Poem: "Won True Way"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem is from the May 7, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by prompts from technoshaman, technogeekslass, ellenmillion, and my_partner_doug.  It also fills the #2 Mercurial slot in the Rainbowfic Sunlight list.  It has been sponsored by technoshaman.  This poem belongs to the series An Army of One: The Autistic Secession in Space.



Won True Way

Language was not the most reliable thing
for the people of the Lacuna,
because some of them found it tedious
and some of them found it confusing,
but there were codebreakers among them
who knew all its secrets and loopholes
and liked to laugh over them,
and somehow that caught on.

The Lord of Pr0n was lamenting
the availability of good food in the Lacuna,
when Quell said over the ciphernet, "We could always
desert our posts to eat dessert in a desert."

"But will a stem from that branch stem the problem?"
the Gardener replied, and the game was on.

"The question is," said the Lord of Pr0n,
"whether the wether will go out in the weather."

"The Greek students all sigh about psi and xi!"
wrote the Minotaur.

"They're hanging their hats over there,"
said Babs, to which Estelle replied,
"I hear that Mars was first colonized by ghosts,
because they're experts at terror forming."

"That must have taken an epic epoch,"
said Hootowl.

"We could create our own religion," Router said.
"if we could find a wright to write the right rite."

"Why are Halloween and Christmas the same?"
sent Cruiser Falconwing P42.
"Because 31 Oct = 25 Dec."

Even Shakespeare chimed in with
"Melt, thaw, and resolve itself into adieu,"
a sly reference to Hamlet's self-destructive angle.

It didn't matter that they were mercurial and peculiar,
that many of them they were different
from the people of the Galactic Arms,
different even from each other;
they were learning to feel out the common ground
between them, subtle as the dust of the Lacuna
that veiled them and helped to keep them safe.

This is what they had won with their strange unity:
a chance to laugh over something
that didn't involve laughing at anyone.