, that is, all mortal men,
all mortals who know themselves mortal,
who have self-awareness written on their brows,
in wrinkled-lines that scar their faces.

We do not seek an honest man,
who is never there to be found --
but nonetheless we seek honesty,
and relativize everything,
holding relativity to be truth,
that the more honest man is more to be valued
than the less honest man,
and that seeking after more or less
is all the quest we ever need seek.