Homonyms are words which share a name, or “have the same name” (etymologically), whether by spelling or sound, despite the vest difference between those two variance. Usually, homonyms refer to words which are spelled the same . . . Like the arid desert heart of the one who deserts you at Piggly-Wiggly.
Homophones are words which sound the same but are spelled differently, and mean different things . . . Like except and accept. Social life feels very accepting until it begins excepting you out of it. The film reel makes it difficult to discern what is real. To write the wrong is not to right it. I'll find you in the aisle with an ad for a tropical isle beside it.
The altar is where flesh alters itself into bread. The band got banned by local officials. A bear who is bare comes bearing acorns. The bread we eat, the habits bred by shared meals. To sell one's blood includes tiny red cells. The cord on the floor, the chord in the air. To elicit a smile, or to provoke desire with an illicit photo. The fairy has wings. The ferry has an engine and floats on water. Someone ferried us here. We marry and hope to be merry. He may mince words when looking for mints.
The oar helps move the boat, or something, in the sentence where the ore is buried beneath the earth. Each soil has its ores.
To sew is to connect with a thread. So, he said. Sow the plants seed that food may come of it.
One may pray for mercy. Another may prey on the merciful.
His hands on my waist, the waste of clean water.
One particular beast’s tail is another's tale to tell. Yet another’s tell to read and recognize in the game.
We is massive. But the wee is tiny. And oui, elsewhere, is yes.
Anyway, it’s fun to keep a running list of homophones in your poetry notebook. They make great hinge words and have the capacity to turbo-charge a volta.
[Motivating myself to work on this project by collaging and making an image public— this is my tactic. This is how I nudge myself towards the things I set aside in draft…]
Here’s what Charles Simic wrote in his essay, “The True Adventures of a Franz Kafka’s Cage”:
While the bickering of two housewives over whose son broke the window of a funeral parlor was putting the judge to sleep, a policeman brought into the court room a birdcage accused of propositioning a street sparrow to have a go at one of its swings.
A literary cage is, I think, a lovely conceit.