Onomasticon Of the Void .part 6

Xylophonus approaches the Hedge of Homonyms, a verdant wall of phonetic mirrors where the ear deceives the mind and every path is a fork in meaning.

Sonnet XXI: The Hedge of Homonyms

He stood before the foliage of the sound,Where "boughs" did "bow" beneath a "heavy" "rain,"And "reigns" of ancient kings were "strewed" around,While "rows" of "rose" did "rise" in "silent" "pain."His "soul" was but the "sole" companion there,As "scents" of "cents" arose from "earthly" "molds";The "air" was "heir" to "every" "vanished" "prayer,"And "told" the "toll" of "what" the "past" "unfolds."He "knew" the "new" "nuance" of "every" "word,"Lest "knots" of "nots" should "bind" his "active" "will";The "herd" of "heard" "illusions" that he "stirred"Required a "deft" and "lexical" "skill."By "rite" he "wrote" the "right" "path" through the "maze,"And "passed" the "past" with "penetrating" "gaze."

Sonnet XXII: The Etymological Oracle

Deep in the roots, the Oracle reclined,A primordial mass of Sanskrit and of Greek;Where proto-Indo-European combinedWith every morpheme that the tongue can speak."I seek the radix of the world," he cried,"The etymon of essence and of light!"The Oracle, with glottal gasps, replied,Unfolding centuries before his sight.It showed the cognates of the fire and frost,The derivation of the human heart,And how the primal resonance was lostWhen dialects tore the unity apart.Xylophonus drank the archetypal flow,To learn what only ancient roots can know.

Sonnet XXIII: The Litany of Logomachy

A war of words erupted in the glade,A logomachy fierce and unrestrained;Where arguments were sharpened like a blade,And syllogisms on the valley rained.The Sophists threw their specious nets of thought,While Stoics stood in phlegmatic repose;The wizard in the crossfire then was caught,Between the pro-cons and the con-pros.He used aphasia as a shield of glass,Then countered with a categorical strike;He watched the vain disputations pass,For truth and rhetoric are not alike.He silenced every pedant with a look,And closed the lid of the contentious book.

Sonnet XXIV: The Anastrophe of the Abyss

The path reversed. The ground behind him rose."Into the deep went he," the wind did sigh;The syntax turned its back upon the prose,And subject-verb began to liquefy.This was Anastrophe, the backward leap,Where "shone the sun" and "fell the heavy night";The order of the world was buried deep,In prepositional and vague affright."With courage bold," the sorcerer advanced,"In shadows dark," he found his inner flame;The jumbled stars in inverse circles danced,As he forgot the structure of his name.By flipping form, he found a hidden strength,And measured out the interverted length.

Sonnet XXV: The Kenning of the King

He met a ghost who spoke in riddled pairs,The "whale-road" for the sea, the "sky-candle" sun;A metaphoric weave of ancient airs,Where compound naming was the task begun.The "battle-sweat" was blood upon the grass,The "mind-house" was the skull beneath the hood;Through these alliterative veils he'd pass,To see the world as Skalds once understood.It was the Kenning of the soul's desire,To name a thing by what it does and wears;The "spirit-spark" ignited like a fire,Banishing the "breath-thief" of his cares.One quarter of the hundred now is spun,And Xylophonus greets the word-bright sun.

The hero has conquered twenty-five sonnets! He now enters the Valleys of Vernacular, where his high speech is challenged by common slang and earthy dialects.