I Love Words Poem by Harley White

I love to tumble, climb, and soar—
to rollick and frolic in words.
I love to mumble, rhyme, and roar—
compose a bucolic,
satire vitriolic,
write lines epistolic,
to be hyperbolic—

I love words—
the gristle, the bumps, the grinds of words—
the bristles, the humps, the winds of words—
the whistles, the thumps— all kinds of words—

Conjunctive connections to which I add—
Those odd interjections— zounds or egad! —

Some words are all but dead,
like the species brontosaurus.
Some words are newly said,
making language fresher for us.
Some words are only read
in a book like the thesaurus.
Some words are overhead,
like the constellation Taurus.

I love words—
the lyrical lilt and tilt of words,
the spherical to the hilt of words,
the miracle that is built of words.

Some find a panacea in flowery verse.
There's onomatopoeia and diction that's terse.

Some words are flimsy;
Some bubbly with whimsy.
They're joined into mazes
And coined into phrases.

Words are immortal when they strike a chord,
And the pen is mightier than the sword.

The lowest form of humor is the pun—
So goes the rumor— but what fun! —
Where a bit of levity's fit,
'If brevity's wit, here's it.'—

I love words—
the whirl, the swirl, the twirl of words—
the pretty, the nitty-gritty of words—
the round, the profound, the sound of words—

like hemidemisemiquaver—
waver, favor, flavor, savor—
incandescent, evanescent,
effervescent, acquiescent—
hammer, clamor, grammar, stammer, glamour, enamor-
ironic, sardonic, laconic, mnemonic, platonic,
or stereophonic.

I love to glide—
astride to sit
I love to ride
the lickety-split
roller coaster of verbiage—
like loquacious, voracious,
mendacious, tenacious,
chortle and snortle,
chasm and spasm,
like rapid or vapid,
pathos or bathos,
livid and vivid,
torrid and horrid,
iota and quota,
eclectic, electric,
like feckless or reckless,
sedulous, credulous,
dazzle and frazzle,
admonish, astonish,
elastic, fantastic,
voluble, soluble,
phantasmagoric
or prehistoric,
inchoate—
You know it! —
I love words!