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Tanka Project #23: Halloween

I'm throwing order to the winds to get this one in for Halloween, #22 will follow shortly.

This is my first experiment in Scots poetry, which I shouldn't really be writing because I can't speak it, but there are some truly awesome words, some of which really need to get wider use! Particularly 'oorie' - that's just glorious.

Some of the words are defined below the tankain detail, but really the word oorie is a poem in itself.


Basic translation: It seems always cold/and the low lying mist is miserable and eerie/feet are always totally caked in mud/when the ghosties come through./They have tales that need to be told.

Specially glorious words:

clartit - related to clarty - muddy, clartit means totally caked in mud

dayfelly - a low lying mist in a hollow or depression

oorie - dismal, gloomy, miserable looking, hanging from the cold, cold and cheerless, depressive, lonely and sad, feeling of the supernatural, eerie, uneasy.

I reckon we need to get these words into general circulation. Don't be oorie, spread the word!


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