PAGAN, n.  A McWiccan

PAIN, n.  The goddess of anaesthesia.

PAINTING, n.  The future’s look at the past as it will have been.

PALACE, n.  Once upon a time, a grand castle of stone or marble in which there lived a royal eminence with countless servants, slaves, soldiers and sycophants who all worked together in a glorious enterprise taking wheat from peasants.  Today, a 6000 square foot house on a 5000 square foot lot or a hovel by a ditch, in which countless royals live with taciturn families and rent their meals.

A man's home is his palace, none is finer.

May he be satisfied at the diner.

-Andreas Hoopnoggle

PALATABLE, adj.  In a solution of bile, battery acid and other bad humors dilute enough to be administered orally.

PALM, n.  The portion of the hand offered to display the respect and consideration that hides cards discretely.

PANDEMONIUM, n.  A space containing 1000 hockey fans, 500 conventioneers, 100 drunks, 10 abstainers, 5 children, 2 teachers or one opportunity.

PANDER, v.  To represent in congress.

PARRICIDE, n.  A temporary evanescence of taciturn resentment and benign neglect, locally newsworthy.

PARTISAN, adj.  In the evolutionary stage between a dinosaur and a fossil.

PARTISANSHIP, n.  The fountain of loyalty, river of punditry and the mud of effluent hypocrisy.

PARTNER, n.  A co-catastrophe.

PARTNERSHIP, n.  A mutual waiver of superiority.

PAST, n.  An age of heroism preceding a moment of sloth which augurs the dawn of reward.

PASTIME, n.  Job.

PATIENCE, n.  Hope’s feeding tube.

PATRIOT, n.  Someone willing to sacrifice personal morality for public hypocrisy.

PATRIOTISM, n.  The vigilant elevation and protection of a nation's most cherished, enlightened and durable moral convictions no matter the sacrifice required. Practiced equally by soldier, statesman and citizen. In the first case through fire, in the second by wind and in the third at supper.

PEACE, n.  The stated purpose of every martial leader as weight loss is the purpose of every customer at Denny's, prosperity of the gambler and education that of this writer. PURPOSE should, perhaps, be the word redefined but by a superior lexicographer.

PEDIGREE, n.  That which ordains succession in a monarchy and election in a democracy.

PENITENT, adj.  In the transitional phase between crimes.

PERDITION, n.  1.  The condemnation delivered unto sinners by a just and wrathful believer.

2.  A lengthy sermon.

PERICARDIUM, n.  A sheath installed by providence to protect the sincerity of the ribs.

PERSEVERANCE, n.  The slave to greed, soldier for envy, pupil of ignorance and father of nearly all the world’s children.

PERSEVERATE, v.i.  To solve futility with frequency.

PESSIMISM, n.  The product of faith in one's clairvoyance, hope for one's neighbors and the charity of including oneself in the damnation imagined.

PESTILENCE, n.  Any corruption of the flesh unexplained by the neighbor’s sin.

Gather 'round children and hear a ditty

How Pestilence at last learned pity

From a tender crowd of politicians

Or patience, at least, in his mission.

For once upon a warm, damp night,

On blackest horse, with skin of white

A horseman of apocalypse

Stopped off to drink or, maybe, piss.

The bar he chose was in D.C.

And Democrats were on T.V.

Engaged in a debate.

Four horsemen bring the Earth its fate.

For petty grievance, here were eight.

One proclaimed compassion

For the poor and the dirty

The next swore firm action

To defend our liberty

One expressed frustration

At injustice by race

The next claimed administration

Of competence and taste.

And on and on the candidates prattled

Until The Plague's dry bones were rattled.

By the time the horseman drained his beer

He forsook his call for now and here

As he put his work up on a shelf,

In rasping voice he told himself:

"Though Satan's fire burn eternally,

It shan't outsmoke democracy.

And though I'd come to spread corruption

I see no sense in interruption."

PETTY, adj.  Noble.

PHILANTHROPIST, n.  Someone who, having taken an orchard by guile offers the previous tenant applesauce.

PHILOSOPHER, n.  Someone who stares at the sun and blinks in the fog.

PHRENOLOGY, n.  A former theory of the human mind in which the capabilities, tendencies and neuroses of the patient were determined by inspecting the skull instead of the insurer.

PIE, n.  Culture beyond parody.

PIETY, n.  Sufficient outrage.

PIOUS, adj.  On camera.

PIOUSLY, adv.  In the manner of Saint Thomas Delay or a monkey with a handful.

PIRACY, n.  The restoration of popular culture to its authors.

PITIFUL, adj.  Victorious, politically.

PLAGIARIZE, v.t.  To treat dullness homeopathically with a dilution of wit.

PLATONIC, adj.  In the United States, featuring bonds of affection and baseball.  Robust.

POETRY, n.  A mechanism for adding depth to the base. An alternative to the post-hole digger and shovel for when accuracy is unnecessary and a small tool will do.

POKER, n.  The fairest form of commerce in which chance favors the wicked, rather than their grandchildren.

POLITENESS, n.  A silken glove around a rusty hook.

POLITICIAN, n.  A particle of the the most robust plague. In ancient Egypt, for example, the angel of death relented while Pharoah remained. In republican, democratic, communist, fascist and despotic forms of government, a member of that lucky class which is preferred by no one but selected by all. The politician can be distinguished from the bureaucrat who is preferred by no one and selected by one.

POOR, adj.  Drunk without a story to tell.

POPULISM, n.  The theory that people are gullible, vulnerable, inferior and foolish and so must be sovereign.

A Senator and protegé

Were sitting in the park one day.

The old man's speech was topical

(Cigars made him philosophical.)

"My boy," the Senator proceeded

"I'll tell you how my work succeeded.

I worried for the working folk,

The jobs and wages for which I spoke

That were snuck out of our nation

Against the tide of immigration:"

Compassion for the common, see,

Bought me my nobility."

"Isn't competition good?" the lad replied

"For consumers and the worker's pride?"

"You miss the point," the elder scolded,

"To injury, we are beholden

Not to effort, nor to fortune

Nor to progress for our portion

But to the restless, troubled mob

That gives the Senator his job

Convince them that they have been cheated

And you'll never be defeated

Persuade them they've been robbed of pleasure,

And they'll buy your sympathy with treasure.

POPULIST, n.  One who ventures to govern, tax, regulate and confine the common people without detectable spite.

PORTENT, n.  The confirmation of our suspicions by the weather.

PORTRAY, v.t.  To enlighten or make light of.

PORTRAYAL, n. A slander on stage.

POSE, v.i.  To self-deceive.

POSEIDON, n.  The Greek God of the briny depths, the bounding main and the salty stereotype.

POSITION, n.  The Good News with bad ends and brimstone.

POSSE, n.  The array of townsmen not yet under suspicion.

POSSESSED, adj.  A preapological state.  In prehab.

POSSESSIVE, adj..  Possessed by the present.  Disappointed.

POSSIBLY, adv.  Wishfully.

POST, n.  The anchor of an acreage.

POSTHUMOUSLY, adv.  At first glance.

POSTINDUSTRIAL, adj.  Pre-populist.

POSTMODERN, adj.  Unmemorable.

POSTNATAL, adj.  Pro-choice.

POSTNUPTIAL, adj.  Swept away in a storm-tossed sea of stoicism.

POSITIVE, adj.  Compliant with advice to the lovelorn, languishing and lost.

POSTSCRIPT, n.  The portion of a personal letter following the flattery.

POULTRY, n.pl.  Feathered Expression.

POVERTY, n.  The product of a rich imagination.

PRACTICALLY, adv.  Cheaply, in business.  Impossibly, in politics.  Almost, in enterprise.  Unaffectionately, in affection.  A word with an impractical assortment of meanings.

PRAYING MANTIS, n.  One who worships herself in the morning, the grass in the afternoon and the sphinx in the evening.  Semi-homophone of graying Francis.

PRECIPITATE, n.  The solids that emerge from a liquid such as lees in wine, accusations in a cloud or pretence in a cup of tea.

PRECOCIOUS, adj.  Fermented while not yet ripe.

PREDATOR, n.  Prey with faith.

PREDESTINATION, n.  The inevitable conclusion of hindsight.

PREDICAMENT, n.  A ballot booth before a true believer.

PREHENSILE, adj.  Adapted for self-expression and theft.

The Elephant and The Orangutan

At the annual conference of the Pan-Phylum Prehensility Society of Southeast Asia, an elephant delivered a much-anticipated keynote address, entitled Magnitude and Manipulation: The Pachyderm Approach. He began by exclaiming "Flexibility is queen of the evolutionary arts! Not only can the elephant's trunk bend in any direction at any point but it handles liquids, solids and gas!" In the second row, an Orangutan drummed on her desk with twenty fingers and toes, and wondered what life would be like with a tail.

PREHISTORIC, adj.  Pertaining to events the satire of which is forgotten.

PREPOSTEROUS, adj. Contrary.

PRESENTABLE, adj.  Wearing underwear, if at all, beneath ones pants and smelling passably sober.

PRIVATION, n.  An abundance of vegetables.

PROBATIVE, adj.  Extrospective.

PROBE, n.  Any of many instruments designed to shed sound where there is darkness.

PROBITY, n.  The sincerity of a tree falling in the wilderness with no one around to hear.

PRODUCTIVE, adj.  Silent, serious and still, as described with global authority by wolves and worms.

PRODUCTIVITY, n.  Fervently and measurable present.  Absenteeism without the travel and coughing.

PROGNOSTICATION, n.  The amalgamation of numbers, statistics, trends and theory in concrete for a weather balloon.  An alchemy transforming dull and unreliable data into sexless, dragon-poor fantasy.

Some say in fire, some offer by ice

That before this year ends, the world will end twice.

Some say in prosperity the next year will find us,

And especially you, if, investing, you mind us.

Some say the nations will die of man's peace

And some predict war if deployments decrease.

Some say the next big thing will be a new number

And the next star musician like last year's but dumber.

But two things are certain and promised eternal,

As we make each new circuit past Apollo infernal:

When winter returns laying this year on it's bier,

The droning of experts and the prating of seers.

--2007

PROMISCUOUS, adj.  Newsworthy.

PROPHESY, v.  To err too soon.

PUN, n.  Wit’s Elba.

PUNCTUALITY, n.  The virtue by which an American partygoer finds his Peruvian host in a bathrobe.

PUNISHMENT, n.  Satisfaction.

PURIFICATION, n.  The wholesale substitution of new toxins for old poisons, such as replacing authoritarianism with populism or formaldehyde for blood.

PURGATORY, n.  Home in the afterlife for the devout sinner, well-gratified but not well-graced.  According to Dante the liberation from a life of sin is a longer process than the sin itself or the liberation from life.