Language – KensView

Une personne intelligente

Personne parmi nous désire
remettre en question votre intelligence,
même si la possibilité est toujours là ;
mais maintenant,
puisque vous vous vantes de votre prouesses,
la foule des sceptiques sera innombrable.
Vous êtes une personne intelligente !

Clever

There is no one among us,
who desires to question your intelligence,
even if the possibility is always there;
but now, since you boast of your prowess,
the crowd of skeptics will be innumerable.
You are a clever person!

What’s in a Name?*

In the realm of notions,
where word and meaning clash,
we ask:

Is it the thing that gives the name its shape,
or the name that shapes the thing?

Cratylus, with his lips pressed tight to truth,
says a word must be the echo
of what it is called—
a perfect match
an interwining dance
between tongue and world.
A name like fire,
hot and alive,
burning its essence into the air,
so pure,
it cannot be anything else.

But Heraclitus, shaking his head,
would say, “The river is never the same.”
For what is a name,
but a moment held still,
a frame around a shifting, endless tide?
Do we grasp the river’s essence
by calling it water?
Or is it the river that slips past
our every attempt at definition?

Also can a name be both
true and false, as Socrates adds?

We stand on the edge of language,
lost in the noise
of words that try to mean,
but never quite can.
Every name,
a hand trying to capture a shadow.
Every connotation,
a fleeting attempt at grasping
what manifests beneath the heavens.

Who’s to say
that which is named
is only a thing in itself,
but a thing in relation
to what it’s called,
to who calls it,
to when and where and why.

A name is born of our mind
but it is not ours to keep.
It can slip and slide,
leaving us in wonder—

What is a rose,
if not the air that carries it,
the voice that speaks it,
the thorn that guards it,
or the label that follows?

*The Cratylus of Plato

How Far Can Satire Go?

How far can satire stretch its wings,
Before it falls and bruises things?
A laugh, a jibe, a pointed word
At truths unspoken, seldom heard.
It dances close to edges, bold,
Where wounds are raw, and hearts unfold,
Mocking kings and shaking crowns,
Making bigots and snobs grow deep frowns.
But how far can it walk the line,
Between the joke and a darker sign?
Can humor cure or only wound
While exposing lies we’ve all subsumed?
In satire’s grasp, the world may bend,
It speaks of truths that may offend.
Yet in that crack, does it reveal,
A love that heals or hurts that reel?
It wades through waters deep and wide,
Where wit may go against the tide.
How far, then, can this art, this blade,
Carve the space where truths are laid?
Satire questions letting things slide,
But is there a point where we divide?
When does it cease to jest and play,
And leave us lost in shades of gray?
Perhaps the answer lies within,
The balance of the thick and thin.
How far should satire truly go?
Just far enough to make us know.

MAGA Logic*

Why should one vote for HIM?
Because HE deserves it.

Vote for Him, so you won’t be a loser.

Isn’t He worried about His reputation?
No, it’s okay. HIS dad cheated, and he had a reputation.

If you are right wing, then you’re a patriot.
I’m not.
Then you’re not a patriot.

Right-wing ideas are superior to “Democrat” ideas.

Drinking bleach cures COVID.
No, it doesn’t …
You can’t say that! You’re a Democrat!

We should use masks against COVID.
No! The Democrats are the ones who support that!

They say HE doesn’t tell the truth.
But you don’t either.

Don’t you think lying is wrong?
Yeah.
Well, he just lied!
Ok, but HE’s a good guy.

Banning guns is nonsense.
Criminals will find a way.

Dictators make you snap on command.
Dictators must be smart.

Have Democrats stopped cheating at the elections?

What proof do you have HE did not suffer from millions of fraud votes?

The Afghanistan withdrawal was Biden’s fault.

Democrats are commies.
I don’t believe it.
Prove they aren’t.

No Jew votes for Democrats.
But my friend Aaron votes for Democrats.
Well, he isn’t a TRUE Jew.

Before we argue about immigration, let’s define it as “vermin control.”

HE says that dictators are his friends.
HE also said Biden was a dictator, so was Biden his friend?

Slaves learned useful skills on the plantation, so more education was a waste of time.

Stripping rights is bad, but HE still has to finish it.

Imposing larger tariffs will stop China.
Genius?!?

Project 2025 is too long for me to read,
but worth every word.

I can’t believe they said HIS debate was awful.
Awful originally meant that it inspired awe!

Springfield officials said no one’s eating dogs!
I’m entitled to my opinion.

They say they’ll lower your taxes.
Don’t listen to them. They’re Marxists.

Can you assure us that HE’ll help finance child care?
I can’t, but HIS new tariffs will solve everything.

If you don’t vote for Him,
You won’t be safe,
Your kid will change sex,
YOU’LL GO TO HELL!

*The Right’s Logical Fallacies

Scrabbled

Beneath the cwm zenith where nymphs wheezily prance,
whizbang melodies from an old jukebox entrance.
Faqirs strum quickly on sweet mezquite-wood guitars,
highjacking reality, exciting quasars.
A Jezebel sylph winks, zombifying the night,
the zymurgy of enchantment, bathed in moonlight.
Below the Qi’s frolicking flybys, swift and free,
caziques and vizcachas equalize at tea,
as quetzals dose on outoxyphenbutazone,
jazzed by zippy zephyrs that sizzle to the bone.
And while muzjiks whisper, “Quixotry is preferred.
To maximize the magic, Xerox the absurd,”
xylophonists scarf flapjacks, yelling at bezique,
“Prizes in zuz and xu, not exempt from our pique.”
Chutzpah and qwerty thusly are here intertwined,
defuzing the mundane, leaving logic behind.
So, exorcize your qualms and brush the “phphts” away.
Squeeze out cynicism. It’s Oxazepam Day!

Wow, A Pup Deified!

As I pee, sir, I see Pisa
Dog doo? Good God!
Desserts, I stressed!
God saw I was dog.
God’s dog.
Dammit, I’m mad!
Step on no pets.
Go deliver a dare, vile dog!
Dogma in my hymn: I am God!
Dog’s God.
Was it a cat I saw?

From the Pundit of Avon

I scorn you, scurvy companion.
Thou art a boil, a plague sore.
The rankest compound of villainous smell
that ever offended nostril.
I am sick when I do look on thee.
I’ll beat thee, but I would infect my hands

Thou cream faced loon.
Thou lump of foul deformity.
Thou art as fat as butter.
Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon.
You are as a candle, the better burnt out.

A most notable coward,
an infinite and endless liar,
an hourly promise breaker,
the owner of no one good quality.
Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade.

Thou art unfit for any place but hell.
Away, you three-inch fool!

Poisoning the Well

Words, sharp as broken glass,
scattered across the floor of every conversation,
we step on them, not noticing
until the bleeding starts.
Every silence speaks louder than the last,
its weight pressing against the chest,
like a promise that was never meant to be kept.

We don’t yell, we simmer—
a slow boil,
a low hum of discontent.
A question asked with the edge of a blade,
but wrapped in the velvet of a smile,
and passive like smoke,
it slips under the door and stains the air.

We say “fine,”
but our eyes betray us.
Their language is raw;
their truth is a widening chasm
we pretend we don’t see.

There are no answers, only echoes—
words that come back hollow,
bouncing off the walls of resentment.
We speak in riddles,
fingers pointing in every direction but our own,
hearts locked behind walls
built from miscommunications
and unspoken hurts.

We wear the armor of defensiveness
like a second skin.
Every attempt to reach
is met with an invisible barrier.
We love, we fight, we withdraw;
but we don’t listen.

And still we ask:
Why does it feel like we’re speaking in a language
neither understands?
Why does love sound like a war,
and kindness feel like a question
that cannot be answered?

In this quiet storm of words unspoken,
we forget
that sometimes the loudest thing in the room
is the silence between us—
the toxic quiet,
growing louder every time
we don’t say what we mean.

Rock the Boat

News about the project hit us, groggy,
like a tidal wave, – keeling us over.
He’d flake out again, the son of a gun,
leaving us all floundering,
at a loose end.

Cap, leading light of the team,
assessed the situation,
the cut of her jib posh perhaps,
but always decisive, pragmatic–
she knew the ropes.

“Time to wipe the slate,” she declared,
“Give him a wide berth, chart a new course.
The contract wasn’t all sewn up, anyway,
we need to batten down the hatches,
all hands on deck.”

But before we could react,
the client, a notorious loose cannon,
blew a gasket, threatened lawsuits,
yelling we’d have the devil to pay!

We were taken aback, caught between
the devil and the deep blue sea,
forced to choose between legal battles
and walking the financial plank.

This venture,
meant to finally make ends meet,
was turning into an albatross
around our necks.

The First Mate told us to pipe down,
tried to take the wind out of his sails
with legal jargon and promises of amends.
But the client was not on board,
threatened to lower the boom.

Our only option was to turn the ship around,
face the bitter end,
and hope for leniency.
Thus, we were dead in the water,
watching our dreams sink,
accepting it wouldn’t be plain sailing,
not now, not ever.

“Well,” he sighed,
offering a swig of something potent,
“Down the hatch.
Time to hit the deck,
and get on the right tack, again.”

Someone asked, as the crow flies,
how far back we were.
He just laughed, “Beyond the horizon.
Just start with a clean slate,
and try to keep on an even keel this time.”

Le ciel s’écroule*

Les Français, they say, have minds refined,
But their thoughts have clouds, a stormy sign.
With each remarque, they make a frown
As if the sky is falling down.

They sip their vin, yet curse the glass,
For joy’s fleeting, too swift to clasp.
In cafés small, with heads held low,
They sigh as if they always know—

Future’s dim, c’est la fin du monde,
Nothing is right, it’ll all explode.
And while Liberté sounds divine,
But even freedom has its time.

Their poètes write of love’s cruel art,
Of dreams that fade and hearts that part.
Les rues de Paris grown with gloom,
As shadows gather spelling doom.

Oh, to be les Français who arise
To welcome the world with leery eyes,
To speak in sighs, in rueful tones,
And call chez eux a house of bones.

Yet in their glumness, there’s a grâce,
A kind of beauté none can replace—
For through their doubts, their endless strain,
They teach us new ways to complain.

*The sky is falling

Ils se plaignent

Les Français, dit-on, sont si raffinés,
Mais leurs pensées sont embrumées, leur esprit est orageux.
A chaque remarque, ils froncent les sourcils
Comme si le ciel leur tombait dessus.
Ils sirotent leur vin, mais maudissent le verre,
Car la joie est fugace, trop rapide pour être serrée.
Dans de petits cafés, la tête basse,
Ils soupirent comme s’ils savaient toujours—
L’avenir est sombre, c’est la fin du monde,
Rien ne va, tout va exploser.
Et si Liberté semble divine,
Mais même la liberté a son heure.
Leurs poètes écrivent sur l’art cruel de l’amour,
Des rêves qui s’estompent et des cœurs qui se séparent.
Les rues de Paris s’assombrissent,
Alors que les ombres s’accumulent, annonçant le malheur.
Oh, être les Français qui se lèvent
Pour accueillir le monde avec des yeux méfiants,
Pour parler en soupirs, d’un ton triste,
Et appeler chez eux une maison d’ossements.
Pourtant dans leur morosité, il y a une grâce,
Une sorte de beauté que rien ne peut remplacer.
Car à travers leurs doutes, leur tension sans fin,
Ils nous enseignent de nouvelles façons de nous plaindre.

寇世友

Koziol – 寇世友 – kòu shì yǒu

寇 is a surname dating back to at least 寇准 Kou Zhun (961-1023), Northern Song politician and poet. The character also means pirate, bandit.

世 – world, generation

友 – friend

Doublespeak

Back in our bedroom,
a language is born,
two voices weaving threads
only we can perceive,
a tapestry of merriment,
whispers, and half-formed memes.

Words dance like fireflies,
flickering in and out,
a secret symphony,
rhythms beating in sync,
their own lexicon,
a realm skirting the rules.

Eyes meet, and the sentences unfold,
unspoken phrases leap between them,
a nod, a grin, a raised eyebrow
and suddenly, the room is alive,
hundreds of meanings shared,
yet artfully concealed.

In this sibling speak,
the mundane becomes magic,
the ordinary transformed—
a simple glance,
a signal with hands,
the echo of an inside joke.

We speak in riddles,
in giggles, in sighs,
painting stories with our breath,
the softest language,
the strongest bond,
each syllable a heartbeat,
each silence an accent.

In the by-play of our connection,
we find the essence of being,
two souls in perfect harmony,
carving our path,
a natural duet,
a world where only we belong.

Ken

ken (kɛn)

n., v. kenned kent, kenning

1. knowledge or understanding: an idea beyond one’s ken.

2. range of sight or vision.

v.t.

3. Chiefly Scot. to understand or know about.

4. Archaic. to see; recognize.

v.i.

5. Chiefly Scot. to know; understand.

[before 900; Middle English kennen to make known]