Akimbo
Sitting slightly askew
a star on the mantel for show…
He felt that he should right it.
But little did he know.
“Oh I liked it catywampus!
Please don’t change my decoratin’
You see, things do look best
When they’re arranged a bit sigodlin.
Now furniture all chockablock
Well that’s against the law.
But to add a touch of whimsy…
You place stuff whoppyjawed!”
His saucered look began to melt
When our eyes did finally meet
And with a twinkled smile he said,
“This, I gotta tweet!”
-jpe
6 December 2011
I looked up the spelling of catywampus, sigodlin, and whoppyjawed. It is interesting to note that all three of these words do not show up in Webster’s dictionary, but are considered “southern colloquialisms” in some other, urban dictionaries. I also discovered that whoppyjawed is supposed to be: whompyjawed. But since I never said it that way, and having whoppyjawed in MY dictionary, I’ve left the spelling here. Chockablock actually appeared in Webster’s dictionary. It’s only meaning was “full”. I grew up knowing it to mean “everything placed side by side in too much uniformity”.
My husband (who grew up in Columbus, OH) has always been amused by my unusual sprinkling of words I picked up while growing up in the mountains of NC. This poem actually happened this year when I caught him trying to reset the star symmetrically on the mantel. Well, I didn’t use ALL of these words, but my reaction definitely made him want to tweet the wonky words I used.
