THE

LOVESTRUCK

LEXICOGRAPHER

by Gordon Knight

A is for Ache

An ache is a pain of a lingering kind

That torments the body and sometimes the mind.

It's the sting in your rump from a punitive battering,

Or the buzz in your ear from incessant chattering;

It's a pain in the thorax when arteries harden,

Or a spinal discomfort from weeding the garden.

It can mean the memory of an insult that rankles,

Or a touch of arthritis that tortures the ankles.

It's an insistent throb that can drive to distraction

When a tooth is decayed and requiring extraction.

It's also a term – though used rather sparsely -

Derived from Old French and referring to parsley.

The Greeks of antiquity used it for 'guilt'

When the wrong wife was bedded or blameless blood spilt.

It's the pain of remembrance when locked in the throes

Of unspeakable sadness or unbearable woes:

Prescribed analgesia is not automatic,

Especially when symptoms are psychosomatic.

But the exquisite pang that I gladly embrace

Is the cardiac torment from seeing your face.

B is for Bruise

A bruise is a blemish on windfallen fruit,

Or the mark on one's toes from an ill-fitting boot.

An impact can cause one and so on occasion

Can internal bleeding or constant abrasion.

Passionate coupling may raise such a macula

And a lovebite can leave one – especially from Dracula -

Though victims pretend that it's quite an enigma

How they became branded with such tell-tale stigma.

It's used for a fighter who's never the loser,

Whose muscular build is described as 'a bruiser'.

Some say it's Old French for 'to smash' or 'to batter',

While some claim it's Old English (but that doesn't matter).

A collection of bruises arises from brawling,

But equally stems from emotional mauling;

The soul can be battered until black and blue,

Like the inner contusions I suffer from you.

A blow to one's ego or wound to one's pride

Is naught to the bruise if one's love is denied;

A stab to the vitals is less of a trauma

Than your lack of passion while mine just grows warmer.

C is for Cipher

A cipher's a code in which something's concealed,

But also a mark with which letters are sealed.

In battle, a symbol to distinguish a knight;

In poetry, meaning that's hidden from sight.

It's a word that's familiar in much iconology

And rife among those who believe in astrology.

One might use a cipher without hesitation

To pass on a secret in cryptic notation.

An artist might use one to sign off his labours,

Or a miser determined to baffle his neighbours.

It can mean a person with whom one's soon bored,

Or a musical term for a note of discord.

Some say it's Old French and the word for ' a letter' -

A claim that's rejected by those who know better,

For maths is the science of which it's the germ:

It's said that the Arabs invented the term.

While the looks that you give me are sometimes seraphic,

The physical signals are quite cryptographic;

I struggle to tell if I'm some kind of hero

Or close in your feelings to absolute zero.

D is for Desert

A desert's a place with an absence of water,

While 'just deserts' means that one got what one oughter -

Which signifies either a well-earned reward,

Or being cast into prison or put to the sword.

It's used for a warrior who flees from the battle,

Or a timorous sheepdog that's scared of the cattle.

It's descriptive of bootwear that's made out of suede

And a tropical island where landfall is made.

Some use it for 'afters' when engaged in eating -

Though spelt with two s's (so really that's cheating).

One's memory deserts one (and one's friends do the same

Once one struggles to still put a face to a name).

Some deserts are more of a spiritual kind:

An uncharted wilderness shaped in the mind,

When, rather than form an emotional tie,

One party is ready to turn tail and fly.

I'd be firmly aground up the creek without paddle

If you should be tempted to ever skedaddle,

Like a soldier condemned to a ceaseless patrol

In a waterless desert surrounding his soul.

E is for Echo

An echo's descriptive of the kind of opinion

That's uttered routinely by a dutiful minion;

If you echo a sentiment, you're striking a chord -

Though excessive concurrence makes everyone bored.

A bat, for which eating in flight's a vocation,

Would go rather hungry without echo location.

It's the image that comes from a radar reflection

And a term for the pipes in a church organ section,

While the echo in churches is quite an epiphany

To those unaccustomed to choral antiphony.

It comes from the Greek word that simply means 'sound' -

Which is odd since it's really a sound that resounds.

In marine navigation a ship's echo sounder

Is an aid without which it would probably founder.

It's a ploy in some card games - and notably whist -

While in Greek myth a nymph who could never be kissed;

And that's in a way what my constant reproach is:

That you never echo my earnest approaches.

Because they're so frequent, it doesn't then follow

That all the endearments I offer are hollow.

F is for Frustrate

A plan is frustrated when it ends in defeat,

Or the rug is pulled out from beneath someone's feet;

In chess it can happen when one side's checkmated,

Or in a bad gamble when all odds are weighted.

It's the feeling one gets when one's objects are baffled,

Like arriving too late when the best food's been snaffled;

Or a lawyer discovering a contract's annulled,

Or a gamekeeper finding his prize herd's been culled.

The Crusaders were thus though their charge was a holy one

And finally at Waterloo so was Napoleon.

Sports teams can feel it in the wake of a choking

And Catherine the Great did when she wanted poking.

Frustration can grow when one's plea's ineffectual

And I have to confess mine is quite simply sexual.

It derives from the Latin word meaning 'in vain',

Like the offers I make you again and again.

I could almost believe that your leanings were Sapphic,

When your constant rejections are always so graphic.

You say that the reasons are just psychological -

I wonder they might be more gynaecological ...

G is for Geek

A geek is a rather unfortunate word

For a person that people deride as a nerd,

Whose only offence is a serious obsession,

While most of us - forced to a genuine confession -

Admit to a tendency sometimes to bore

When social relations become quite a chore.

It comes from Old German 'to mock' or 'to cheat',

Or a gesture of scorn to a person you meet.

In the circus at one time the word for a freak

Who was used as the object of humour was 'geek'.

Now, an expert in fields as remote as mycology,

Or virtually anyone keen on technology,

Is likely to suffer from this appellation;

Though to me it's a symbol of true approbation,

For I'd sooner be known for my love of my work

Than be tarred with the brush of a creep or a jerk.

You may think me a simpleton; maybe that's true,

But all my affections I'll upload to you.

So let's try to be kind and not constantly fight,

For we both know your bark is much worse than my byte.

H is for Haughty

A person who's haughty is often of rank,

Or holding vast assets in the vault of a bank.

For some, it's their talent that makes them conceited,

Or a record in sport which is never defeated;

As a boxer excelling in skills pugilistic

Adopts a demeanour distinctly hubristic.

Some see their schooling as grounds to be haughty,

Or their sexual attractions (though that's a bit naughty).

For some it's a title that leads them to scorn

The throng of compatriots more humbly born.

It derives from Old French and simply means 'height',

But now signifies those who take lofty delight

In disdaining their fellows because of their station

And viewing themselves as the cream of the nation.

Though for lots it's their money that renders them snooty,

Some others are haughty because of their beauty.

While your face is quite rosy (as indeed are your lips),

I don't see it launching a thousand-odd ships.

So I tell myself each time I'm wretchedly humbled:

It's always the tallest of trees that gets tumbled.

I is for Idol

An idol's an image to kindle devotion,

Or a person who's worshipped with unfeigned emotion;

In primitive cultures, a statue as focus

For strange incantations and such hocus-pocus;

In earlier periods a thing quite ethereal -

A phantom or ghost or something funereal.

In some parts today it's required of the laity

To humble themselves at the feet of a deity

That seems to us naught but a colourful effigy

To rouse the devout from habitual lethargy.

We all need a totem intended to generate

A concept to worship or vision to venerate -

Albeit the one that's my own personal fetish

Is prone to behaviour that's rather coquettish.

But though your affections are still somewhat fluid,

If you'll be my oak, well then I'll be your druid.

You may spurn my attentions and scorn me and spit at me,

But it won't change the fact that you're still the epitome

Of just what I look for in all matters bridal:

My deeply revered - if recalcitrant - idol

J is for Jester

A jester's a fool with a licence to jeer

At the follies of people he happens to hear

And to play the occasional practical joke,

To the accompaniment of a theatrical poke

From a stick with bells on it – and hence the expression

For a thing you can't credit (but that's a digression).

The monarchs of olden days found them quite comical

And the stipend they paid them was quite astronomical

For the cascade of levity passing their lips

And the subtle impertinence spicing their quips.

The word comes from Latin for 'action' or 'deed',

Though jesters these days have a different creed.

Most jesting is verbal and usually ironic:

In prose it's called satire, in verse it's Byronic.

It encompasses ridicule, farce and buffoonery,

Mimicry, banter or even lampoonery.

Some fools donned the motley so the joke was more ocular,

But I deploy rhyming to make myself jocular:

I'm happy with playing the nincompoop's part,

If it gives me the chance to inveigle your heart.

K is for Karma

In Sanskrit one's karma is what rules the state

Of one's future existence - in essence, one's fate.

It helps to encourage us all to reflect

On the unending cycle of cause and effect,

In which our good actions will nurture the soul

While our bad ones exact an appropriate toll.

Your karma's the thing that will likely determine

If your future is dressing in rags or in ermine;

If your table is groaning with rump steak and claret,

Or you're slaking your hunger with corned beef and carrot.

Your life may be filled with contentment or drama,

For the seeds that you sow will be reaped in your karma.

It's sometimes depicted as a knot without end -

As a symbol of fate to which all actions tend.

A Buddhist believes that it's intrinsic worth

That orders the cycle of constant rebirth:

What governs the character of our tomorrow

Is whether our actions cause joy or bring sorrow.

So when you're inclined to be heartless or biting,

Remember - the finger is constantly writing.

L is for Laughter

Laughter's the optimum kind of assistance

To cope with the stresses of human existence;

One can laugh off a crisis and so I believe

When appropriately suited can laugh up one's sleeve.

One can shake, hoot or howl with it, cackle and snort -

Though maybe less freely if one's laughed out of court.

One can almost die laughing – though then it’s quite past one,

Or laugh one's head right off and thus have the last one.

It can come from your belly or tickle your ribs,

Be sufficiently loud to scare babes in their cribs.

You can have a peal or a gale or a roar of it;

It can be infectious, since few people bore of it.

You can titter or giggle or chortle or shriek with it,

Or even poke fun at an amorous geek with it ...

Laughter lines show when one's no longer girlish:

I won't say you have them (for that would be churlish).

I know you may think that my efforts are risible

In trying to make you a bit more enticeable:

The reason I take the comedian's part

Is to chuckle my way to a place in your heart.

M is for Magic

Warlocks and witches have long deployed magic

With results both benign and occasionally tragic.

The term covers language and symbols and ritual

Long used by sorcerers and other habitual

Users of witchery – both black and white-

As tools of protection or vengeance or spite.

It can conjure up spirits and other phenomena,

Though charms for good luck or for healing are commoner.

There's magic that kindles new hair from a follicle,

Or makes someone frigid – but that's diabolical.

In front of a lantern it means early movie,

While preceding a mushroom it's a means to feel groovy;

With carpet, the key to globe-trotting with ease;

Next to bullet, a potion to target disease.

I don't know if I'm guilty of some kind of felony,

That you should invoke such a powerful spell on me;

Or whether you're using some dark necromancy

To kindle my ardour and tickle my fancy.

So cast your enchantments but show me some mercy:

I'll be your Odysseus if you'll be my Circe.

N is for Naked

A word from Old English for denuded or bare,

It refers to a landscape that's treeless or spare;

Or a pauper, or in an alternative sense

A man without weapons to make a defence.

A sword can be naked when out of its sheath,

Or a person disrobing with nothing beneath.

A fact can be naked if obvious or plain,

Or a horse without saddle or harness and rein.

A ship can be stranded upon naked shores,

Or an argument unmasked in all of its flaws.

A leader whose country is led to perdition

Is usually the victim of naked ambition.

As plants, naked ladies are terms in taxonomy

And naked singularities appear in astronomy.

A light can be naked and so can an eye;

The truth can be naked, yet so can a lie.

But the truth that I tell you is bare and unvarnished:

I much prefer dishes completely ungarnished.

My dearest ambition - I cannot refute -

Is to see you reclining in your birthday suit.

O is for Occult

To some it's the occult whence all knowledge springs:

It relates to the innermost nature of things.

Scholars and mystics have tried throughout history

To see through the veil that envelopes life's mystery,

Though in earlier times it was almost depravity

To dissect the secrets of motion and gravity.

The word comes from Latin for 'cut off from sight'

And means something hidden or else recondite;

The resort of a psychic, diviner or seer,

Or a medical ailment where no symptoms are clear;

In science, a breakthrough that's lying concealed

And demands an experiment before it's revealed.

While it's common to dabble in things paranormal,

For Kabbalists and Wiccans it's something quite formal.

We all have some secrets unconsciously hidden,

Just waiting the moment to surface unbidden:

Your feelings towards me you keep under wraps

And only allow the occasional lapse.

I'm lost as to what form of magic or alchemy

Will make you consider being more than a pal to me.

P is for Patient

A person who's patient is one who is able

To weather a crisis and still remain stable,

Who sees others' faults and still remains lenient,

Or puts up with delay even when inconvenient.

It stems from the Latin word meaning 'to suffer'

And indicates people who have a good buffer

Against the vexations of human existence,

Or those who pursue a tough task with persistence.

It could even (for those of an archaic leaning)

Mean a word that could bear a particular meaning.

If one's hasty, one's counselled to please be possessed of it;

In biblical times Job was wholly obsessed with it.

A plant can be patient which tolerates cold

And we all can become one when infirm or old.

Confusingly, patients can be both out and in

And it's held as a virtue (though it can be a sin).

Although my forbearance has been quite heroical,

I'm losing my patience in being so stoical;

I think it might even go right out of fashion

Unless you can show me more love and compassion.

Q is for Quarrel

A quarrel implies an objection is brought,

Or it's also an argument taken to court.

It can come from an insult without real intention,

Or financial dispute that's a bone of contention.

It can mean to reprove or to call into question

A thoughtless remark or indecent suggestion.

A blow that's delivered with a fair bit of welly

Can grow from a quarrel to a true casus belli.

If a quarrel is physical, it's a tussle or brawl,

But sometimes it doesn't mean conflict at all:

The one in a crossbow can cut to the bone,

While a mason will use one for chiselling stone.

It's a term that is often familiar with glaziers

For diamond-shaped panes in old window embrasures.

Most quarrels are pointless, especially when life

Is too short to be squandered in discord and strife;

The number of times that we've squabbled like cat 'n dog

Is sadly too many for us even to catalogue.

It's like a disease and we don't want to catch it,

So let's call a cease-fire and bury the hatchet.

R is for Relent

A person is generally said to relent

When moved to reveal a compassionate bent,

Or else to relinquish a strongly held view.

It also means colour that loses its hue;

Of an object, it means to become moist or soften

And a tempest relents when it slackens, or often

It's used when an illness becomes less severe,

Or an ear-splitting noise grows less hard on the ear.

A priest can relent when confessing a sinner

And a dog can relent when expecting his dinner.

In a transitive sense - though it's hardly prosaic -

One can relent something (but it's rather archaic).

It comes from the Latin for 'slacken' or 'bend',

Like a rigid resolve one gives up in the end.

It's used for a solid that melts upon heating,

Or an unbending judge who responds to entreating.

A river can do it once floods have abated -

As your stubbornness might if it weren't armour-plated.

Though I've battered your shell it's left scarcely a dent,

So I'm stuck for new tactics to make you relent.

S is for Signal

A signal's a badge or a symbol or sign,

Or a train driver's warning of leaves on the line.

In warfare, an order to advance or retreat;

In a theatre, instruction to return to one's seat.

It can mean a gesture, a nod or a wink;

If one's radio lacks one, it's gone on the blink.

A railwayman gives one by flag or by whistle;

A Scotsman emits one if he sits on a thistle.

A yachtsman might send one by firing a flare

If damaged and sinking and gripped by despair.

A motorist gives one if stopping or turning;

A smoke alarm does at the first sign of burning .

A signal can either be visual or audible,

Or used to describe something striking or laudable.

When linked with a colour, it's red like a cherry

Or Santa's nose after a surfeit of sherry.

The signal which everyone these days connects

With success at Trafalgar is 'England expects';

And as I've done my duty – you'll give me that due -

Don't you think it's past time for a signal from you?

T is for Tease

To tease is to banter or wind up in jest,

Or to act rather primly while partly undressed.

When placed after strip it's a languid disrobing,

While in medical terms it means tentative probing.

It can mean to pick apart wool with a teasel,

Or to pester an animal such as a weasel,

To badger or hound a wild boar or a stoat,

Or - still with the wildlife – get on someone's goat.

To tease out a meaning implies to extract

An ill-expressed notion or recondite fact.

In a salon it's done by a skilful coiffeuse;

In a parlour sometimes by a playful masseuse.

It's teasing when flaunting one's sexual attractions

To sharply rebuke any natural reactions.

When it comes to arousal I don't need to fantasise:

You're only too ready to tempt and to tantalise.

I'd have to be changed to a monk or a nancy

For you to lose power to tickle my fancy -

Your charms are conducive to make a man shiver,

But you promise coition then fail to deliver.

U is for Upset

In former times meaning convulsed or embattled,

Today one's upset when one's shaken or rattled.

It equally once meant set up or erected,

But now it denotes overturned or rejected.

It can be a term for a civil commotion

And also describes an excess of emotion.

It alludes to the state when one's anxious or restive,

Or has a disorder that's largely digestive.

A plan is upset if it's hacked and dissected;

In sport, it's an outcome that's quite unexpected.

A vessel that's upset is left topsy-turvy

And all of its passengers quivering and nervy.

The stakes are upset in a basket when weaving,

As hoteliers are when their guests are all leaving.

It's the bit for controlling a horse in fine fettle,

Or a blacksmith's technique for compressing hot metal.

I hardly dare credit the signals you're sending:

That your iron resistance may shortly be ending;

Like that princess of old who, befriending a frog,

Turned him into a prince with a passionate snog.

V is for Vision

Vision means eyesight in its most basic sense,

But it's also a metaphor sometimes and hence

Though it may refer simply to visual acuity,

In matters of state it denotes perspicuity.

It can mean a dream or a warning of trouble

And vision can even be single or double.

As a spectre, it can be unsettling and scary,

Or even enchanting if it's only a fairy.

When it means revelation, it's surely a sign

Of a source supernatural or even divine .

For Joan of Arc, hers were a source of euphoria,

Though her critics dismissed them as phantasmagoria.

It's rumoured that Dickens and Gandhi both had them

And even Rasputin (though the Synod forbad them).

In Patmos St John had his of the apocalypse,

While mine of last night I can hardly let cross my lips:

No words I might muster can help eulogize

Your decision to grant me a treat for sore eyes.

The visions of others I consider deluded,

Compared with the sight of your charms all denuded.

W is for Wave

A wave is a wiggle that travels through space;

A stampede of protons that pass without trace.

It’s a motion of ocean that dampens the socks

Of imprudent walkers exploring the rocks;

An expression of boredom by sporting spectators

And a signal of hunger to indolent waiters;

A societal trend that mirrors its time,

Or a voluble gesture adopted in mime.

It’s a shake of the hair to distribute the lacquer

And a military movement to foil an attacker.

It’s a physical theory of quantum mechanics,

Or a tectonic movement that causes mass panics.

A wave is the ritual that shows recognition,

Or the spasms of pain that precede parturition.

It rustles through barley when breezes are strong

And salaciously ripples the lap dancer’s thong.

But the wave that’s a memorable source of delight

Is the digital wiggle you gave me last night,

Which signified more than mere words could have said:

That a berth for my slippers waits under your bed.

X is for X-ray

At a wavelength between ultraviolet and gamma

Is where X-rays are found and (excuse the poor grammar)

The medical profession quite clearly depends on 'em,

Considering the whopping amounts that it spends on 'em.

If one's throat's causing problems, an X-ray can see through it

And thereupon watch while you're drinking your tea through it;

Can examine your back or your thoracic cavity,

(While astronomers use it for studying gravity).

If one's dog eats one's wristwatch, a radiograph

Will show what the time us (but one shouldn't laugh).

A shipwright will X-ray the vulnerable points

In a hull, or an engineer test vital joints.

They're used for inspecting a crystal for purity

And checking one's luggage at airport security.

A dentist will use them to check out your teeth;

A restorer of paintings to see what's beneath.

Radiography's needless to make you transparent,

Since the game you've been playing is clearly apparent;

I don't require X-rays to see to the heart of you:

I now know the secret to make me a part of you.

Y is for Yield

To yield means to render a due or a tax,

Bestow a small favour or concede proven facts.

One can yield one's obedience or even a blow;

Yield advantage or battle or yield to a foe.

It denotes to requite or to pay compensation

And one yields to persuasion or else to temptation.

A structure will do it when constantly battered

And a woman will do it if suitably flattered.

One can yield to a fashion or popular taste,

Or yield to a panic when there's no time to waste.

To a banker it's interest that's paid gross or net

And farmers need good ones to keep out of debt.

One can yield to a person of superior rank,

As a barrier in riots gives way to a tank.

In maths, it's the outcome of complex equations;

In love, the result of repeated persuasions.

I'd long had the feeling you were just a pretender,

When you finally raised the white flag of surrender:

You unlocked your treasures with licence to view them

And threw down your arms as I tumbled into them.

Z is for Zenith

A zenith's the place of a planet or star

That's directly over the point where you are;

Though expressed more exactly, it's not really here

But on an imagined celestial sphere.

It comes from the Arabic for 'road overhead',

Though by Middle Age scribes it was later misread.

As a metaphor zenith means apex or crown:

A summit so high that the only way's down;

The time when a nation wields maximum power,

Or a culture or trend reaches its finest hour.

It can mean the high point of personal success,

Or of physical beauty - though it's fair to confess

Most people don't conquer such eminent peaks:

Not everyone finds the fulfilment he seeks.

There's nothing remaining to which I aspire:

I'm in seventh heaven and can hardly go higher.

The moment my orbit arrived at its apogee

Was when you admitted your undying love for me;

I had never surmised in my fanciest flights

That I'd ever achieve such Olympian heights.

©Gordon Knight 2013. All rights reserved.

THE LOVESTRUCK LEXICOGRAPHER