Onomasticon Of the Void.part 8

Xylophonus descends into the Valleys of Vernacular, a cacophonous basin where the high-born lexicon of the heavens is dragged into the mire of the mundane and the grit of the street.

Sonnet XXVI: The Vulgate Volubility

The sorcerer stepped amidst the hoi polloi,Where cant and slang like muddy rivers ran;No longer did he find the cordial joyOf pundit, scholar, or the learned man.The "gab" and "chatter" of the common throngMocked his sonorous, lofty peroration;They sang a colloquial, raucous songOf earthy toil and lowly station."Hast thou no shibboleth of simpler sort?"A knave inquired with sardonic grin.Xylophonus found his rhetoric cut shortBy argot thick and idiomatic din.He saw that truth, though clothed in rustic dress,Possessed a raw and vibrant loveliness.

Sonnet XXVII: The Slang of the Shadow-Side"

What 'ho, my 'cove'!" the artful dodgers cried,Using a patois of the thief and rogue;Where double-meanings in the shadows hide,And gutter-talk is currently in vogue.They spoke of "glimmer" for the stolen light,And "darbies" for the irons on the wrist;Transforming every percept of the nightInto a clandestine, subtle twist.The wizard felt his grandeur start to peel,Stripped by the jargon of the desperate poor;He learned the lexis of the "sharp" and "steal,"The coarse reality of the earthen floor.To find the jewel, he delved into the scum,And learned the parlance of the deaf and dumb.

Sonnet XXVIII: The Portmanteau Peaks

He climbed a range where words were fused in two,A chortling, galumphing height of stone;Where "slithy" mists and "mimsy" breezes blew,And "frumious" monsters made their presence known.It was a blend of morphological graft,A Portmanteau of unlikely design;Where linguistic architects had surely laughedWhile carving out the convoluted line.He felt "confusticated" by the climb,A "miserable" and "gloomy" interlace;A "brunch" of horror in a "smog" of lime,Across the "spork"-like ridges of the place.By merging meanings, he attained the crest,Putting his analytic mind to rest.

Sonnet XXIX: The Onomatopoeic Onslaught

A sudden clatter, bang, and hiss arose,The world became the sound of what it meant;No longer hidden in the prosy clothes,The phonetic essence was the main event.The murmur of the ripples in the creek,The crackle of the embers in the grate,The thud of heavy footfalls, dull and weak,Decided every syncopated fate.It was a cacophony of the "zip" and "zoom,"A tintinnabulation of the soul;A whisper in the shadows of the room,That took a resounding, echoing toll.Xylophonus hushed the clanging of the day,And sighed the lingering echoes all away.

Sonnet XXX: The Malapropian Mire

He stumbled through a bog of "deranged" words,Where "allegories" lived in "Nile"-like mud;Where "epitaphs" were sung by "migratory" birds,And "pinnacles" of "politeness" stained the blood."I am the very 'pineapple' of fear!"He shouted, caught in misapplied intent;The definitions were no longer clear,As usage wandered where it never meant.This Malapropian swamp of gross mistakesTurned "oracles" into "barnacles" of grief;Among the "reprehensible" water-snakes,He sought a "reprehension"-al relief.Three decads gone! The hero's tongue is tied,In knots of usage he must now divide.

Xylophonus has reached the thirty-sonnet mark. He now approaches the Desert of Deconstruction, where words are stripped of their stable meanings entirely. Then he relies on the silence of the desert, or conjure a New Grammar to keep the world from vanishing