A Potted Memoir of Unusual Words

(inspired by a meme)

 

At Uni, we dabbled in discombobulation.

We gyrated through nightclubs

and sauntered past true knowledge,

too dizzy to really take it in.

 

Later, with a boyfriend, I faffed across the Nullabor

waking with a full moon in my eye

or making early-morning talk

with diamonted spider webs.

 

Out there, it is tempting

to defenestrate everything you know,

and turn your face to the sand-blasted wind,

so clean, it makes your eyes water.

 

A year in China and I was smitten

by the blossom of Oolong Cha,

by the song of Mandarin (or putonghua),

by my title of “Foreign Expert”…

 

but Australia called me home,

held aloft its eye-blue sky,

its coy wildlife peeks,

and the promise of my Nullabor Man.

 

These days, locked down by a pandemic

locked in by a mortgage

locked out by government obfuscation,

it’s easy to be ornery.

 

Instead, I wallow in wordplay,

frolic with family,

cherish our two children

and skirmish with sesqui-pedaliansim.