LOVING SCRABBLE

by Tricia Knoll

"Hasbro pulls its support of Scrabble's organizing tournament organization -- the National Scrabble Association". --NY Times, July 14, 2013

Words for love: Japanese 2, Sanskrit 96, Ancient Persian 80, Greek 3, English 1

She, sidewinding from the center star: TWOS.

he building from sibilance, up to down: ONES

she slides, pushing tiles over and under ONES, LONESOME

grabbing g, he forges EGO

she built LOVE from loneliness

and he VAGUE from love

she bridges loneliness to vague: NAG

he pounced on VAGUE to USURP

and she that P for PAPA

he pushed TIT up to TWOS

triumph in hard combinations
bedding down together as if
WOO and WED
DARLING and ADORE
VEIL and LACE
TUX and TINGLE and COMMIT
outshone
YES down from YOKE
BUZZ and BLESS and BED,
JOY, JISM, SORROW, and SPARK
EX (triple word score) and SUE and LEFT
FIRE from IRE, ACE hung from AWE
STALE and MATE

she’s left at end with an unplaceable U
he with I


Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who loves word games, plays several on her I-Phone and has known some scarey competitive women Scrabble players.

THE FRAGONARDS PLAY A HOME GAME

by M. A. Schaffner

Image source: Pébéo

Through all my life I’ve grown up just enough
to step back through the looking glass and sing
nonsense songs while shaving.  You know the tunes.
Context has everything to do with death,
and that changes constantly, so today
I’ll settle for a six pack and a game
of football or Scrabble.  Let small dogs watch
as we wrestle with ambition and win
one more time, because we know its weak points.
Last night there was a moon.  There will be again
long after we uncork our last bottle.
We solved the world’s problems.  It will have more,
but I don’t need to work them any more
than will finches nesting over the grill,
or their neighbors, the squirrels, or the cats
hunting stupidly, garden to garden.


M. A. Schaffner has work recently published or forthcoming in The Hollins Critic, Magma, Tulane Review, Gargoyle, and Skirmish Magazine.  Other writings include the poetry collection The Good Opinion of Squirrels, and the novel War Boys.  Schaffner used to work as a civil servant, but now serves civil pugs.