POETICKS

In #625, I had a version of the following:

Poem’s Environmental Activism

Poem consistently declines all invitations to
write poetry against the destruction of
the environment, reconginzing
that no politician or voter
genuinely desires a world
less than 98% of which
is squared off
into residences, crops and industry highwayed eff
ficiantly together and (perhaps)
lightly peripheried with 100% undangerous
“recreational” areas. To launch
peotyr
against their attitude
is futile. Always,
ytorep
will, to the extent that it is
ytxorepz,
befuddle or anger (without profit)
politicians and voters–
and everybody else who does not
already side with
euxartnz
beyond any need of persuasion
against its extirpation.

I value this mainly because it’s one of the world’s
few cryptographic poems. After another of my
environmental poems in #626, I had a poem from
way back in scorn of American theatre, for so l
ong scorning me, but accurate nonetheless.

The American Drama

on the hillside
sparrows dart
from one dry clump
of tight-leaved scrub oaks
to another,
glittering for an instant
under a huge
unentered sky

#628 featured a short excerpt from one of my plays,
then came this, which is a fairly complete list of
the “rotation word” in English, a rotation word
being a word that can be transformed into a second
word by replacing each of its letters with the
letter coming after it in the alphabet.

ad -> be
add -> bee
admi -> benj
admix -> benjy
aha -> bib
ahint -> bijou
an -> bo
ana -> bob
ana -> bob
anan -> bobo
ann -> boo
ann -> boo
anna -> boob
anna -> boob
at -> bu
ata -> bub
aten -> bufo
atka -> bulb
ax -> by
azo -> bap
cha -> dib
char -> dibs
chlor -> dimps
cho -> dip
chud -> dive
dand -> eboe
dodd -> epee
dud -> eve
ed -> fe
edh -> fei
eh -> fi
en -> fo
end -> foe
ens -> fot
eta -> fub
han -> ibo
he -> if
hin -> ijo
in -> jo
ind -> joe
inks -> jolt
it -> ju
its -> jut
khu -> liv
mho -> nip
ne -> of
nee -> off
nod -> ope
odd -> pee
ods -> pet
odz -> pea
oh -> pi
ohm -> pin
oho -> pip
on -> po
ona -> pob
ona -> pob
ons -> pot
oto -> pup
rho -> sip
rox -> spy
sh -> ti
sha -> tib
shee -> tiff
sho -> tip
shod -> tipe
snee -> toff
snod -> tope
snog -> toph
snork -> topsl
st -> tu
tch -> udi
to -> up
ton -> upo
tst -> utu
uds -> vet
ut -> vu
yn -> zo
za -> ab
zad -> abe
zan -> abo
zat -> abu
zax -> aby

My favorite is “inks/jolt.” This group
of ten entries ended with some comments
about a hurricane threatening the area.
It missed us.