IN THE beginning, humans said “Ahhh!”
Then, they said, “Aaaagay!”
And “Oh!”
And then, they pieced them together —
“Ahh-aaagay-aaagay! Aragaaaay, Aragaaaaay! Oh!”
“Oh! Oh! Ohhhhhhhhhh…”
E-I-E-I-O!
And the earliest cave people were pleased.
And they felt it was good.
*
Then, humans invented words. And phrases.
Like “sun” and “night” and “kiss”.
And “eat my sh*t”.
Among many other words and phrases.
And they started playing with word combos like happy meals.
*
“Kiss me, kick me, kiss me quick.”
“The man named Dick has a very big dick.”
“She sells seashells by the seashore.”
“So where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?”
Humans enjoyed the sounds of words.
They enjoyed the pleasure of words in their mouth.
On their lips. At the tip of their tongues.
In their ear.
*
Some enjoyed words just by listening.
And sometimes, listening made them dance.
Or horny.
But others enjoyed inventing new words.
Or stringing them together in a new inventive way.
Oh. Oh my! Oh, my God! OMG!
Soon, humans started having fun with words.
They made rhymes and songs.
*
They chanted their stories. They sang lullabies.
They told their experiences and dreams.
And sex escapades!
Old McDonald had a farm?
E-I-E-I-O!
They also sang of their love.
For the maiden who lived in a kingdom by the sea.
And their poems even wept for the beautiful Annabel Lee.
*
Because of the rhymes and rhythmic meter, they remembered the story and the words better.
That’s the popularity of the oral tradition.
They who lived before us were pretty oral.
*
Oh, they were very, very, very oral.
But then, the singers said, “But we cannot let everybody sing. This is show business. This is a business!”
And it’s true.
*
Some people needed to be kings.
Carpenters needed to build things.
Some needed to be farmers.
Because not everyone can be dancers and charmers.
*
So the poets devised a system to be elitist.
Founded a sect. A religion.
Kind of a secret order.
To be admitted, you needed to be gangbanged.
Just kidding!
(Or maybe not!)
*
But this is the Middle Ages.
Sex tortures were not uncommon.
Court poetry for the f*ck was common.
F.U.C.K. — Fornication. Under the. Consent of the. King.
See? Old poetry was a real torture if you did not know history.
If you are not a scholar.
*
And not many people went to school in the Middle Ages.
They were afraid to be bullied.
Afraid to be abused by their teachers.
Harassed by their tutors.
Yes, tutors, not Tudors!
But hey, maybe.
*
Anyway, it is true.
Old traditional style poetry was kinda difficult for the unlearned, unread, common people.
Traditional poetry not only sucks.
It also f*cks!
(Oh, I mean, the poets.)
*
Poems by then can only be composed with highfalutin words.
Poems should be florid, and the vocabulary has to be formal, distinguished, baroque, curlicued, embellished, elaborate.
Language has be grandiloquent, capricious, and ostentatious like the word ‘ostentatious’.
In short, pretentious!
Not pedestrian as the baker speaks.
Not vulgar as the prostitutes’ dirty talk (and even dirtier talk to ejaculate a client fast).
*
The high popes of poetry insisted on rhyme because not everybody can find a sensible partner to the word ‘thyme’.
If you can pair ‘wine’, ‘whine’ and ‘this true love of mine’ in two lines, you are fine.
Other than that, eat sh*t, kabayong malupit!
So they used words like “thine” and “thou” and “fucketh”. (To be continued) (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
