Three Univocalic Lipograms
Hello friends,
Three “univocalisms” this time, each of which obeys additional constraints. Enjoy! (And if you do, please consider supporting my work by purchasing either The Robots of Babylon or my omnibus edition Knit Ink (and Other Poems).)
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Lipograms exclude letters. Univocalic lipograms thus exclude all vowels except one.
This first lipogram, whose only vowel is “o”, is also composed of perfectly anagrammed lines:
SNOW (Anagrammed Lines, Univocalic)
Snow comforts old roofs or norms.
Forlorn crows don soft moor moss.
Cold sorrow forms frost on moons....This second lipogram, whose only vowel is “e”, is a Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter. Its subject is the One-Electron Universe postulate.
UNIVOCALIC SONNET FOR THE ONE-ELECTRON UNIVERSE OF FEYNMAN AND WHEELER
Elected speck: relentless, endless sphere —
engender, breed ensemble, hence effect;
reverse resettlement, cement the here;
re-enter, reel the verse; renew, reflect....
Re-represented seed! The presence swells.
Let essence be serene, emergent germ!
Strewn, never feel depleted, ever dwell.
The needle sews the text, the length, the term.
When schemes extend extremes (reversed, else free),
renewed events meet tethered, nestled nerves;
the skewered self emerges, per decree —
between the present newness, elder swerves....
These self-elected scenes exceeded tense,
when Wheeler’s jest expressed the tenet hence.This final poem describes moonlit shadows forming on a horizontal sundial, between dusk and dawn. It begins and ends with the same palindromic stanza. In between the palindromes are six univocalic lipograms, each of which uses only one vowel — in order, y, u, o, i, e, and a.
SUNDIAL
Laid,
an onus set,
a gnomon gates sun, on a dial....
Sky rhythms fly by, wryly,
by my crypt —
by syzygy.
Sulphur sun succumbs:
Dusk dulls us, murmurs,
blunts us up.
Soft glows of hollow moon
grow gnomon forms on
ponds of rock.
This night is finishing.
Its vigil lifting, nitid shifting
gilts this dish in twilit stirrings.
Restless edges represent:
The steeple’s lengths lessen when
the flexed degrees descend.
A raw and rampant
dawn attracts a waltz.
A vacant patch draws back:
Laid,
an onus set,
a gnomon gates sun, on a dial.