Ian FitzGerald

Society of Silent Second Consonants

(read aloud, emphasizing silent second consonants)

There’s a conference coming up for the Society of Silent Second Consonants,
to be held in BanF F.

Of aL L the silent leT Ters, the most aG Grieved is the silent second consonant.
The muted twin deserves a beT Ter hearing.

Who made the rule that says the character on the right has no right to speech!
No conferences to defend wronged vowels because
the fix is already in.
Five, maybe six (out of 26) and
they got a law paS Sed that says
you can’t make a word without them!   Not a word!
Those vowels sure know how to loB By!

The Society has sent leT Ters to plead our case,
documenting how graM Marians unilateraL Ly
silenced every other eG G Canadians eat for breakfast,
riP Ped the puR Ring heart from poor FluF Fy,
sliced the choices on buF Fets
and tore the core from aP Ple (the computer and the fruit).

Worse – the few who uphold silent second consonant’s rights
are ridiculed and stigmatized!  CaL Led stuT Terers!

The Society of Silent Second Consonants counts on your suP Port,
hopes you raL Ly round this worthy cause.
Send a cheque, write your MP or … just start speaking like this.

Onward! … to BanF F!

Bios

Ian FitzGerald’s professional background in advertising led to teaching at Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, AB.  He has trifled with poetry since teenage and is getting dangerously close to thinking he should take it seriously… maybe. He is quite keen on poetry and hopes one day that will be requited. His poem “Decibels” was published in We Are One – Poems from the Pandemic (2020); “Sounding” in Subterrranean Blue Poetry Volume X, Issue IV (2022); “Through a Certain Mirror” in Framed & Familiar: 101 Portraits (Wet Ink Books, 2022); “Ear Drums” in FreeFall Magazine (Fall 2022); as well as two ‘slogan poems’ accepted for publication in Journal of Customer Behaviour (Westburn Publishing, 2022/2023). [provided for the poem “Society of Silent Second Consonants”]

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