| || viper, stand, homely, cackle, child's play.
Image from the Internet.
The opening poem contains all the words (or variations of them) from today's Jumble.
Comments are welcomed! And couching them in Poetry is definitely NOT required.
Do not explicitly reveal any of the actual answer words until after closing time, but embedding them surreptitiously in comment sentences is encouraged.
Young Tyler would just as soon play with his six Transformers
ReplyDeleteThough just a child, complex toys, for him, were but a simple affair.
But the call went out "Children's theater's putting on Macbeth by the Bard."
Performing came naturally for this boy, "Shakespeare, shouldn't be too hard."
But the Lord and his Lady, MacDuff and Banquo were too much to tackle.
"We have an opening for a witch, young man, let me here you cackle".
"Can you concoct a brew from eye of newt and viper's tongue?"
"If you can stand the heat perhaps you'll sing if you have the lung".
And Tyler was truly at home on the stage, a young virtuoso
Dancing 'round the cauldron into which poison'd entrails he'd throw.
WC
For English Class in HS I was a witch when we enacted various scenes from Macbeth. A good laugh was had by all.
ReplyDeleteWC
Delightful verse, and funny comment, Wilbur, many thanks for giving our morning a great start.
ReplyDelete"Fun and Games"
ReplyDeleteDanny's and Fanny's child's play
made for a fun and wild day.
One of them played a viper
who ran around wearing a diaper.
The other acted a jackal
who made grunts and gave a loud cackle.
They performed on a raised-up stand
and their acting was pretty grand.
By playing games so homely
they were never sad or lonely.
So we were delighted to say:
Go ahead, kids, have fun and play.
"When We Were Children"
ReplyDelete"Psst," he hissed, "psst, never fear.
You'll want to come near..."
The Girl approached him slowly,
unsure of her steps yet drawn--as if to something holy.
Summat pure.
He looked so queer.
She wasn't sure.
His fangs made her skittish,
but she smiled at his homely visage.
"Oh, it's all right," the Viper said.
"I don't sting.
and I'll tell you a thing
that'll lift your head."
She stopped & threw a glance back.
Her eyes, he saw, sought the Lad,
and he could not withhold a cackle.
"Why look for him?
How does he say you're to obey?
Pretty please. Hmm?"
"That upon yond bush we shan't lay a hand
nor pick up his fruit."
"Nay, lass," he hissed, "you must take your stand.
Do not stay mute.
That tree is for thee
and thy Liberty in thine own land."
He coiled her fist
and gave it a squeeze.
The warmth in her wrist
did her heart ease.
They exchanged eyes
& sighs.
"This day I'll have my way.
I'll have my say.
He cannot rule me.
It is my Liberty.
That tree shall set me free."
~ OMK
Wlbur ~
ReplyDeleteIn my first Macbeth our witches were adolescent girls, the same maidens who tended on Lady Mac.
In my 2nd, they were the widows of soldiers killed in battle.
In my 3rd, they were traditional Welsh harridans.
So, why not a teen boy? I bet you were eye-opening!
I enjoyed your poem. I could just imagine your "virtuoso" young Tyler.
Misty ~ Your Danny & Frank carry on the theatrical theme--pointing up how some of the very best theater can, in fact, feel like "child's play"!
Fun to read and to think about! Thank you.
~ OMK
OMK, I had to read a second time to get your verse. Well done.
ReplyDeleteYoung Tyler is nine and is going to play a pirate in the Peter Pan production. He wanted Hook or Smee(He'd be a great Smee)
But there are older boys and girls and I imagine they get first crack.
He and his mother liked my verse though. She's a palette of mine.
Yes , myself and two other clowns played the witches to high dudgeon. I also had Maitre Renard et Monsieur de Corbeau to recite in French III.
I was a Junior and got the head cheerleader to be my stork. Alas her boyfriend was a tackle on FB team and a friend if I was careful.
qui audet adipiscitur
Misty, I enjoyed Danny and Franny. Tyler is great at making friends regardless of sex , color etc. Nor age.
ReplyDeleteWonderful child
WC
Thanks, Wilbur ~
ReplyDeleteI like to experiment with form. I noticed my default format (lately) is 2 or 3 quatrains (ABAB) capped by a heroic couplet. Couplets all the way through are easier, but saving one till the end gives a punchier finish. Anyway, now & then I need to break out into a less constrained rhyme and/or meter. If you find rhyme popping up where you may not have expected it--or, contrariwise--as a riff, that's cool.
My personal test is for the piece to engage equally whether in verse or prose.
And to avoid the stiff, artificial grammar sometimes "excused" just to make a rhyme happen.
Like
The snake called her, "Miss!"
using to do it a sibilant hissss.
I also like to play with accents. Maybe you noticed a touch of Yorkshire in today's opus.
I have been watching a wonderful British show via Netflix--Last Tango in Halifax--set in West Yorkshire, with a great cast starring Derek Jacobi as a widower who marries a widow, his first girlfriend.
Their accents are subtle. I felt them carrying into today's Edenic poem.
Their families and friends are fascinating types, and the scripts are brilliant, dealing face on and in detail with those scenes that other shows elide, or leave to our imagination.
Our imaginations aren't nearly as smart as these writers.
~ OMK
Yo, OMK!
ReplyDeleteI just watched the the first episode of Last Tango in Halifax, and it looks interesting. Thanks.
I always have enjoyed Derek Jacobi's work; dis you ever see him in Cadfael?