Ode To Roonerspisms
A Poem That Slays With Pounds
Ode To Roonerspisms
The communal larking pot went up in flames;
A raging inferno was spilling the faces.
Apparently next door had tried to fight a liar
And Jill had been baking cock rakes again.
I was at home chewing my doors
With only belly jeans and cop porn for company.
I had been looking forward to shaking a tower
When suddenly life became a dot in the shark.
I ran as fast as my feet hood candle
Out into the garden, colliding with a pole ghost.
The blustered faker claimed she was not to blame—
It was a lack of pies.
“La Clairvoyance” by René Magritte (1898–1967)
The following 3 paragraphs are taken from an excellent piece called “What Spoonerisms Reveal About How The Brain Produces Speech” written by Karen Stollznow for The Independent:
William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930) was an Anglican priest and scholar who later became head of New College at the University of Oxford in the U.K. By all accounts he was brilliant, kind and notoriously scatterbrained. Somewhere along the way he became synonymous with accidentally swapping sounds between words.
These accidental mix-ups of sounds, known as spoonerisms, are among the most well-known speech errors. They can be delightfully funny, but for linguists and psychologists they’re much more than a source of amusement. They offer a rare glimpse into one of the most astonishing things our brains do every day: turn thoughts into fluent speech in a fraction of a second.
A spoonerism transposes the opening sounds of two nearby words. Many spoonerisms are commonly attributed to Spooner himself. At a wedding, he is said to have declared, “It is kisstomary to cuss the bride.” Another well-known example comes from the pulpit: “The Lord is a shoving leopard” rather than “The Lord is a loving shepherd.”
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If you missed last week’s offering on Idle and Blessed Poetry, you can read my reflections on the late Glen Hansard via the link below:
Matthew White is an Anglican priest, poet and songwriter based in West Sussex in the United Kingdom. His work has been published in The Way Back 2 Ourselves and Paddler Press. Matthew’s debut poetry collection, “Propelled Into Wonder,” which explores themes of beauty, faith, leadership, and loss, was published in September 2024 to wide acclaim. Matthew is married to Sarah and they have 3 children. You can connect with Matthew by visiting his website and joining the mailing list. You can also follow him on Instagram and can subscribe to “Idle and Blessed Poetry” on Substack to receive new and original poems from Matthew direct to your inbox each week.
This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.