I call these simulacrum rhymes, words that look and sound much alike except in one syllable; they are not quite homophones, nor are they exactly consonations (slant rhymes):
Extra virgin - extroversion
Manioc - maniac
Anonymous - euonymus
Picaresque - picturesque
Simile - Semele
Booty - beauty
Lisbon – lesbian
Not long ago I wrote a sestina using simulacrum rhymes as the head-teleutons – that is to say, instead of using them as end-words (teleutons), I reversed the normal practice and began each of the lines with repeated simulacrum rhymes:
THE CATHEDRAL
Carven images bedeck its eaves;
Cloven hooves of fauns must scrabble where
Craven blackbirds arch their wings and call
Coven members to their burning duties.
Corvine discourses are hushed within the
Cavern of the nave. Do knaves fill this
Cavern once again? Are these figures
Carven at, or on the altar? Are they
Corvine in their nature? How long have they
Cloven faith from service to formulate a
Coven of figures clothed in cerements?
Craven from the beginning, have they preyed
Cravenly on the choir serving this
Cavern of piety? Was their warlocks'
Coven formed expressly for this purpose?
Carven in the doctrine of three males
Cloven from Adam's rib: Father, Son, and
Corvine Holy Spirit, never from the
Curving womb? Was doctrine ever so
Craven, so fearful of the feminine? Can
Cloven hooves be heard scuttling among this
Cavern's aisles, before these seven stations
Carven with the symbols of the rood?
Covens have been purported to exist from
Coventry to Navarre, all of them
Corvine in their kind...wings hover over
Carven gargoyles in the umber eaves.
Craven shadows linger in this empty
Cavern, in the apse and in the choir.
Cloven vows lie riven at the altar,
Cloven vows that echo in this final
Coven of the Holy Ghost, in this
Cavern of the lost where in the vault
Corvine hosts prey upon the children,
Craven blackbirds raven far beneath
Carven gargoyles sitting in the eaves.
Cloven vows fall beneath this corvine
Coven dedicated to the craven
Cavern-dwellers, caryatids carven.
-- by Lewis Turco, all rights reserved.
This reverse sestina utilizing simulacrum rhyme was originally published in the Revival Issue of december, Vol. 24, Winter 2013, pp. 202-3.
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