Who Needs QU?
It’s time to retire Q-U.
K-W’s logical choice.
What’s Q do that K cannot do?
And U’s vowel that has its own voice.
Inkwire why bother with this,
A kwest to our language refine?
It skweeze’s down alphabet’s list
And generates kwaint little rhyme.
Purple Reign*
See “Tyrian Purple”
From ancient Phoenicia where sailing was born
Came dye made from Murex by royalty worn.
Through Mediterranean widely was shipped
From Tyre on vessels Phoenicians equipped.
In fact “Land of Purple” Phoenicia means,
Such wealth from secretion of sea snail marine.
Till Constantinople was sacked by Crusade,
This “Tyrian purple” their kings all displayed.
It magically brightened with wear in the sun,
Was cherished from Carthage to Byzantium.
And though modern chemical formula’s known,
Unable today to commercially clone.
* With apologies to Prince.
Greece Fleece
(102618, written at Delphi)
The Delphic Oracle spoke,
“You soon will be going broke
If one more Euro you spend
On souvenirs by the end.
“But let that not stop you now
Of proving to us just how
Enthralled by Greece you have been.
Right here your charge card slide in!”
Raymond Gallucci is a retired Professional Engineer who has been writing poetry since 1990.
The English alphabet & language are strange indeed. It’s full of fossil letters and other inconsistencies. What, for instance, does the letter “C” do that can’t be done by “K” or “S” (except to form consonant clusters such as “ch” (as in “church”) or to create an “sh” sound from “ci” (as in “facial”)?
Ah! No! Leave me my Q!
Leave me my C, my combinant U;
A kwest cannot be a K-W thing
Only Q-U quests can find the right ring.
P.T.,
Your rekwest is rather kweer,
As you shall kwickly learn:
After your kwota of beer,
For good ale you will kwietly yearn.