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| _poker, trawl, circus, nestle, "write" on track.Image(s) 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.
9 comments:
Definitely punny.
Pretty clever too, IMO, with more than one relevant meaning.
Anyway, YMMV, of course.
See the footnote to appreciate why we're glad to be...
"Light on 'Quack'"
We saw a Circus of clownfish (not safe to bite)
mixed with the angelfish Bliss we were trying to catch*.
The jumbled fish in our trawl net were nestled so tight,
we needed tongs and pokers to separate the batch.
~ OMK
______________
* The mess of sea life in our seine is often in flux.
We count ourselves lucky when there aren't any ducks.
"Gambling"
Brian had a job as a broker,
but he also liked to play poker
and was often a bit of a joker.
Whenever he won a haul
he'd go off and trawl in the mall.
Sometimes he'd take a bus
to drive him to the circus.
With his pals he'd often wrestle,
or with his girlfriend nestle.
By not staying right on track
he certainly got some flack.
"But," he'd say, "I can handle some strife
in order to lead a full life."
Ol' Man Keith, I enjoyed your verse this morning and had to look up "angelfish."
They are lovely, and I was surprised to learn that they apparently recognize and relate to their owners. So no wonder you called your angelfish "Bliss" (which, of course, also rhymes nicely with 'fish').
I was also amazed by your account yesterday of the many, many oceans you've visited, and have swum in, over the years. What an active, varied life you've had! Good for you!
This was an interesting challenge.
I think the final line--of my footnote--would work better with a dash.
What do you say? Try this:
"We count ourselves lucky--when there aren't any ducks."
The slight hiatus suggested by the dash may help to add punch to the conclusion.
And "punch" is the point. (Maybe "ain't" would work better for punch than "aren't."
"...when there ain't any ducks."
Hmm?)
I covered all the clue words in the main quatrain and would not have added the footnote couplet except that the four lines were just too...blah.
I also felt compelled to add the footnote when I was trying to find a rhyme for the Jumble solution, something to use for my title.
That's when I stumbled into the "quacks/ducks" combo.
Neither works without the other.
Misty ~ I see once again you saved the quotation to your final couplet. Yep, it always helps to register a change of some kind at the end.
Brian's tale is a bit of a ramble as you follow his pursuit of those curious clue words. I think "circus" is the real outlier here.
As a poker player, Brian doesn't seem to be the type who casually throws in a bus ride to the circus. But whatcha gonna do?
I had to re-invent it as a term for a flock or school of clownfish, to go along with my fish story.
The rest of Brian's activities seem typical of a poker-chummy guy--wrestling (preferably arm only) with his pals, and of course nestling with his gal (or gals?).
Buying things at the mall.
Veering off-track occasionally.
(Damn: I wonder if he votes.)
My guess is his type might see that as a "full life." In any event, you've got him down--in 13 lines.
~ OMK
Actually I didn't name the angelfish.
I see how you could read it that way.
But I just needed a term for a school of them, something to match how I used "circus" for that bunch of clownfish.
~ OMK
The cartoon emphasis on the cover had little to do with the answer, it was just a vehicle for her comment that "everything is chugging along".
I liked that flux/ducks rhyme, and think it works best as you originally had it. What I'd change is just make it the last two lines of the poem, instead of set off as a footnote.
Thanks for weighing in, Owen.
I agree that the Jumble cartoon wasn't really on target. But I'll add that I enjoyed it. I liked the look of the display cover and the colors used.
AND I agree that my footnote should have been tacked onto the main lines. I stated my initial reasons above.
The fn. was an afterthought. Plus I have a strong bias toward economy. Since I was able to cover the four clue words in four lines, I wanted to make that evident by not adding anything unnecessary.
Trouble was, of course, that the extra lines were "necessary" to justify the title--and to offer a "punch" (both by the "ducks" gag and by switching from ABAB to CC) !
~ OMK
Enjoyed your explanations, OMK, and your comments, Owen.
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