| bribe, think, hybrid, canker, (a) "brake". |
| tyrant, meadow, artful, cursor, prance, decode, "ladder" part of (the) day.
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.
Humans are the virus,
ReplyDeleteSo Karma must expire us.
Population billions
Must be reduced to millions.
We're a canker on ecology,
Kill climate with technology.
Try to bribe Malthusian woes
With ever-clever G.M.O.s.
Somehow to make the species shrink
A plague is needed, Karma thinks.
A hybrid from a bacillus
Could brake the teeming omnibus!
In a viral meadow a mutant is born
ReplyDeleteTo prance around in infectious form!
A crowning effort that Karma has sent --
But mortality rate is only four percent!
We can break apart the helical ladder
And decode the inner R.N.A. matter,
But to create a vaccine to keep it at bay
Will take much more than a year and a day!
A (would-be) tyrant, with artful disingenuity,
Promises a vaccine timed congruently
With the next election, too soon to see
If the next thalidomide it could be.
Could this be Karma's real solution
To the sea of human birth pollution?
Stop the cursor's climb of population
With a vax side-effect of mass sterilization?
In general, I'm horrified by anti-vaxxers, moronic luddites who endanger not only themselves but their entire communities by their irrational fear of fully researched and approved disease preventatives. But any covid vaccine rushed out by Tяцmр's "Warp Speed" program before mid-2021 will NOT have had time for sufficient trials to be deemed safe! Today's poems are really an editorial that's been forming in my mind since I read an article at https://news.yahoo.com/trump-pushes-warp-speed-effort-on-coronavirus-vaccine-ignoring-lessons-from-a-longago-drug-calamity-140324220.html. My eldest grandson works in healthcare, and when he first said he would refuse a vaccine, I was concerned. But now I think he's right (tho I only hope it's for the right reason).
ReplyDeleteThe aquarium's vet was shocked by what he saw. Two marine coronaries back to back!
ReplyDelete--a lethal buildup of adipose tissue in both the manta and the dolphin.
He thought the dolphin's case was bad enough, but it gave him quite a shake to view the fatter heart of the ray.
~ OMK
Owen ~
ReplyDeleteThe Dubbin' is a-Cummin' in!
Tonight, my friend, or early tomorrow...
Thank you for two beauties this morning. Words of wisdom. Sad & sagacious.
I have been viewing this crisis through a catastrophic lens all along, but you express it in a fabulous way. Chicken Little or the Tower of Babel--Mankind is ever on the edge of hysterical hubris.
Our natural propensity for tragic arrogance is abetted in our time by our very own King Ubu. Merdre!
~ OMK
Owen, how wonderful to have you back with two terrific poems. I only get the second Jumble, so I especially appreciated your second poem, which certainly addresses our contemporary situation. Thank you very much for this Sunday gift.
ReplyDeleteI had trouble with the first and third Jumble words, but got them, thanks to your poem. And the solution is a delightful address to the little kids' tree emergency and rescue.
And then, in addition, the pleasure of an Ol'Man Keith fun gloss--a real treat to go with Owen's 'sadder start on our way.'
Not having a very good day. Glad to see Owen's poetry, though.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry you're having a not good day, Sandy, and hope it'll be better tomorrow. But thank you for stopping by to comment on Owen's poem.
ReplyDeleteSandy, here's some Bilbo to cheer you up
ReplyDeleteI was running around all day and the XW was a long solve. And I had a few J toughies on both 4*4 and 6*6. Riddle-solutions not difficult though.
I'll post my Bilbo penultimate denouement in my next post.
WC
ReplyDeleteBilbo's Arkenstone bribe had truly put a canker
In Thorin's spleen. Cursing he'd spilled his rancor
On Bilbo,Bard and the elven king. The war braked
His anger, and after his valiant stand it was finally slaked.
And at the latter part of that most eventful day
He was no longer the angry tyrant. "Let me say,
That even though I'm not the most artful speaker,
That you Bilbo have earned the title of 'Master Sneaker'.
Try to think less hard of me as I pass on to my fathers
And when the rest of the fellowship together gathers
Think of those days when we pranced happily over
Lea and meadow, through fen and forest cover.
And decoded Thror's map to enter the dragon's den.
To destroy the orcs, put an end to Smaug, I'd do it again."
For the journey home the Laketown townsfolk provided
A hybrid pony, and with Gandalf and Beorn, were well guided.
WC
Thanks, Wilbur. Two in one!
ReplyDeleteMy goodness! Great poems from Owen and Wilbur today! Sundays don't get any better than this--many thanks to you both! And good to see you back, Sandy!
ReplyDeleteNow a last comment from Ol'Man Keith would be nice.
That's a lot of couplets for Sunday, Wilbur. Good going!
ReplyDeleteIt fascinates me how you manage to slug in all those extra words and still adhere (mainly) to five accents.
It speaks (partly) to the glory of the English language, that even when we don't stick to the iambic beat, we still tend to breathe after five or six waves of words.
I am not talking about any "rules" here, just my own observations.
Misty ~ I just spotted your note right above. I have been working on the dubbing for Owen, but at this rate I think I'll be posting later on, or maybe early tomorrow.
~ OMK