Author: Mike Crowl

‘I’ll gently PROBE your MOLAR now. Hmm, I’ll have to
PURGE it of its gunk, wash, then make it DRIER.’
I say nothing, think of the CHEAP LILAC I bought for
my wife, OPINE the pain that she has BORNE.      

[Catch up time…]

My DENIM trousers being at the
NADIR of their wearfulness, I’ll
ASSAY a nearby menswear shop and
SLANT my weary frame in its direction.  

A
FOGGY brain when faced with four days’ worth of Quordle words is
QUASHed by choice: Too many words! The brain goes numb, sits at its
BENCH like an illiterate child in primer school, picks up its
SLATE, sucks its thumb, and wonders what this hard black board is for.

If I hadn’t been under my father’s THUMB
I’d never have known the complexity of CHESS.
It started when we stayed at a hothouse HOTEL –
I was given a dank green drink, like SYRUP.
When I surreptitiously stuck my THUMB
In the stubby smoke-shaded glass of SYRUP
It came out green, my father wondering later at CHESS
At the significance of his green-thumbed son in a gardened HOTEL.         

I parked my camel on the grass VERGE
while I went off to buy some PUTTY.
When I returned someone had pasted an irate sign on the CAMEL, handwritten, in large, red letters: Camels Are Not Permitted on the GRASS! 

My VISOR has lost a RIVET –
CEASE your warfare till I’m AFOOT again.
It’s CRUEL to attack when my blood BLENDs
with the LIVID scars you’ve SPIED from previous battles.

I could never get past the third or fourth of COVEY’s
seven habits. After my mind and psyche were AWASH
with all the highly effective people’S TALK,
I, being highly ineffective, had to take a BREAK.   

The
POLAR skull is a well-known phenomenon to
THOSE who spend time in the Antarctic cold. Your
SKULL thinks the skin, voiding its place, has gone on a
SPREE, gone AWOL, gone shopping where warmth is sold.           

[A friend of mine worked outside for a few weeks at Scott Base. They were only allowed to work a few hours a day because of the intense cold.]

The SPRIG of heather I hold barely weighs an OUNCE, it’s
picked from the purple FROCK spread on the hillside WHOLE.
Morning LIGHT shines from a TURBO-charged sunrise,
POSITs encircling calm to the wind’s weathering WHINE.      

[There seemed to be two sets of words available, so I used them both.]

      

WHOSE super shark fable is this I’ve just read? A
FABLE about a shark who’s super is rare – and supportive of
SHARKs, whose superpowers are not entirely a fable.
SUPER! I’ll encourage my children, whose tastes are wide, to read about this super shark.