CHAPTER 1
A PATH TO FLOETRY
The poor words of the letter F, so many lost to that most well known F word. Before all other words in the letter F family that one F word rules, slides into the most innocent of thoughts, is shortened to respectability, strongly spoken, appears loudly when cried in anger. It has strength no other F word commands; even has it own hand sign, the mystical middle finger, with its sliding scale of intensity.
Sadly, so many other good F words do not have the power of this one universal F word, as if all other F words have been caught in a minor key of obscurity.
It was the rules that got the other F words civilized, while that one F word became the forbidden, the most unsociable of powers, a curse, a question, a bold statement when only one word would do and there was no other.
Songs covertly sing the F words praise, while other F words, perhaps just as powerful, fade in its wake. You must think such a social renegade could be topped, unseated from its throne. Yet when cornered, attacked, it just enters a metamorphosis into other forms, adding more letters or words like What The F, WTF, or a mash up of letters and symbols. That F word is so elastic that social media scream with joy at its new attire until all the other F words shudder in the shock of being again undone.
We all know how it happened that the F word grew from mating and copulating. In its most dramatic move it co-opted the very spelling of the letter F, so that now `eff' itself has become the owner of just that one F word.
In the life of a language it is the creation of new words that give a language its vitality. While there are many people who proclaim that this is not a language's lifeblood, they are mistaken. For it is not rules of a language that govern its use, but how a language is used and accepted by those who speak it that allows its power to communicate.
Even the Scrabble dictionary has bent to new words, new uses of language. Those who claim that not just anyone can make up new words are missing the context of language. Language comes from use. If enough people decide a word has a use or describes a thing, an idea, an invention or a concept, that word will survive.
Latin and other ancient languages did not die out because of misuse. They faltered when they could no longer explain the world emerging about them. Yet they laid a language foundation as their legacy.
Other F Words is the beginning of a redemption of the family of F words. New words, a new meaning, until the F word `family' emerges from the fens and is acclaimed for its fervent goal to explain what is to come.
Time changes all and the written word is no exception to that rule. `Experiments in Floetry' introduces a new F word to the family. Allow me to introduce Floetry.
Floetry bends the linguistic norm, displaces the forms of grammar to a swirling line of rhyme, invents, retools, reuses, takes the future upon its soul and keeps the language vibrantly explaining what is to come of the myths of tomorrow. In this book it presents some of the other letters of F words in the favorable light they deserve.
The F word that conquered never truly conquered all other F words. The fraternity of F words went freaking at their fate as they became a virtual stillness of silence in fear of revealing their lettered relationship to the F word. Starved into myth, shattered into nothing, the family of F words rises now through Floetry.
It is not a contradiction of rules and creativity one should fear. No, indeed, if one were to believe you cannot add words to the English language, one would still be speaking in short bursts of grunts and moans of distaste and delight. While many still communicate this way there remains the unanswered question.
We may never know who first spoke the famous or infamous F word, but imagine their surprise at the response they got. That first speaker who first saw how one word could gain power over and beyond its four letters? Does it truly matter when so many new words grow and gather; we forget that in the English language renewal is its strength?
The criers of yesterday's language cringe on the forge of tomorrow's language, today. Yet what do they fear, a tradition shaken, their roots stirred?
So well worn workers of words, wise to the ways of the negativity of many change resistant humans, feel free in Floetry to invent words, create word forms that are unknown, change spellings, ignore grammar, use words considered improper to some, whenever you feel they have need of reinvention into the FLO of language reno-lution.
Perhaps chaos may be the response, but then who cried foul when corporations became humans, or Wall Street turned theft into bailouts with the redirection of words meanings. Changing the meanings of words did it all. It happens all around you, everyday.
Consider Floetry as a box. Within the box you are confined to internal boundaries. Outside the box you are confined to external boundaries. Now take a knife and lay the box flat till it floats on the air. You have expanded the box. Carve that flattened box into slices that float alone, and you have created a potential magic carpet of shapes that can take you anywhere you can imagine. Slide down mountains, construct a castle, and free yourself to express, what ever, good or not, of what comes close to your heart. Expose the world for the mockery it hides behind in form and tradition while allowing the rape of all life by greed and gods.
That is Floetry's power; a song, a thought, a story, a memory, taking what was known and experienced into what can be envisioned as FLO. This is a beginning, not an end. Yes, I am saying you can change the rules, break the barriers, and enter a new language dimension.
If you do not, will progress cease, will regeneration not continue, will the earth stop spinning, will you be thrown from Gaia into outer space?
The great secret of life is that those who hold treasure close would rather you not change their economic and language dominance no matter what the costs, for them change is too difficult to consider. Their ways are rooted in corruptly sucking the joy of life from millions. Their messages, their business practices, their governments, their religions are all in need of a reno-lution.
Yet they will fight tooth and nail to restrict sharing, construct virtual prisons to capture your mind and train you to believe all is fine and you are not deserving of their time. They do this all with words bent into meaningless symbols: work will make you free.
Within this book lies a vision for you to contemplate. You will find smiles and questions, things one should shout out, old and new, love, death and peace. Floetry after all is within ourselves, so why then not let what is in each of us FLO.
All Floetry offerings found here are titled with a word beginning with the letter F. This is an attempt to overcome the F word deficit and give the family of F words new meaning and appreciation, new thoughts.
After all I too have abused the F family of words. I seek redress for the family of F words, for stealing the spelling of `eff' to represent only one F word and to celebrate other F words we may have all forgotten.
The Floetry in this book are my glimpses into life and reality perceived sometimes in love, other times in sorrow, but always in amazement. Floetry tries to answer questions such as why so many people are denied a living wage or even...
