First fright

SNUCK into the movies, as a kid, only to see someone
SLAIN on screen. I
CLING to the nearest adult. Thankfully he’s more than
CIVIC about it.

Funk

’The
LARGE skunk drunk on the lawn under the
SLANTED tree trunk
STUNK!’ ‘Well, you junk-head hunk of a
NINNY, what would you expect? Has your punk brain shrunk?’

Bilge

EXACTly how you can say one
GLEAM of the sun’s ray
TODAY counts as a sunny day. It’s
BILGE, your brain has gone astray.

Contrast

LUCKY you only have to
EMBED some words in a Quordle poem once, as spitting
LLAMA, arrogant, stiff-necked, makes a poor bedfellow for
OTTER, supple and smooth, swift and flitting.

Humbled

BOAST not, big-headed
CHAMP. The sporting life is short.
AMEND your ways, for crazy days will turn to
GRAVY, sooner than you thought.

Ambiguous

He’d hardly
BEGUN to grow when he found himself fully-
GROWN. Time and tide waited not for this
UNCLE, the one who was considered the
SAFER relative, the one who never did any harm.