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We are now just five days away from the start of the March Madness Poetry 2014 tournament! Today I reveal #5 on my list of Top Ten Favorite Poems of #MMPoetry 2013. It is among the most memorableindelibleunforgettablelastingwellingrainedbellringingstickwithyou poems of the entire event:
*sesquipedalian
Vocabulary Test
By Dave Crawley
ses·qui·pe·da·li·an
1. given to using long words.
2. (of a word) containing many syllables.
Forgive me for waxing sesquipedalian,
using long words, irretrievably alien.
Words with an etymological source
(polysyllabically speaking, of course).
But you, with temerity, dare juxtapose
my sluggardly speech with my ponderous prose!
Your effrontery’s neither polite, nor propitious.
To call you my friend would appear suppositious.
You say I’m recalcitrant? Stubborn? Contrarian?
Antidisestablishmentarian?
Words of disparagement make me lugubrious,
fighting a syndrome that’s hardly salubrious.
Searching a cure for this grim tribulation,
I found a young doctor who promised cessation.
Shaking his head, he said, “This is no frolic.
You are a sesquipedaliaholic!”
He plied me with pills for the span of a week,
then said, “You are cured! I can prove it. Now speak!”
Monosyllabic, I started to talk:
“See Spot run. Puff has fun. See Dick and Jane walk.”
Doc covered his ears as he fell to his knees.
“The cure is much worse,” he cried, “than the disease!”
His expostulation caused me to walk out.
I still am long-winded, but cured of all doubt.
I no longer care if you choose to make sport of it.
That is the long (but never the short) of it.
Nice. Job. Dave. Click. Here. To. See. This. Poem. As. It. Appeared. In. Last. Year’s. Event.
