Just realized a possible explanation for my obsession/ goose-bumps over vowels. One that also tidily explains why ‘normals’ often don’t share it, to put it mildly.
It’s the colors, silly! A poem like ‘L’ below, with nicely silver-reflective ‘L’s playing with red, green, black, white, and coffee-colored vowels just shines off the page. This is the ‘up’ side of my profound synesthesia I guess. (The down-side is the loneliness of the long-distance runner-at-the-mouth.
But I’m hoping that any reader, even in black & white, can find something interesting in the following vignettes. A brief explanation follows each one; the more far-fetched the scene, the longer need be the explanation.
‘L’
Time to lay low Lou/
Ya shouldn’t have let let Lee lie to you.
Lou’s in trouble. And in hiding.
Gave a nice kilo to Lee, whom he hardly knew, who:
a) never paid, claiming it was stolen from him
b) meanwhile sold it stupidly to a snitch
c) walked, after turning state’s evidence…
d) …against poor Lou, who is now hiding out in my woods
(Yes, all that with only 5 vowels)
‘B’
All is quiet, here by the Bay
Except for a lone bee today
Oh, and Bo there, asleep on the dock
I crept up behind him and yelled ‘Boo!’
Oy, Bo like, went bye-bye!
‘S’
“Say ‘see’, Sue:”
“thee”
*sigh* Ok, so your ‘s’ need a bit more work
Hey, speech therapists aren’t miracle workers
‘D’
A,E,I,O,and U
‘Day’, ‘D’, Dye, Dough, and Due?
Just fill out the order form, I’ll get back to you.
This fellow knits personalized hand-warmers. All he needs to know is the date, the ‘D’ (for the choice of ‘designs’ on the back of the form), the color (dye), the amount to be paid, and when they absolutely have to be done by.
There’s always a rush in the Northern hemisphere’s fall, but luckily another one in spring for customers in the southern hemisphere who, you know, live upside down.
‘F’
Faye paid her ‘fee’ to the grateful Untied Snakes
‘Semper Fi’ and all that…
The foe may change monthly, but they depend on a courageous few.
Now the marines are looking for a few good women. Ain’t we all.
‘G’
Is it gay of me to order ghee?
A guy like me just has to see
What is this goo, and is it ‘me’?
Does it go with hot-dogs & beer? (or only tea!)
Gotta keep your macho wits about you these days;
‘fore you know it you’ll be drinking homo-milk and cruzoints, or whatever the frogs call ’em.
‘H’
“Hey, he looks a little high.”
“Who?”
“The guy with the hoe. Look out!”
Reefer madness strikes the garden trades.
‘M’
May I remind you, Amos,
That me and my bull here, ‘Moe’ are famous
For making even frigid cows moo?
Yeah, one of us holds the cow, the other does the heavy lifting of spirits
‘N’
“Nay-sayers, bend a knee!”
The End is nigh, take it from me
Now don’t say you never knew.
Tough being a prophet. After taxes and apparel, there’s no money in it.
‘P’
Yeah the ‘Pay-to-Pee’ toilet’s just wrong
But at least they sell pie for a song
They got used books for sale by the pound
Poe and Winny the Pooh; look around
But first, in the little green house:)
‘Here I sit, broken-hearted/
Paid a nickel, and it only started’
(the Book Fair, I mean)
‘W’
Once there was a way
we could get back homeward
Why ain’t there a way now?/
Guess there’s ‘too much woe’
Sleep, pretty darlings, do not cry
and WU will sing a lullaby
————————————————————–
WU: finally!, I been waiting off-stage for hours while you jerk off letters.
Me: Wuzie, it’s called in the trade ‘Poetry’
WU: Solberg, you ain’t no poet
Me: Yeah, don’t I know-it.
jxsolberg 
They got used books for sale by the pound: were they poetry books by Ezra Pound, also known as The Pound?
Aha ,I tried to work that into the poem, but it didn’t rhyme, plus I didn’t want him stinking up my site.
I composed this nicely in Wordpad, with font-sizes and colors. Copy and Paste to WP killed all the formatting. They wonder why I hate this place.
Seems like N is missing a “no”.
Good stuff, Solberg. The second time today I’ve been reminded of Walt Kelly. (The first was Jeff Markowitz who asked if my book needed a chorus, and I suggested:
“Oh, roar a roar for Nora,
Nora Alice in the night,
For she has seen Aurora
Borealis burning bright.
A furore for our Nora!
And applaud Aurora seen!
Where, throughout the Summer, has
Our Borealis been? “
That’s great you have such a depth of familiarity with Kelly. reminds me of my Grandapa quoting Shakespeare. That’s a great poem. And yes, there is no ‘no’. One in the ‘explanation’ though. A shame this didn’t appear as formatted in Word-pad. I saved it as Rich Text an’ everthang..
Oh, and I nixed the lone parenthesis comment, assuming a WP bug or some such.
I was closing my previous parenthetical statement. No editing of comments available here.
“Nay-sayers, bend a knee!”
The End is nigh, take it from me
Now don’t say, “No, I never knew.”
Perhaps in the Spring I will become a high hoer. At least until then I will continue to greatly enjoy the way you shape our malleable language as a true wordsmith. Our common language, that is. My Hebrew was never very good and what little I knew is now long gone, though I seem to remember a little ditty that went something like “‘Salome laid him on moldy hay’, Al yawned” from my childhood.
Oy, now I’ll be trying all night to think of that mystery phrase, sounds-like Salome…It does sound hebraic.
It’s the song/prayer Shalom Aleichem, heavily bastardized. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for any insomnia.
I’ve had way too much whiskey and wine to make good conversation about vowels. But I like that you like them. And also…the colors!!!! Oh, yeah, of course! I didn’t realize it was the colors you liked so much. Myself, I like the texture.
Ok, I’ll be watching your posts now for signs of textural obsession. Perhaps the ‘unbearable lightness’ of the ‘B’ in debt. Or ‘S’s Complaint: Trapped on an ISLAND with nothing to do.