Phonaesthetics Carolyn Martin

Phonaesthetics*

I read somewhere that language experts claim when sense is pushed aside, the most ear-pleasing English sounds slide through the words cellar door.

Not through the charm of velvet/epiphany/ lithe/purple/serendipity/ cinnamon/soliloquy, but through the scraped-up entry to the stale dark space where my mother scrubbed our clothes and I escaped up-stair storms.

Cellar door, celadore, seladore –chant these words out loud and I’m strolling on Assisi cobblestones while Cimabue’s frescoes peel. Or flying to the Vegas strip where gondoliers row arias beneath a painted sky. Or settling down in Vinnie’s Bar with friends and pizza pie.

So much for sense when sounds annihilate cinder blocks, concrete floors, dank memories. Three notes –smoothand pure –soar like kisses from my fingertips toward the cobbled sky. Cellar door. Ché bella, cellar door.

Carolyn Martin

(First published in Cross Review)

*The study of the euphony and cacophony of words without regard for semantics.