Switchgrass, or: Sweet switchel

Posted on by ben Alexander 
Switchgrass, swelter, swinking, sweaty 
swivet; thoughts swiftly swirling; swollen, 
swimming eyes; oh! Oh, but to swinge 
that swift, swarthy swindler!

The swashbuckling swine hadn’t swithered, 
swiftly swiping; swith, swiveling, switching 
hands, leaving his lady swooning, swirling her 
sweet switchel on Swiss porch swing… 

Swish…

The above poem is my take on d’Verse’s Quadrille challenge #123.

The quadrille is simply a poem of 44 words (excluding the title), and it can take any form. This week’s challenge was to use the word “swift” in a quadrille.

63 thoughts on “Switchgrass, or: Sweet switchel”

    1. Dolly, I like to play with words and sounds because I feel that it stretches my creative abilities, if that makes sense… the more I do these sort of exercises, the more versatile I feel myself when it comes to writing truly meaningful poetry.

      Yours,
      David

      1. I do understand, David. I stopped writing poetry, when, prior to the KGB search in my apartment, I had had a premonition that something was brewing and burned everything I had written. Many years later, it was discovered that a college classmate had saved three poems I had shared with him and managed to bring them to Israel. My short stories that had circulated in “samizdat” simply disappeared.
        Have a great day,
        D

        1. Wow. That part of your life reads like a movie plot. I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to learn at least a little bit of your story.

          Yours,
          David

        2. But most people who come from regimes, which include Cuba, Venezuela,China,etc. have stories to tell, and many of them are much more exciting than mine, David. I am simply a perpetual subversive element with a motorcycle (no motorcycle anymore, unfortunately).
          Be well,
          D

        2. Oh my, the learning and laughter and thoughtfulness I gain from you is such, David, I do hope some day to sit with you in a cafe in Jerusalem, perhaps, and share the silliest of witticisms. … Mine are likely to be sillier than yours, but one can always hope.

        3. I would love that, George! One of the advantages of living in an international city like this is that it’s a place that people from all around actually come to visit 🙂

  9. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much alliteration gathered into one place before! It’s great – so swishly done, so swift, a switchback ride of a poem.

  15. A tricky tongue-twister 🙂 A fun poem, and I especially enjoyed the “swashbuckling swine.”

  18. I think you ARE casting a spell on us. This is something for the therapist’s couch your next visit! 😆 I’m sure there’s a hidden meaning in there!

  23. This is delightful and a tongue twister to boot! You were so very close to writing a tautogram – I think with a little editing you could make it so.

    1. I should try a tautogram… I wasn’t going for that because I was attempting to use words with ‘sw’ (and especially ‘swi’) – rather than just ‘s’… but why not? I’ll give it a go! Thanks for the idea, Muri!

      Yours,
      David

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