Priceless!

Christmas on the Moon

NASA has found water on the moon
and the intergalactic geeks exult
at the notion of a lunar space station.

Christmas has come early in Houston:
spangled gifts, the renewed dream
of intimacy with heavenly bodies,

intercourse at astronomic costs.

Christopher T. George



The Price of Poetry

Its worth?
Butterfly scales?
Beauty lacks any price.
We write masterpieces, demand
no wage.

Christopher T. George

At Desert Moon Review, Guy Kettelhack commented:

"well, we write, anyway! masterpieces? hmm: once every 164 yrs. maybe

"'beauty lacks any price' -- interesting twist on 'priceless' - sort of gives it a spin I hadn't thought of before - although it does perhaps imply that it 'lacks' a price because we haven't given it one yet. priceless (though cliche: wouldn't suggest you use the word here) implies we couldn't give it one.

I replied:

Yes, Guy, I do think "priceless" has two distinct meanings:

1) something is worth so much that you can put no price to it; and

2) the thing is so worthless that it has no price.

So two opposite meanings both with the same word, two meanings for the same price. Priceless! Ha ha.



I wonder how many other words have definitions that mean the exact opposite? This proves once again, what we already knew:

What a strange language English is!

Chris