«
»

Nigh Not Nearly My Forte

Today I have a bit of fun with two pairs of synonyms:

The words nigh and near —
synonyms, and yet just one
sizzles and sings.

Near merely describes,
while the soaring nigh evokes —
close but no cigar.

But don’t pity near —
it verbs — something nigh can’t do.
This verse now burned out.

*****

Metier, I hear,
is a forte synonym.
What a grand duo —
one traded for the other —
pianometier music.

*****

(Pompted by nigh from Haiku Heights and Weekend Theme’s metier.)

Tags: , , , , , ,

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 9th, 2011 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Haiku & Senryu, Music Humor & Verse, Tanka. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

15 Responses to “Nigh Not Nearly My Forte”

  1. vivienne blake says:
    April 10, 2011 at 6:20 am

    Your first poem is brilliant, witty as usual. The second left me confused – métier means career or vocation and another meaning is frame (as in weaving frame). Aha. Viv is slow on the uptake – maybe the “I hear” is like you have in crossword clues, and you are talking “meatier” or stronger.!

  2. Hansi says:
    April 10, 2011 at 10:55 am

    First poem was good, really good. Love your wit :)

  3. Rajlakshmi says:
    April 10, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    awesome … thats a very clever write… loved the word play
    beautifully written

  4. Stan Ski says:
    April 10, 2011 at 2:23 pm

    You play those words so well!!!

  5. Jingle says:
    April 10, 2011 at 7:00 pm

    sizzle and sing..

    fun word play.

  6. madkane says:
    April 11, 2011 at 1:25 am

    Thanks so much everyone for your kind words.

    Vivienne, you’re sort of right and sort of wrong. “Hear” was a clue indeed. But while “meatier” would have been clever of me, I never thought of it. :) Instead, I was playing with the fact that forte and metier are synonyms. But that forte also is a musical term, meaning loud. And the old musical instrument called pianoforte, literally means soft/ loud. So I then replaced forte with metier, turning it into pianometier. Just some silly playfulness.:)

  7. Nimue says:
    April 11, 2011 at 1:57 am

    you told well the difference of near and nigh .. took me a bit to understand it last night from web !

  8. madkane says:
    April 11, 2011 at 3:36 am

    Thanks, Nimue!

  9. Amanda says:
    April 11, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    Creative as always love the wit! Have to check out this prompt (like I need another hahahaha)

  10. sideview says:
    April 12, 2011 at 12:47 am

    That was fun, thanks for playing with us, I hope you will do so again

  11. Cindy Taylor says:
    April 12, 2011 at 1:31 am

    A delightful take on the theme.

  12. madkane says:
    April 13, 2011 at 3:03 am

    Thanks so much, everyone!

  13. trisha says:
    April 13, 2011 at 7:26 am

    fabulous. just loved the interesting information playfully shared in the poem.

    trisha
    free soul

  14. Veralynne Pepper says:
    April 13, 2011 at 1:13 pm

    Love watching your words sing and dance!

  15. madkane says:
    April 13, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    Thanks so much Trisha and Veralynne!