All hints are in the comments!

Friday, January 31, 2020

Jan. 31, 2029

|| humid, axiom, stooge, plague, ex-sighted. ||
Image from the Internet.

The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed!
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.

9 comments:

OwenKL said...

Pirates were a plague on the old sea routes,
A Jolly Roger the dread of all look-out scouts!
The story I'm to tell, you'll never elsewhere see,
Because it is the secret tale of Xavior McCree!

In the hot and humid climate of the Caribee Isles
Sailors flocked the bars, and Xavior used his wiles.
From every treasure crew he'd find a cat's paw mate
And use him as a stooge to set a poisoned bait!

He'd tell him of a place where a plunder chest was hid,
Cached by some marauder with an X upon its lid!
It's an axiom of greed that no treasure's long to wait
Before some avaricious pirate will succumb its fate!

Then McCree would lie in wait, for just a day or two.
Along would come his patsy with his pirate crew.
When the X was sighted, Xavior's band would ambush!
No pirate e'er survived the pirate pirates' rush!

Or even if some had, to what law could they complain?
"Xavior stole our booty, we'd plundered on the main"?
So over years a fleet of ships were resold by McCree,
Growing rich from ill-got bounty, but unknown to history!

OwenKL said...

After a couple shorter than usual poems, today makes up for them, and tosses in a couple words from today's crossword as well (I'll let someone else identify which).

Ol' Man Keith said...

A lovely poem today, recovering the lost piratical adventures of Ol' Xavior McCree!
Owen, I really admire the sneaky way you incorporated the jumble solution into your verse. Bravo, my friend!
I imagine Ol' Xavior came across a lot of ships in his years of piracy, some of them wealthy merchants worth the effort to assail and capture, but probably also a good many beat-up freighters and worthless wrecks, blighted by exposure to too many storms and plagued with leaky timber.
~ OMK

Misty said...

Clever, clever poem, Owen, with a complicated story working all the Jumble words and solution right into it. I got the four words without any problem, and the fist two solution letters, but had trouble with the rest. And that's where your gloss helped, Ol'Man Keith--and Owen's poem confirmed it. Great fun, many thanks. Complicated cartoon with the short skirt on the former husband's new girlfriend, and the women enjoying their mixed drinks along with chips and dip. Nice restaurant with another room and a couple having drinks. And I liked the hem on the skirt of the waitress, and wish I could read the letters on top. Also lots of different hair-dos--cool cartoon all around.

Sandyanon said...

Just dropping in to say that this one is turning out to be tough for me. I seem to have a mental block. Haven't given up yet.

Wilbur Charles said...

Well I got 1,2,4 this morning but #3 plagued me. I turned to the xword which I don't have to add my groans, especially the SE with not only the Natick but a Dover and Medfield too.

But I did get CATSPAW and MARAUDer tossed into Owen's poem.

And OMK added his ingeniuos spoon to Owen's SUGAR. Now to WHISK* them together, eh?
.
WC

* That's a WAG from the xword which I haven't checked yet

Ol' Man Keith said...

I almost spotted a true Spoonerism in the phrase "Sex-Excited," but alas! it meant adding a syllable. And that's a No-No.
Still, it fit the theme perfectly!
~ OMK

OwenKL said...

Misty: The ChiTrib site, altho only black and white, is very detailed. I've taken a clip from it (above) of the menu the waitress is holding so you can see the words. Also the cornrows of her hair.

Misty said...

Wow! Many thanks, Owen! It's amazing to see that close up! Thank you so much for posting it! Wow!