Ultraconserved

You, hear me! Give this
fire to that old man. Pull the
black worm off the bark
and give it to the mother.
No spitting in the ashes.

Ancient words, according to Linguists identify 15,000-year-old ‘ultraconserved words’, The Washington Post.

That was a woman

The other day I saw a woman in an omnibus
open a satchel and take out a purse,
close the satchel and open the purse,
take out a penny and close the purse,
open the satchel and put in the purse.

Then she gave the penny to the conductor
and took a halfpenny in exchange.

Then she opened the satchel and took out the purse,
closed the satchel and opened the purse,
put in the halfpenny and closed the purse,
opened the satchel and put in the purse,
closed the satchel and locked both ends.

Then she felt to see
if her back hair was all right,
and it was all right,
and she was all right.

From The Windsor Magazine, November 1907.

Broken bones

Baby chicks hatch out of eggs
Smoke goes up a chimney
Chess is a kind of game

Spilt ink makes a splotch
Broken bones can be set in a splint
Rain splashes into puddles

The lamb has a woolly coat
The carving knife is long and sharp
A wren is a small brown bird

Sentences out of my homework book from when I was 6. We had to put words into sentences three at a time.

Prosciutto

When I was young, there was one kind of prosciutto.
It was made in the winter, by hand, and aged for two years.
It was sweet when you smelled it.
A profound perfume.

If it’s too warm, the aging process never begins.
The meat spoils.
If it’s too dry, the meat is ruined.
It needs to be damp but cool.

The summer is too hot.
In the winter—that’s when you make salumi.
Your prosciutto.
Your soppressata.
Your sausages.

An old Italian butcher talking about making prosciutto, via Bill Buford, according to Wikipedia.

Autoverse 2

More than iron, more than lead,
more than gold I need electricity.
I need it more than I need lamb
or pork or lettuce or cucumber.
I need it for my dreams.

The output of RACTER, an early 1980s computer programmed to write prose at random.

Autoverse 1

Bill sings to Sarah.
Sarah sings to Bill.
Perhaps they will do
other dangerous things together.
They may eat lamb
or stroke each other.
They may chant of their difficulties
and their happiness.
They have love
but they also have typewriters.

The output of RACTER, an early 1980s computer programmed to write prose at random.

Autoverse 2

Shizzle

fo shizzle ma nizzle
is a bastardization of

fo’ sheezy mah neezy
which is a bastardization of

for sure mah nigga
which is a bastardization of

I concur with you whole heartedly
my African american brother

Definition 3 for ‘fo shizzle ma nizzle’ in the Urban Dictionary.

Doubles

I miss you. I hark back to the friendship
we used to have, impromptu adventures,
knowing the everyday details of each
other’s lives, nights in watching trashy TV.

I’ve been there at 3am when you’ve clutched
my hand and explained he’s dependable
and he’ll make a great father. I want to
tell you that it’s the 21st century

but you don’t listen to me any more.
I am impeccably polite. I put on
a rictus grin when you spend an hour
discussing your wedding plans. I am

becoming a souvenir of your past life,
to be gradually discarded for
women you can play doubles tennis with.
I’m happy for you. But I wish you’d call.

From What I’m really thinking: the single friend.

The Bravest Man

Most of them were left just where they fell.
We came to the man with big mustache;
he lay down the hills towards the river.
The Indians did not take his buckskin shirt.
The Sioux said, ‘That is a big chief. That is Long Hair.’
I don’t know. I had never seen him. The man
on the white-faced horse was the bravest man.

Two Moon, a Cheyenne chief, recalling the Battle of Little Bighorn in an interview for McClure’s Magazine, September 1898.

Backstage

City of Rome, one lion skin,
Phaeton chariot and Argus’ head;
iron targets, one Mercury’s wings,
One tomb of Dido, one bedstead
canopy, old Mahomet’s head.
One golden fleece, one bear’s skin
Tantalus’ tree and Phaeton’s limbs.

Items picked out of an inventory of ‘all the properties for my Lord Admiral’s men’ – the Elizabethan theatre company – taken by impresario Philip Henslowe, 10 March 1598.