What book shall I write

 Twenty-eight Quordle words this time. For a change I decided to write in four-line stanzas, using the Quordle words as they were listed on the dailyquordlepoem.com site as they were listed. 

What book shall I write?

 

Maybe a cook book set in a sassy, SAUCY

kitchen, where a unwitting PEACH

will be, via a hand much SURER

than mine, of its skin STRIPped.

 

In the same book, in an anecdote, a PARER

held at the specific angle – le CLASP

de la Cuisine – will surreptitiously shear a SHARD

from a non persona grata piece of beef JERKY

 

Or a thriller-noir, a fairground MELEE

in driving rain where the sun once SHONE

will bring the reader to a questioned CHECK:

how did the villain manage the slippery sideways GLIDE?

 

Or a medical nonfiction, where the author asks for the LEAST

pain, please, agonised as he sees the vast ARRAY

of surgical equipment, the X-ray of his BOWELs,

the professor asking, ‘How are we doing, MATEY?’

 

The romance: she slurping bowls of GUAVA;

he leaping from surrounding FLORA;

she a secretary of the genus LEGAL;

he a farmer, earthy, smelling of ONIONs.

 

The DIY handbook for the Everyman, whose QUALMs

have brought him desperate to its pages, where, shouting VOILA!

he sees the answer to his boat’s perpetual leaking: ‘CAULK

it!’ shouts the author, ‘You’ll soon be GOING!!’

 

Finally the YA fantasy, the frequent WHIFF

of stinky beasts, the loathsome snakes that CREEP

through every scene, the use of the BLUNTed

sword to conquer – which works better than the half-learned SPELL.

Lovers' Tiff?

 28 words for the Quordle Poem today, due to a hitch in the presentation of each day's worth. '

‘Hang it all, that makes me ANGRY.
Surely even you must be AWARE
that a stone’s value is known by its CARAT.
Plainly there is an infinite CHASM
of understanding between us; you a CHARD,
a plain green vegetable; me a CHILI
full of fire, tied to Reason as a CLEAT,
always, always ready and EAGER
for further knowledge, a star-GAZER,
no slave at Reason’s table, but a GUEST.’ 

Have you finished? So full of GUILE,
so manipulating, a hero in the GUSTO
of your own dire pride. Haven’t you HEARD
that your name is whispered at the KIOSKs,
your reputation has been KNEED
in private places, your fury needs a LEASH
to hold it, and that you are LOATH
to admit to the least fault. LUCID
I may not be in thinking, but LUCKY
am I not to be linked to a METRO-
sexual of your ilk, a man so NOISY
his brain chugs like a gluggy PUREE.
Not a single place of QUIET
resides there. WorSE, DAN
Cupid, bored, sits lonely in the SHADE
while shattered lovers fade upon the SHELF,
tarnished where once they SHONE.’ 

‘My love, my standard deviation, my SIGMA.’

Write your own story

 Another sixteen-line Quordle poem:

BLAND, gray is the landscape;
DUSTY the car, the gravel roads.
FRUIT in the passing orchards,
LAYER on layer, has that tint of the
LOWLY, like men rising, who are
MINERs, from the pit at day’s end.
QUOTH my friend, sweating, ‘The
SCRUB ahead seems a sweet place to
SLEEP, to make camp. Open. Clear. My
SNOUT finds it out. I take my
STAND upon the very air itself, I
SWEAR by mine own career as a lion
TAMER it will go well with us.’ My
UNCLE – wrecked, panicked,
UPSET – groans. His antipathy to my
WACKY friend clearly shown. 

16 Quordle Words

For whatever reason, the Quordle site has offered four more days' worth of words in one go, after a short hiatus. Ever rising to the challenge...

‘ALTAR my suit, tailor. It’s too big around the
CHEST.’ ‘I can alter it, sir, make you look like Walter
DRAKE. Would that
DROOP your demeanour or
ELATE you?’ ‘Don’t be daft, man. I have to
EMCEE an important conference and I can’t look like a
FISH, You know, a fish about to
FLAIL around in something far too big for it.’ ‘I
GUESS I could do it, sir, though it would
HAUNT me to think that the
MICRO thread would be misaligned, like a
RIVER running, disappearing, then running. It would
SMOTE my heart. My long tailoring experience,
THERE, in that back room, would be affronted.’ ‘Your maxillary
TORUS will be affronted if you don’t do as I ask. Hurry man, my
YACHT sails on the noon tide.’

Attributed to various satirical artists

And once again...24 Quordle Words

 And once again, but this time not my fault. For some reason the Quordle words failed to appear for several days. By the time they arrived, there were another 24 of them to deal with. 

BLACK thoughts prickle me like
CACTI. Once again the teacher’s thrown the
CHALK – and missed. I ask you, is it
CIVIL to be his daily target? Is there insurance
COVER for a kid so picked upon, abused? The
CYNIC in me sees this happening till the end of term, his
GREEDy target set at a chalk a day; a kind of
GRUEL he prefers to healthier stew. Should I
INFER he sees me as the white knight at the
JOUST – he the black and surly knight, of course.
MARRY! his lance is long but blunt, loose like the
METER of this verse, not worth the page it’s penned upon nor the
PENNY possibly paid for it. Like
RAYON, it’s weak when wet, and even
RECUT, these lines would still swillow as a
RIPER fruit will slobber over fingers, as a
RIVER slid from moorings spreads in a
SAPPY stream invading fields, streets, houses.
SCRAM! you dull and diffident lines, you
STALE and dribbling anti-pentameters that
STALL like undercharged EVs, set teeth on edge with similes too
SWEET, that let the excess of metaphorical verbiage
TOWER above all sense, run off the rails like a wayward
TRAIN.                                   

Challenging myself with 24 Quordle words

 Not entirely a challenge. More the result of not having done Quordle for six days. And yes, there were two Quordles over the period with the word 'revue' in them. 

All Sport and No Whistle

BINGO! the would-be

CROOK with greased and

CURLY hair, aims his fist.

DRYLY the captain knows he’s champion in any

FIGHT; this captain of the

FINAL trip for the day on the

FJORD ferry, who stands aloof. The deck being wet, the youth slips and down the

HATCH he goes. The deck was somewhat

MOSSY, the captain admits to himself, smells somewhat

MUSKY, as of a deer in rut, or perhaps it has the

NUTTY scent of a jar not emptied from the pantry in a decade. The boy, below,

REACTs dully, like a performer in a dull

REVUE, or the dull

REVUE itself. He has no get up and go, and now he smells

RIPER than he did before, like a

ROWER out at sea too long, or a dancer doing the

RUMBA for four hours one night. He is merely seen as a

SERIF attached to some stronger part of a letter; he

SLUMPs where he stands and

SNIPEs at the captain imperturbable. He totters, rotates, this tourist-child, as a

TORUS does (I think – the word is new to me) and the

TWANG in his Aussie

VOICE is mostly a blur. This day is his

WORST.

Challenging myself with twenty Quordle words

 Most days I write a 'Daily Quordle Poem', but there are occasions when I get behind. Usually this is only a day or two, but on the 1st September I found myself five days behind due to various circumstances. 

The result was I did a catch-up poem of five stanzas, each one using the Quordle words in order, as they'd appeared over the five days. Surprisingly, an interesting little story was hinted at as I worked at using the various words as starting points. 

On the
JETTY they’re selling tubs of
PESTO, deep in its green as a
PRUNE is deep in red and brown, or a
TAWNY lion yellow in its yellowness. 

The
BOOTH announces, ‘Former Welterweight
CHAMP.’ His wife, a few feet away, in heels that
CLACK across the weatherworn boards,
PIVOTs as I say, ‘Done with the boxing then?’

A
BRIEF glance, under heaviest eyebrows. A
LEASH, self-imposed, holds back comments. His
BASAL mode’s controlled; he keeps himself from
SMEARs against his former occupation. 

But
BLUNT is his wife’s middle name. No
SHADY subtleties of speech here. She
STOKEs the constant fires of anger: one
VOWEL is enough to tell me her temper.

The
ALLOY of ferocious mixed with self-restraint, I guess, gives
FIBRE to their marriage, keeps them sane. He’s
FORTY, at a guess, but her age I can’t gauge. The
PAINT of makeup could hide anything from twenty-five to fifty.    

Rain on a green tin roof

A poem from around 2008, which for some reason unknown to me has never made it onto this blog.  

Rain on a green tin roof
Is proof that God exists.
No life force, no gene
Hopping from human being
To human being, no
Combination of chances
Or amoeba romances
Would consider such a
Lullaby sleep-enticing
Sound; no unexplained
Gaps or haphazard
Scattered jigsaw maps
Could contrive to
Bring alive the man in a shell
Sheltered-from-the-elements
Feel. And though
Stars in their courses
Might wheel insensibly
Round, I have found that
Rain on a green tin roof
Is proof for me that God exists.