Beauty and the Beast

I like ugly words
ogre and rickshaw
brink and denude
words you drop
words you swap
to beautify your rhyme
maybe an ogre is a beast
a rickshaw is a tuk tuk
in a cooler clime

What makes a word ugly?
is it the shape of your mouth
when you say it? Is it the scrape
in your throat when you say screech
Or the way your tummy twists
when you say glug
is that why you plug in aesthetic words
exotic words from faraway places
a nod to a trip you might not have made
a place you visited on a hungover day

where are the beautiful words designed?
are they made by some god in a velvet seat
is that what makes so pretty a v?
is it that beautiful words can always be heard
no matter whether you whisper or murmur?
is it that they carry some piece of your mind
that the shape of the word is artfully defined
that a letter is placed with thought to its sound
and a word is more equal with those letters around

I see the divide is deep in our hearts
that we can’t tell good words and bad apart
that words are made of memories bright and blue
that you take all your feelings and put them in too
add in your bias and what you’ve been taught
a beast can be beautiful though an ogre cannot