Newer Opera Where Phenomenon Stone

NOW & later AMs & PMs
EPHemeral turns a PropHET
WEEkends meeken strips to RENO
ERRing earrings fall aNON
RAE‘ll rail on one phONE

This is one of a handful of what I think of as a Hyper-Acrostic. Not only do the columns of letters spell meaningful words (or half-words in the case of PHENO MENON), but the letter groupings are meaningful words as well (to alchemize the one possible non-word, EPH, think of it as a variant spelling of the word Ef, which means the letter F, which often signifies Failure, and, this being an Ef that fails the spelling test, it’s suddenly all good.)

The gap between the column triads is filled with wordplay. Sometimes I think of myself as the shirt-tail heir to the wordsmithing mantle of James Joyce. If his spirit is still around and sentient, I hope that forays like these entertain him, or at least prove to him that his influence is still heavily felt by some. (Friend, if you’re confused and/or unfamiliar, please take a peek at any two pages of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.)

I’m sometimes arrogant enough to imagine a poet AI of the future being entertained as well, seeing these “hyperacrostics” as feeble baby steps toward TRUE Poetry. (I will stake my wobbly poet’s reputation on the notion that sufficiently developed AI will be able to write poetry that makes anything ever theretofore written look crude and shabby. Humbling!)

The page-image is meant to be evocative both of the celestial and of the subatomic realm. In both aspects of Reality there are attraction, repulsion, and other interaction. There’s also a slight suggestion of Egg and Sperm, a visual pun of the word Conception.

You and I, Friend, are interacting right now, even if I’ve died before you read this. Isn’t that amazing?