Advice to my nephew, Eamon, on the day after his third birthday

Mama's fine, don't mind the cracks

But watch where you put your feet.

A life is led in countless steps

And strangers you will meet.

Each one's a home and family

Each is a trap to bind your toes

Every place you go's somewhere you'll leave

And every path, to one more flows.

Nod your head at the lunatic

Hide yawns below the preacher

Hold the door for every girl your age

Whether you're glad to reach her.

Laugh with anyone who strikes you funny

Cry with everyone pathetic

Let every dream a dreamer shares

Be your own soul's diuretic.

For everything you say and write,

Each and every word

Will sound to you like heaven's voice

And to Uncle Doug, absurd.

Keep your feet beneath you-

Your day has come at last-

Keep one eye open, one hand held out,

And waddle forward to your past.

CORNY, adj. Avuncular

Social Network

This world's become a narrow one,
A billion-thronged bar,
Where strangers meet for folly and fun,
Like clowns meet in a car.

There's little I can give or take,

Hear me now, old dudes,

You can't get from a bull or drake

But cowboy songs and attitudes.
I'm not too sure I like this world
(And wasn't so sure, then)
But now we can corral ourselves
Without need of a pen.

CORRESPONDENCE, n. An incursion by breeze, at times preferable to a siege.

Creditor

CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

2010 Update: A previous patron turned parasite, such as a silkworm after harvest.

Cremation

CREMATION, n. The process by which the cold meats of humanity are warmed over."

2010 Update: The expedited return of ashes to ashes. A university lecture for the dead.

Cremona

CREMONA, n. A high-priced kind of violin made in Connecticut. A genuine Connecticut Cremona is supposed to be mentioned in the following lines of Omar Khayyam:

Hey, diddle, diddle!
The cat got the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
But the little do stayed
To hear the thing played,
And died of the very first tune.

2010 Update: A small Italian city notable for her prominent religious figures and renaissance culture, and so indistinguishable from other small Italian cities.

Crescent

CRESCENT, n. The moon in the early stages of its monthly growth, when it is a little too bright for burglars and a little too dark for lovers. An order founded by Renatus of Anjou is called the Order of the Crescent on account of its membership of lunatics. The services of this Order to San Francisco politics consisted in the establishing of a grand Perquisition to enforce the Salaric Law.

2010 Update: A fertility symbol employed by the moon to represent harvest and the seasons of human endeavor.

Little leviathan

Was it not Hobbes who said that fancy

Is decaying of the sense?

And the dreams that come come along

As our sense relents?

Invention is that fancy

As it's copied into being

When hands describe the fading thought

Of objects we'd been seeing.

So what is this creative spark

That quickens blogging bards?

The decaying of our own sweet selves

Into dots on memory cards?

CREATIVITY, n. The final flourish of a fading complaint.

Crest

CREST, n. An heraldic device displayed by the American descendants of Sir Crassus Vulgarius, Bearonet, one of the famous retainers of William the Corncurer.

Son of ten fathers! would you sport a crest

To honor one, ignoring all the rest.

The one who in his life you did disgrace

By taking on his name without his face?

His crest? The only one he knew, poor fool,

Adorned the dunce-cap that he wore at school.

Go paint a dandelion and a rag

Upon your panels, and then gravely brag

About their origin- how every panel

Proves that the founder of your line was Dan'l,

Who, cast among the lions' growling pack,

Contemptuously turned on them his back;

But one presuming brute, tradition teaches,

Tore with his tooth the seat of Dan'l's breeches.

'Twas thus the dent de lion and the rag

Became the arms of that illustrious wag.

And ever since each male of Dan'l's line,

Yourself included, as a pious sign

And token of his Scriptural descent,

Has worn a rag protruding from a rent.

2010 Update: An illustrated topknot by which American freemen may lay claim to European authority.

Critic

CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.

There is a land of pure delight,
Beyond the Jordan's flood,
Where saints, apparelled all in white,
Fling back the critic's mud.

And as he legs it through the skies,
His pelt a sable hue,
He sorrows sore to recognize
The missiles that he threw.
—Orrin Goof

2010 Update: A craftsman working in the arts of others.

Cur

CUR, n. The lowest rank in the hierarchy of dogs.

2010 Update: A dog, scandalized by the cruel comparison of a man to it.

Curiosity

CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.

2010 Update: Dissatisfaction with existing misapprehensions. Desire without fingers.

The Center Cannot Hold

Shoveling and shoveling onto a widening pyre,

Those nearest the pile get buried.

Dried up manure, moistened by hearthy fire,

Spews clouds of black smoke on the mad and the harried.

Surely some revelation's at hand

Surely the dingdong's our rebellious bell.

But is the center taken first because they're the unmanned

Or to give Lucifer time to add circles to hell?

-William Specter Yeats

CENTRIST, adj. Occupying the far fringe of both sides.

Yes, Olivia, this is about a brothel.

Culprit

CULPRIT, n. The other fellow.

2010 Update: The farthest neighbor.

Counterfeit

COUNTERFEIT, adj. Similar in appearance but of a different order of merit.

2010 Update: Lacking the premeditation of an original.

Curse

CURSE, v.t. Energetically to belabor with a verbal slap-stick. This is an operation which in literature, particularly in the drama, is commonly fatal to the victim. Nevertheless, the liability to a cursing is a risk that cuts but a small figure in fixing the rates of life insurance.

2010 Update: To summarize in a single profanity, or string of profanities, the unabridged contents of an illustrated technical manual.

Custard

CUSTARD, n. A detestable substance produced a malevolent conspiracy of the hen, the cow and the cook.

2010 Update: The reproductive process, sweetened and baked.

Cackle

CACKLE, v.i. To celebrate the birth of an egg.

They say that hens do cackle loudest when

. There's nothing vital in the egg they've laid;

. And there are hens professing to have made

A study of mankind, who say that men

Whose business is to drive the tongue or pen

. Make the clamourous fanfaronade

. O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid

In this respect they're really like the hen.

Lo! The drum-major in his coat of gold,

. His blazing breeches and high-towering cap,

Imperiously pompous, "bloody, bold

. And resolute"-an awe-inspiring chap!

Who'd think this hero's only warlike virtue

Is that in battle he will never hurt you?

2009 Update: To argue as the fowl argues or laugh as the witch laughs, or to contemplate as Lou Dobbs contemplated.

Cane

CANE, n. A convenient article for admonishing the gentle slanderer and the inconsiderate rival.

2009 Update: A portable foundation with which to reinforce the rigidity of the elderly, or upon which to erect an upright child. A mobile martyrdom, Crux mobilis.

Cudgel

CUDGEL, n. A medicine for external application to the head and shoulders of a fool.

2009 Update: A heavy club which, the likeliest weapon of Friar Tuck, has since obsolesced in favor of theology.

Coenobite

COENOBITE, n. A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.

O Coenobite, O coenobite,
Monastical gregarian,
You differ from the anchorite,
That solitudinarian:
With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
With dropping shots he makes him sick.
—Quincy Giles

2009 Update: A contemplative who leaves town and home in search of community.