Two Poems
Lucas Bernhardt

How Little Is Enough

Of exaggerations discretely chosen,
etiquette will permit
sensual charm lent contrary merits,
their spiritual love the object
of many allusions produced
successfully by sensual impulsions --
another conquest -- one thing
intent upon being warned of
rain, the clock struck.



from A Dictionary of Lost Usage

Agnostic, n. one who followed the short-lived doctrine of the acrobatic extension of the solar system. adj. temporal, fallible.

biscuit, n. a children's game resembling the act or period of courting or wooing a woman.

depoliticize, v. to spoil by the promotion of learning.

dereliction, n. 1. an utter insolvency. 2. a state of contempt for such as a mischievous child. 3. waste, wilderness.

Detroit, n. a person or thing containing coal deposits.

fidelity, n. 1. any prepared substance consisting of four equal parts. 2. just and honorable falsehood.

gizzard, n. 1. an articulate, air-breathing bird or arthropod.

implication, v. to interpret conventionally the overlapping interests of linguistics. n. the cheapest possible extension of a town or city.

incursion, n. 1. a handful of the dust from the footsteps of a messenger. 2. entrance into the central nervous system through peripheral nerves.

justify, v. 1. to move in a circle. 2. to add (music speech, etc.) to a film or tape.

laudable, adj. capable of being evacuated from a place of danger.

mauger, prep. without payment for; uncompensating.

narwhal, n. a poisonous diplomatic agent.

neurone, n. 1. any materialistic implication of contemporary science. 2. an ascetic who concentrates on magnetic phenomenon.

notal, adj. pertaining to the beltline.

pawl, n. a portion of a machine commended to partner with a corresponding indentation in the way of a whip graft, saddle graft, or side graft.

propose, v. 1. to answer for; to warrant. 2. to measure downward or extend far below the surface. 3. to surround; to include; to encompass.

psychical, adj. concerning the repose of an individual authorized to interpret confused dreams.

pyrotechnics, n. 1. the intellect wrapped in gasoline. 2. an enraged form of jade.

quaint, adj. 1. born under or otherwise influenced by lofty summer nights. 2. Edenic though inclining to darkness.

risk, n. the use of experiments to reconcile the extension of one's territory with his genetic inheritance. v. to relax party control over literature.

satrap, n. 1. the purview of a petty truth or admonition. 2. an untranslated relic.

semantics, n. 1. those appointed to rule over the abode of the dead. 2. a chain of islands in West Africa. 3. eellike fish having undeveloped eyes and the skin of sheep or goats.

show, n. 1. the evil consequences of making necessary links between sacred and profane history. 2. when a concept is used to define the exercise of state power to recreate the intellectual atmosphere of the days of the dying empire. v. 1. to produce a uniquely melancholic effect. 2. to disorder. 3. to give; to grace.

superstition, n. 1. the sum of one's heredity and the subsequent modifications of one's environment. 2. a future biographer. 3. slander, ill health, misrepresentation, and intrigues.

thermionics, n. the study of total theatre.

thing, n. 1. any of a number of black, tarry substances that burn with a bright flame. 2. a macaronic category.

urban, adj. pertaining to the coexistence of exaggerated immunological reactivity and rifle fire.

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