Friday, August 19

words

rusticle
n. - An elongated structure often found on underwater shipwrecks, somewhat like a stalactite or icicle in appearance, consisting of microbial and fungal growths inside a layer of iron oxide.

Wednesday, August 10

What Yesterday Appeared a Scar

of brilliant green
in the icy lake, today
arcs blue across its face and far.
And where this morning
still is frozen,
coming hours will warm until
the water's softer
nature's finally chosen.

Half my life is gone
to others' business,
which, well done or not, it
matters not but that it's gone
and won't be gotten back.

And half my love is wasted too.
Wasted not on you, where all my
deeps and deeps of love
are dammed and so belong,
but on loving you
wrong. My sorrow
is tomorrow's only season,
and it comes on now

like this cold thaw comes
upon the lake,
or like a soft song one sings to sing
the past to sleep,
only to keep it wide awake.

Todd Boss, "What Yesterday Appeared a Scar"

Monday, August 8

words

job
v. - Of a bird: to peck. More generally: to penetrate into, to stab, pierce, or prod at; To jerk (a horse's mouth) with a bit. Also with horse as object; To thrust (something) abruptly into something else.

to job kisses: to kiss

words

klieg
n. - In full, klieg light. Orig., a kind of arc lamp invented for use as a studio light; hence, any powerful electric light used in film-making, or in television.

klieg eyes
n. - an eye condition caused by exposure to very bright light, characterized by watering and conjunctivitis; hence klieg-eyed adj.

lamp
n. - A vessel containing oil, which is burnt at a wick, for the purpose of illumination. Now also a vessel of glass or some similar material, enclosing the source of illumination, whether a candle, oil, gas-jet, or incandescent wire.
Often preceded by some defining word, as arc lamp, Argand lamp, Davy lamp, electric lamp, gas lamp, spirit lamp, sun lamp, Vesta lamp.

argand
n. - Applied to a lamp invented by Aimé Argand about 1782, with a cylindrical wick, which allows a current of air to pass to both inner and outer surfaces of the flame, thus securing more perfect combustion and brighter light; also to a ring-shaped gas burner constructed on the same principle.

Davy
n. - The miner's safety-lamp invented by Sir Humphry Davy, in which the flame is surrounded with wire-gauze, so as to prevent its communication to explosive gases outside the lamp.

spirit lamp
n. - A lamp fed by methylated or other spirits, and used esp. for heating, boiling, or cooking.