One Hundred Word Wordle!

Offered by Rallentanda. Go HERE for the 100 words and details of fantabulous prizes . . .

Rall set a hundred-word-wurdle,
a helluva literary hurdle.
She's offered a prize!
That's quite a surprise.
Well worth risking serious brain-curdle

(10 bloggers had something to say)

Pros and Cons Will Be Visible After Approval
Focus said: Oh . . love your ardent fire!

Magic! A choir of primavera

butterflies on crocuses! It really glows.
Through foetid nights, drudgery and storms

your verse trickles like silk across my nape,

delicate as swans dusted with snow . . .

Hokus-Pokus said: Too, too polite!

This stuff is desperate. It’s one long rant,

the most amazing pap I’ve ever gazed on -

lexically tattered – keep the day job.

Shipwreck said: Words like icy flecks, like light

flashing from diamantes – and yet

we’re prey to laughter! As I read, the logs

glow red, my glass of gin forgotten.

You are a star, a joy among blog rumbles.

The Dangerous Trilby said: Ignore

this planted, modulated praise. Your verse

lumbers! It wilts like moistened chocolate.

It reads like sparrows twittering at lunch.

It is pure b**ls – (as next week’s doubtless will be.)

The Terminator said: It has still beauty,

alluring as a kiss, yet hot enough

to warm my heart. It gives me frissons.

You’re one amazing poet. I’ll be back!

Jet-Propelled said: Wow! This rings my bell!

Grubby said: This deserves bloggers hurling

rotten fruit. Can’t you escape this half-baked

mumbling stuff? Some cherries . . . “jonquils” . . rather sweet,
but “sheep” are your downfall. “Sheep” do not – repeat -

do not grow from leaf buds! Urgent you go

to school. You’re doing damage to our Muse.

Potbelly said: This wafts like distant oceans,

recalls the blush and bloom of roses.

Your ‘pot of figs’ in line five-sixty-nine’s

a touch that goes right through me. So well done!

Fog of War said: As I walk along

life’s road, I’ll clasp the white clouds of your words

to keep me young.

                                       Mr. Sneezer said: I can’t

latch on to “tough as tapered colls”,

or that “snapped branch” (Line 6). “Freeze” should be switched

for “frieze?” How do you do it? Rolling dice

for phrases torn from someone else’s gloss?

Thick as maquillage, your diction! Further,

there's no market for it.  Stick to fiction.

Magpie Tales#36

Words or Wisdom Revisited.
(thanks to Willow's weekly prompt)

Shutting half your stable door,

means half your horse has bolted.

Two "gal" legs on the stable floor,

but the "lop" legs have revolted.

Last night you had a one-horse horse

(Don't just stand there and glower!)

Saddle the half that you have left.

Ride forth at half horse-power.

"My Kingdom for just half a horse!(*)

So let's be on our way!"

The front half sotto voce said -

"Okay," Or was that "Neigh."?

And Lo!  The front legs work quite well,

(though its rump drags on the ground)

Bring Superglue to bind things up

when the back-legs half is found.

Follow those semihorse-shoe tracks
along the bosky path.
Count only hoofprints in matched pairs -
that doesn't need much math.

And while you hunt the missing legs
and wonder, "Why'd they want to
leave me thus?", the front legs say
"Perhaps they've joined the panto!"(**)

(*)  Arcane misquote from W.S's "Richard III"
(**) Pantomime horses always come in two halves

Poetry Bus October 11th.

This week, Niamh B. asks aspiring Bloggers to base their poem on a short article or story from the media (magazine, newspaper etc)

A young girl who was blown out to sea on a set of inflatable teeth was rescued by a man on an inflatable lobster. A coastguard spokesman commented, "This sort of thing is all too common". (The Times)

Not Rhyming but Rambling.

Yes! Far too common! Time that it was stopped.

Next thing you know the punters will want demos

with Coastgaurd Marshals watching from the shore

for drifting teeth and wind-assisted lobsters

drumming up the Channel in the mad, March days

with cargoes of little girls screaming 

for their Mummies, and pot-bellied old gentlemen

thrashing to their rescue on cheap tin trays,

their limbs like little paddle wheels, churning

through the brine. Perhaps they dream Her Majesty

will recognize their gallantry, and medals, pinned . . .

No pins!  No pins!  There's blow-up toys about!

You want the bulging lobsters and the teeth

to go all soggy in a hissy-fit?

This is a Safety Issue!  You want your daughter

astride her teeth to be blown out the water?

You want the man astride his lobster pink

to end up like a flounder in the drink?

So keep our molars safe!  Also our fins!

IKEA sell protective caps for pins.

(With apologies to Stevie Smith and John Masefield)

Magpie Tales#35

Willow's picture prompt this week

Season of Mists and Failing Concentration . . .

I think we all should catch the falling leaves.

before they reach the ground. Or at least, try.

Why? Because I once came down from a rowan tree

with neither let nor hindrance.  No one caught me!

Broke both ankles and cracked a rib. Could have

been worse.  Falling off the Eiger Norwand - 

over a mile straight down - would really hurt.
Alright for leaves - they flutter. And to say
"There's no trees on the Eiger" gets us nowhere.

Poetry Bus October 4th.

The prompt this week was to scrive about "anything or nothing, or write a poem about the Poetry Bus"

Just the Italian Job!(*)

You thought they heisted tons of gold? No! 'twas

Palgrave's "Golden Treasury of English

Songs and Lyrics," no less weighty, 

stowed where the sunshine does not reach -  

aboard the Poetry Bus, for the fastest 

getaway in Italy!

Too soon, too soon joy turned to wails of grief.

"We're doomed! We're doomed to tumble from the cliff

and splinter on the rocks below! Oh! Oh!"

See how they teeter on the precipice.

(The Wages of Sin is fun for the spectators.)

That'll teach the bandits not to hurtle

round Alpine hairpins weighted down with swag

penned through the aeons since the Dawn of Rhyme

just when they thought they'd got it in the bag. 

There's poetry back there from Good Queen Bess

to our impenetrable Laureate . . .

Even some 'concrete' poems, real heavy stuff,

and tens of thousands of dull pentameters,

the clunking standby of the English Muse

who "wanders lonely as a cloud" (that's only eight!)

But I digress. Come on, now! Who

can save this motley crew

aboard their rocking bus?  

I'm not knocking their intelligence, but guess

reading aloud won't make their haul weigh less

and tip the balance in the robbers' favo(u)r.

Has anyone out there got the flavo(u)r

of a really great idea however queer?

You at the back there!  What's that you say?

You think much more light verse would save the day . . .

Only nine carats worth, pal!  I don't think

the CrewCrook'sPlan now teetering on the brink

can be redeemed with funny stuff by Lear,

Belloc, McGonagall or Ogden Nash. 

They're going to crash

into the abyss unless they find

a way to load the bus's front

and right its equilibrium, unbalanced

by all those Palgrave volumes stashed behind.

So this is what to do.  All Bloggers, send

your usual weekly effort, marked

"POST NEAR THE DRIVER, NOT IN THE BUS BACK END" 

(*) Helps to have seen the 1969 Michael Caine version of the film

Triple forte

Have you noticed the Town Crier
has all but disappeared?
If the wages were much higher
the job might be revered
and unemployment fall
as one an all
competed for each magnivocal post.
(Your shout must be heard from coast to coast)

I woke. Careful not to make a fuss
I tiptoed to the window of the bus . .
(Oh, did I forget to say

I'd nodded off on my way

to the Job Centre

with glowing references from my mentor?)

Observe from the top-deck's lofty height
not a single Town Crier in sight!
Oh joy! 'Tis the right time to apply.
I think I stand a chance
of the job.  I really fanc-
-y the big brass handbell,
that and the awesome tricorn hat . . .
further . . . it's been my lifelong wish
to bang on in the street about the price of fish
and bits of local news like that.
Alright, I know you're thinking "Prat!"
But I long since guessed
I wouldn't need to wear
costume for costume parties,
would I? I'd be ready-dressed.
So there!

Already I suspect
you're preparing brickbats.
That is your democratic right.
But if you expect-
orate on my shiny Crier's shoes
one stentorian "OYEZ, OYEZ!"
will blow you clean away.
And remember - when I use
my hundred decibel "NOW HEAR THIS!"
every village Miss
will stop to wish me well,
saying "Oh Man, you ring MY bell"
Mums with prams and joggers with dogs in tow
will mutter "A waste of space!" and "I don't know!"
Mockers beware!  I'm rehearsing my dreaded cry
"Repent!  THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!"