Thursday, September 8, 2011

Tik Tok

Salvador Dali's "Soft Watch at Moment of First Explosion"

Clockwise & Counterclockwise
(On Further Reflection)
Most clock hands move in deasil direction.
That’s a fancy way of saying ‘clockwise.’
It has to mean, on further reflection,

(but with a smidgen of circumspection -
and this should really come as no surprise)
when clock hands move in deasil direction

the opposite word, per recollection,
is widdershins. Logic surely defies!
It has to mean, on further reflection

the word-gods have a strange predilection
with coinage of terms so they can advise:
“Most clock hands move in deasil direction…” ???...!

Would it be more fun to mix up flexion?
Say weasel … or  … diddershins? I’d surmise
it has to mean, on further reflection

they’ve simply made a lyric election -
‘though it makes me want to just cross my eyes.
Ergo, clock hands moving in deasil-y direction
move time-wise, quite feasibly, on further reflection.

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Tik Tok

So, deasil’s just another word
for clockwise, which is more preferred.
And how did they come up with this?
But on the other hand, admins
of lexicons say widdershins
which otherwise one might dismiss
since counterclockwise means the same
as widdershins (a better name?)
Yes…hands on clocks tick tock like this.

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Notes:  Poetic Asides' prompt for this week was to write a remix poem using an older poem (yours or someone else's) to orchestrate a new poem.  For this process, I took a poem I wrote several years ago, whose form is the Passerat Villanelle. To write the new poem, I used a suggestion from Poetic Bloomings  Their 'In-Form Poet' entry this week showcased the poetic form Nove Otto, which is the form for the second poem.

Both were all about the wordplay (something I love!) having to do with clock direction. 

So, thanks for taking the time to stop by and Dali a bit with me today.  ♥


1 comment:

  1. I love widdershins and relish every opportunity to use the word. I didn't know deasil, though:-)

    ReplyDelete