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Thursday, June 13, 2013

M Words

M


MA / Ma


If you ever see an M
Followed by an A well then
What you're seeing is an abbreviation,
One that you might like to use
When writing, should you ever choose,
Depending on the context and occasion.

So if you're wanting to convey
Master of Arts then write MA
To convey "magister artium",
For it's easier to say
And quickly understood that way
At least more so than Medieval Latin!

Or perhaps you want to state
That place in the United States,
Massachusetts, found in the North East
Abbreviate the State and say
Simply M followed by A
And your fear of spelling it wrong will decrease!

Perhaps you're writing on your page
About somebody's mental age
Just write M and then an A again,
And if their mental age is less
Than what you thought then they won't guess
What you're saying about them with your pen!

Or perhaps your writing pages
All about the Middle Ages
You can shorten those words down as well
To M and, yep you guessed it, A
Which is another way to say
"Middle Ages" but there's more to tell...

Along the line of "ages",
And words to put on pages,
It would pay for everyone to know
That if you see an M and A
The writer might be trying to say
Something about a Million Years Ago!

But if you get an M and then
A little "a" well then my friend
That is a word sweeter than any one
For the word it makes is Ma
The nicest word there is by far
Another designation for your Mum!


Macabre


Death is not so nice a thing
Its aspects can be frightening
Especially when amplified in scale

Macabre then is the horrible
Grizzly and deplorable
Relating of one’s death in grim detail

Danse macabre, said the old French
That is the Dance of Death
Probably a reference in those days

To the ancient Maccabees
Who were slaughtered so horribly
Depicted in a medieval play…


Macaronic

If ever vous read a verse
Or poème that seems to converse
In not only one langue but in deux
The nom of such a sonnet
Is known as Macaronic
As this poor exemple tries to prove.



Macédoine

There is a French word macédoine
Which is pronounced as mass-e-dwarn
And means a confused mixture or medley

Like if I got some grapes and added
Other fruits to make a salad
It would be a macédoine yummy!


Macropine


I never will forget the time
I turned into a macropine
Creature whilst on walkabout one day,
I swear to you it's really true,
I turned into a kangaroo
And started to say strange things like "G'day."

I started calling people "Mate"
Whilst I was in this bouncy state
And pined for prawns upon my barbecue,
Fair dinkum I was quite a sight
With my jar of Vegemite
A real bonza Aussie Kangaroo!

The Magi

There is a story we all know
From millennia ago
About the night that the Good Lord was born
When angels sang to shepherds poor
And from the east magi explored
To find him so to him gifts to adorn

Most of us unwittingly
Have so assumed that there were three
Of these wise men the Bible calls “Magi”
But in truth we do not know,
The Bible does not tell us so,
If three there were when it could have been five!

“Magi” is of course Latin
But no doubt has its origins
From “Magoi” which of course we know is Greek
That describes a most select
Particular and Persian sect
Of important people who were priests.

As a side if you like tricks
From it we get the word “Magic,
That is to say from Magoi comes magician!
But that’s enough, I won’t digress
The story has been embellished
Over the years by popular tradition

By Century number three
The magi had apparently
Become known to everyone as kings!
By the Century number six
Names had also been affixed
To these kings of oriental spring

Bithisarea was one
Gathaspa another one
Melichior the name of third
But how these random names arose
Or came about, nobody knows
For in Matthew their names are never heard!

Some ancient traditions
Even place them in position
With the sons of none other than Noah
For the Bible tells us that
Noah’s sons went and begat
The populations of all Terra Nova

So I guess it was believed
And commonly received
That these kings of old they represented
The Kingdoms of all Africa
Europe and all of Asia
When to Christ their three gifts were presented

But by the fourteenth century
What we know from history
Is that the names of these three kings had changed
To Gasper and Melchior
Balthasar, all three leaders
Similar with letters rearranged…

So what in fact we really know
About the Magi long ago
Is they were a priesthood of the Medes
And it has indeed been found
That they had a most profound
Awareness of religion and creeds

Darius who was called Great
Established them over the state
Religion of all his Persian Realm
And in actual fact they were
Advisors and counsellors
For many years to those who wore the crown

Now we know from History
That Israel met with tragedy
And for some time we know the ancient Jews
Spent time in captivity
For decades temporarily
Relocated so to pay their dues

And so the Good Book it does tell
About the man called Daniel
Who became one day the Magi’s Chief
And so from him some scholars say
It could well have been conveyed
The prophecies of old Hebrew belief

So by the time that Jesus came
The politics was not the same
Judah now kept underneath the thumb
By the Roman empire
That by their might had then acquired
Many lands of which Judah was one

But there was another might
The Parthians, a mighty blight
Of whom the ancient Persians were a part
It was from them the Magi came
In search of the one whose name
Would inspire more than ten billion hearts

When they came into the land
It must have scared the little man
Herod whom Augustus had made king
Insulting him with open scorn
"Where is the baby who was BORN
To be King and lord of everything?"

When eventually they came
To the house in Bethlehem
They found the child in his mother’s arms
And gave to him gold for a king
Frankincense a priestly thing
And myrhh, an ointment used so to embalm

Maybe it could be that you
Don't believe the tale is true
But there's one thing that can't be denied
For more than many centuries
The Western World especially
Has been graced with the joy of Yuletide...

Mammary

If you have a mammary
Gland then it is probably
Safe to say your gender is female

Commonly found on one’s chest
Generally known as a "breast"
And not too often found to grow on males
what is a mammary? what rhymes with mammary?


Manifold

Imagine that within my home
Are myriads of telephones
Of different variations new and old
The adjective that best describes
The bunch of phones I have inside
In varied forms is the word manifold

It implies great diversity
And also multiplicity,
Variety as well or so I’m told
So if there’s an array
If anything just say
“Manifold” of what you now behold!

But also if I said of you
Something that was very true
For lots of different reasons not a few
I can use the word to
Exemplify about you
That you are a manifold cuckoo!

And finally you might
Come across a kind of pipe
With many joints and also lots of holes
I can clearly state
The word that designates
This type of pipe is also manifold. what is the meaning of manifold? what is a manifold? what is the definition of manifold? poems about manifold? what rhymes with manifold?


Vegemite vs Marmite

For some strange reason Aussies like
A substance known as Vegemite
Which they like to spread upon their toast,
An almost blackish shade of brown
The taste of which might make you frown,
The first time of it's tasting's rather gross.

I guess it could be likened too
Something living on your shoe,
This greasy mess of concentrated yeast,
Or perhaps salty armpit
Or  maybe clotted vomit
Yet in the land of Oz it's quite a feast!

But I must indeed admit
The second time that you taste it
Isn't quite as bad as first it was,
Then the third is better still
You might eat more and more until
You realize you eat it just because

Your taste buds have all gone quite mad
Because you crave the stuff like mad
In quite the same way you might eat a scab,
Or the stuff inside your nose,
You know exactly how it goes,
You shouldn't do it but it's not that bad!

Now I feel compelled to tell
Of another spread from Hell
A greasy jar of gunk the Kiwis eat
Upon their toast and just as gross
The taste of which comes rather close
To the yeasty Aussie rival treat.

Marmite's the stuff that I now mean
Blacker still and like a spleen
Pureed down and jarred into a spread,
The Kiwis eat the stuff like mad
And if it runs out they get sad;
Without it half of NZ would drop dead!

And let me say before I go
Something only one would know
If you lived on my side of the earth
NEVER tell a Kiwi that
Vegemite is better, that
Will hurt their ego worse than childbirth!


Melliferous

That which is melliferous
Is, I think, splendiferous
The adjective that best describes a bee

For their great ability
To generate the great yummy
Substance that we like to call honey!


Munificent

If I was munificent
I would be magnificent
In the area of charity

Giving with an open hand
Most amply to my fellow man
Liberal in generosity!





Words that begin with...
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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