New Word Thursday: jactancy

From the Latin jacere, to throw — the same source from which we get both eject and ejaculate — the noun jactancy means bragging or boasting.

This is one of those words that has more forms than it needs. Other attested noun forms are jactance, jactation, and jactitation, the last two of which can also refer to a shaking or tossing of the body, in a medical sense. One who boasts or spasms (or, I suppose, both) jactitates.

God's Band

You think Clapton's God?
Everybody knows that God
Plays the clarinet.

Sad Piano

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This piano plays
Only in a minor key.
Art imitates life.

Who? What?

When I want strangers
To talk to me in the street,
I wear Doctor Who.

A Friday in Spring

 

The beige office walls
Shift into prison-cell gray:
A Friday in spring.

Octopuses, or octopodes

No one ever asks
If the plural form of squid
Is squad or squidoo.

Weekends Are...

English: Carousel slide projector. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Weekends are so short
Compared with a slide show by
Your mother-in-law.

An earlobe. Yes, an earlobe.

I asked a group of my friends to give me a topic for a poem, and someone shouted "earlobes!"

So, here. A haiku about earlobes.

Pierced earlobe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A thin velvet fuzz
O'er a soft, holey pillow:
Kissable earlobe.

Spring Is Announced

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Spring is announced by
The rumblings that level lawns:
The first yard-mowing.

Two Meta-Haiku

A well-writ haiku
Has seventeen syllables
And something else, too.

They say a haiku
Shouldn't have a rhyme, but you
can write some that do.

A Crossover Haiku

I've tried to find out where this original haikuless wallpaper came from in order to give proper credit. It looks like it was put out by Industrial Light and Magic (earning ILM beau coup brownie points if it's true), but if anyone knows differently, please let me know.

April Fool's Poem

Today I start my month of poetry in celebration of National Poetry Month with a haiku.