| || cabin, abate, ambush, highly, aha-ha-ha.
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.
18 comments:
Huh?
I think it's just a play on Aha!
--by adding a couple of "Ha"s, to make it into a delayed laugh.
~ OMK
Very delayed, OMK. I didn't even chuckle. My "Huh?" was "where was the funny?"
Oh well, a swing and a miss. IMHO.
"Bad Dream"
Little Calvin was in his Dad's cabin,
drowsy and tired, then napping.
He dreamed he was being ambushed
and woke up scared and all flushed.
This nightmare about his fate
Would thankfully soon abate,
but it left him very highly
nervous, and praying shyly.
When he told his dream to his Papa,
Dad hugged him and laughed, "Aha, ha, ha."
So his worry about his fate
did thankfully soon abate.
Hardi Ha, Ha said Jackie Gleason.
Meanwhile, returning to our tale, Richard, Wamba and Robin Hood have thwarted Fitzhurse and his brigands. And an unexpected visitor arrives.
With the ambush thwarted and bodies strewn over the lea,
Who should arrive but Wilfred of Ivanhoe. "What could this be?"
He exclaimed. "Your highness, valor is to be extolled but the stakes
Are too high to risk your life. If not for thee then for your friends sakes."
"Hah, ha Wilfred," quoth Richard, "And doth thou me abraid
For careless quests? Thou didst not abate. It's for thee that I'm afraid".
"I feel cured, Sire, I could no longer lie back in some secure comfy cabin."
[Spoke Robin]
"I say we retreat for merry feast and strong ale from the flagon."
WC
Wow! A good turnout this morning.
Let me add to the richness--with some observations on a modern quest:
"Comes the Revolution!"
They aimed to kidnap a highly elitist Muckety-Muck,
to take one in an ambush, to grab him by surprise.
That would show those snowflakes never to shuck
'n jive, but to stand up and fight 'em like regular guys.
Yeah, hah! this was serious now, time for real war.
To keep their planning secret, they quit their civvie jobs
to drill isolated in a farm house--like a special corps.
They read up on "tactics" and wore camo togs.
Morale was "high" at first--well, anyway, it was "good."
Then familiarity took the edge off, ding it!
Bad words were passed, shouldda ignored them if they could,
but cabin fever wouldn't abate; worsened every minute.
Mac called Ethan a "rat" with "squint eyes" and "sucky breath,"
and Brick said the Hanson brothers were "idiot fags."
Not exactly the sentiments of comrades unto death.
Nobody would do dishes or take out the garbage bags.
Walter tried making bombs, to save the project somehow,
but Reinhold took his bucket, to milk "that thankless cow."
Of the 12 or 15 who volunteered, some just wandered away.
Many others bickered or dissed their faltering scheme.
Five took to petty crime to "earn" some "combat pay";
most began to waver, to admit their project was a dream.
The venture reached its nadir when two "good buddies" snitched.
FBI all along, y'know--the only guys who hadn't flinched.
~ OMK
Wilbur, what a delightful poem! I loved the way you rhymed 'cabin' with 'flagon.' I had trouble with that word and only 'nabbing' and 'stabbing' came to mind, both ending in 'g's that shouldn't be there. But 'flagon' is perfect!
Ol' Man Keith--an amazingly epic poem about warfare, interlaced with wonderful elitist slang. I would love to learn more about the historical setting that's at play here, in order to understand the conflict between the guys. Very captivating.
Good for Calvin's dad, Misty, for avoiding all the possible bad dad reactions to a kid's nightmare. He didn't get angry that his son was all scared instead of macho, nor was his laughter of the mocking kind. He did the right thing in soothing his son's fear, letting him know they stood side by side against night terrors.
(And in the world of your rites of poetic passage, Calvin will surely one day be great husband material!)
Wilbur ~ Glad to see machismo is still extolled in the world of Ivanhoe--under its proper name of "Valor."
This is not little Calvin's dream, but the realm of the great king Richard and his stalwart surrogate Robin of Locksley.
'Tis a world where bravery is needed, and you (and Sir Walter) translate it well for all of us! Huzzah!
I agree with Misty as to your rhyming of flagon/cabin. Weird, but good weird.
I also enjoy how you squeezed in "abraid/abate/afraid" within a line and a half.
To sum up (and be terse):
What a happy morning of verse!
~ OMK
The setting is not exactly historical, Misty. I was inspired by the recent plot against the Michigan governor, but I imagined the circumstances afresh.
From what I can tell, this mob is a self-important supremacist gang, a sort of Trumpery fan club that hoped to inspire a right wing insurgency.
There is a fair amount of threatening talk on the web these days about starting a rebellion or civil war.
I gather it is not of the highest IQ.
Big talk, little potential for sustained action.
~ OMK
Oh dear, I do glance at this stuff in the paper but haven't been taking it too seriously. But I'd best start paying more and more attention. A civil war is the last thing we need at this traumatic time. Misty
My goodness, Wilbur, this episode makes me want to look up more about Richard and his character. Was he anything like Scott's portrayal?
Great soldier, brave, but not a good person, being uncaring of and cruel to, people in general.
??
Michigan's guv is female, Misty but I changed the gender of the "Muckety-Muck" to avoid a direct connection between my 12-15 plotters and the 13 who were indicted in that enterprise.
And of course the names & internal affaurs of the gang were my invention.
Sandy ~ Whatever the virtues of Richard Lionheart as a soldier, our current Prez-Reject would call him a "loser." He was, after all, taken prisoner, an automatic demotion in Ubu's manual of arms.
~ OMK
Keith, afraid you're up again for Wednesday. I got moved to a different wing in this rehab, and my weak internet signal has vanished entirely. I can reach the comments here on my phone, but not the blog dashboard.
BTW, in the hearing impaired community, he who laughs last had to wait for the closed captioning.
Okay, signal strengthened briefly, long enough for me to get tomorrow's puzzle up, but it's down again.
Send me a text message to 505&660&9281 so that I can get your phone number, and let you know by text instead of clogging up the blog with this procedural stuff.
Owen ~ I don't have a smart phone, so no way to text me that way. But my email is fowler@uci.edu.
~ OMK
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