Scrabble Poetry

I'd not blogged for more than a handful of months in part because of so much going on -- "The vicissitudes of life" as my old friend Victor Lyons used to say.

I was prompted to get back to it recently because of something my daughter Jamie said. Yet when I did, I started (yesterday) with a note about my new novel Knights of the Full Moon.

So I decided to try again, but realized I wanted to take more time than I really have at the moment to write about Jamie. That's when I noticed how I mention Scrabble at the top of this blog, and yet I haven't said anything about it yet.

So, without (much) further ado, here's a Scrabble poem that I wrote some time ago during a fierce war with my friend George. It was the opening volley in a horrible conflict.

How do I spell thee?  Let me count the ways.

I spell thee OBI, OBE, and OBEAH, all are right,

We know even when the book is out of sight,

But FATTEND upon all seeing made me lose face

I spell thee XI and CHI and KI, with definitions not the same,

I spell thee freely, what 'ere it takes to win the game

I spell thee with passion that all can feel,

And thus bluff the phony, so you will think it real,

In thinking of GRIEFS, is it I before E?

Do ADZ and ADZE both correctly use my Z?

With my lost challenge, I'll spell thee again, but not the same,

But now the spot is gone.  Damn!

I shall spell thee better next game.


With lazy apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning. More later!