First off, apologies to John Legend. I was sketching you, John, but the unforgiving ink snuck in a generous portion of Steve Harvey. This is a misfire, John. You don’t look like this. I will do a better portrait of you, John, when I go back to pencil.
The three-liner of an acrostic poem includes an inside joke that only one person on Earth will “get.” And we will keep it that way.
Leg/End
Legend: Airy Vivienne
Entered–Gary said amen
Got a Fairy Tale? Hit Send
The word “Privet” appears quite early on in the Harry Potter books, and since it was used for the name of a street, I for one never learned exactly what it meant. I looked it up recently and am freshly impressed by Rowling’s delicious slyness:
It seems like that is a perfect name for a street for the Dirsleys to be living on.
My triple acrostic is “Saving Privet Dragon.” The odd net of the words to the poem are a silly attempt at that salvation. Sillier still was an earlier idea, which I’m sure has been done before, of dressing a dragon in a kimono for “Kimono Dragon.”
The HUSKY is a noble beast, said Jack London in Call of the Wild. There is a scene in the novel where a single husky followed commands of “Gee!” (Wrench to unstick the ice!”) “Haw!” (Now wrench THE OTHER WAY to unstick the ice!) “Now MUSH!!” (“Pull like the dickens!!”) and the dog pulled an unbelievable amount of weight a certain distance to win a bet for his Mushmaster. When offered a huge sum for the dog, Mushmaster told Moneybags to go to hell.
There was a husky on our block when I was growing up, and all that fur in hothothot Glendale, Arizona must have made him uncomfortable. But he was sweet-natured and never whined.
Husky Doggy
Have FUR, will MUSH, indeed
Unceasingly as is the way of Dogface Creed. O
Such Sacrifices! this dog is O. G
Knapsackers of the North, and Golly G
You watch as they move Mountains willingly.
As a ceramic artist I have done a certain amount of hand-building, which is non-wheel-thrown working of clay. Ehen the “Build” prompt came up it occurred to me that “hand building” could be my Bad Pun of the Day if I used Hand Building to actually build a hand. (Thank you for reading my Bad Pun of the Day!)
HAND BLDG
Hit the switch–a genius bulb
Agitation of the skull
Need of subject Plan & grid
Dream becoming something big
Personal note: I made this page, and am writing these words, at an event called Meet Your Literary Community. As far as I know I am the only Acrostic Poet on display in the Community. Hope I’m doing a good job Representing!
Here is a terrible pun on “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and also an implied bad pun in that the way Santa Claus gets out of his fix is via the T’ao–literally a Way out. The bad guy is an hommage to Snidely Whiplash, endangerer of Nell and wannabe nemesis of Dudley Do-Right of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
FREEZE a Jolly Gooood Fellow
Frost Bites! and Santa’s got a tricky Standoff
Rock-hard, Jinxed, rigor-mortissed, stone as Shale
Elves cannot help, nor lotion, nor felafel
EXISTlessness would make Ms. Santa wail
Zen-tangled, he’ll evoke a thawing T’ao
Ew, Snidely–dastardly’s no Cat’s Meow
Previous Inktober pages of mine have involved a List approach: I thought of different ways to “solve” the prompt, i.e. different Rings, Mindlessnesses, and Bait. The Bait page had more coherence because the image sort of tied them together metaphorically.
This time I wanted one image to focus on. The prompt is Freeze. What would suit, and really demonstrate Freezing, and tell a story…Then an awful pun occurred to me. Instead of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” FREEZE a Jolly Good Fellow. And who is the jolliest of the Jolly Good Fellows? Santa Claus, that’s who. And who would be evil enough to freeze Jolly Saint Nick? That quintessential Cartoon Bad Guy, SNIDELY WHIPLASH, wannabe nemesis of Dudley Do-Right of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. (I hope the owners of the cartoon regard this page as hommage and not copyright infringement!)
How am I going to get Santa out of this terrible fix, AND produce a coherent Quadruple Acrostic with a consistent rhyme and meter? Well, Santa is Magic. And he travels the world, so he’s worldly. So Zen and the Tao to the rescue–what cynical critics of “Deus ex Machina” solutions to science-fiction cliffhangers once called a “pocket frammistan.” SOMEHOW Santa finds a way, and indeed, the Tao is The Way. (Another bad pun. Someday I’ll get jail time.)
FREEZE a Jolly Gooood Fellow
Frost Bites! and Santa’s got a tricky Standoff
Rock-hard, Jinxed, rigor-mortissed, stone as Shale
Elves cannot help, nor lotion, nor felafel
EXISTlessness would make Miz Santa wail
Zen-tangled, he’ll evoke a thawing Tao
Ew, Snidely–dastardly’s no cat’s meow
Bait is everywhere: headlines, food, mousetraps, speeches. I am glad it showed up as an Inktober prompt. Four types of Bait showed up almost instantly.
Live Bait
Lefty worked for the KGB
Instant reel-in out at Sea
Vuitton purse is SO chi-chi
Eat that Junk. Bon appetit!
First I wrote the acrostic, then I tried to illustrate each line. The first line equates Mindlessness with mob reflex. The second line equates Mindlessness with Single-Mindedness–Ahab on the good ship Pequod. The third line is the action of a protective nictitating eyelid, which I suspect requires no conscious thought at all. The last line pins Mindlessness on random incarceration.
mindless
make a Fist & say All Hail
in a ship that seeks a whale
nictitating eyelid shuts
dogs are caged by mangy mutts
Years ago Robert Mitchum said something I never forgot, though I cannot quote him word for word. He said that he didn’t understand why there was such a thing as acting school. “It’s like trying to learn to be tall,” is close to what he said.
About a week ago I watched his performance in a late 70s version of The Big Sleep that also featured Candy Clark, Sarah Miles, and an ancient James Stewart. There was a lot of cavalier killing in the movie, and a silliness to it that I don’t remember from my reading of the book, but Mitchum made a superb Marlowe, and his face was aptly set in sleepy worldliness and knowledge of darkness. His acting was tall indeed.
Robt MITchum
Roguish slick as MIT
Oh so a.d. h.o.c
Battered flesh
that makes gals hum
Take a fee & fi fo fum
Recently the United Nations General Assembly had visitors, youngsters bringing ancient wisdom and youthful defiance. They challenged the status-quoed representatives of countries who were continuing to despoil the Earth. It was magnificent. Mesdemoiselles Peltier and Thunberg were particularly fine.
coming change
catch & sync
out of reach
monomania
intubation
nesting
gusto time
wings climb
weather epic
idiots skeptical
nodes of spaghetti
gleaming maelstrom
strike or succumb
I hope the wisdom turns into action. It is as “almost too late” as can be.
One with Clay, Image and Text 