NaPoWriMo day 29

Oooo, it's NaPoWriMo day 29 - just one more to go - and the penultimate prompt is to write a poem including at least five words from other languages. I’ve gone for numbers as I’ve learned these and various other fragments of a fair few languages over the years. Here are the first six verses of what will be expanded into a rather longer piece…

Cheerleaders of the world unite

Two, four, six eight,
Do our words depreciate?
Three, five, seven, nine,
Not if we perform on time,
Speak the minute, second, hour,
Verses blossom, passion-flowered,
Cold black bile or sticky-sweet,
Angsty trick or tasty treat.

Deux quatre six huit
Does Baudelaire have Shakespeare beat ?
Trois cinq sept neuf
No chance ami, not on my turf,
The Bard’s just bought his ivory tower,
And skips stiff-ruffed ‘neath rush-lit bowers,
Soliloquys in Stratford’s streets,
Where airs and sonnets maidens meet.

Due quattro sei e otto,
Pay the piper, that’s my motto,
Tre e cinque sette nove,
Never mess with Kaiser Soze,
The Mafia have nowt on him,
Concrete-booted one-way swim,
Grist for King’s Pet Semetary,
Reanimated zombie - scary.

Zwei vier sechs acht,
Get your busking butt well-parked,
Drei fünf sieben neun,
Into the hat old pfennig coins,
Profits meagre, pickings slim,
Beholden to the punter‘s whim,
Though still enough to get mead-merry,
Ferment the hops, the grain, the berry.

Dau pedwar chwech wyth,
Stuff my face with bara brith,
Tri pump saith naw,
Off to eisteddfod, man of straw,
Poet-battles, kennings slam,
Metheglin drunk by the dram,
Flaunt your metaphor prowess,
Poetry, words‘ party-dress.

Tvö fjögurra sex átta,
Viking skalds and saga-chatter,
þrjú fimm sjö níu,
Sing ho and raise a longship crew,
Strike the oar upon the fjord,
Tie your bride‘s bright hand-fast cord,
Live your life by Havarmal,
Brief pre-Valhalla interval.

[to be continued...]