Barely discernible

CHEEK to cheek with a sleek snake, I
SMELT something few can smell: its
VENOM. The smell might be called weak,
SMALL, in the scale of things, even pip-squeak.

My father, not normally known for cuddling snakes, in a rare photo.

Nantucket

BAWDY drunk singing bawdy songs traipsing past the camp.
SCOUTs don’t know: laugh or disapprove, so gaze into their
COCOA around the fire. The moment, now a funny
SPECK, will grow in telling, what the tramp sang ever fouler on recall.

Poe Poem

TONAL midnight Poe poem:
RAVEN cawings, rustling winds, creaking hinges.
CURVE of moon a ghost ember in bleak December sky
DECAL this all on the brain for life’s supply of shuddering memory.

All in the dialect

TONAL, not toenail, you daft ‘apeth!
“CURVE your anger, Mr C, you’re not at home now. No
RAVEN at me all I’ll have to tell security
DECAL the police. We won’t like that, will we?”

Unpoemability

STUNG by thought that
THETA, strange word–is it really an English word?–worse than
PAPAL might make this poem impracticable.
VAUNT your inventive skills, yes, but some things won’t fly.

Pratfall

FREER than a giraffe splayed and stuck, (does a giraffe have a
NAVEL? I’m asking for a friend) I stand tall above riff-raff who
QUAIL at my height, as a bevy of quails look naff when fleeing, until SPLAT! my legs choregraph in a flat-footed gaffe, face-palm on the mat.

Heribert Bechen, Wikimedia Commons

My Worst Ever

QUAIL in the bushes during
NAVEL orange fight.
FREER spirits shout and stamp and hurl fruit.
SPLATs announce solid hits, make bush lair seem wise.

Dismissal

WINCE is what he does when the
WOMEN, coming going, not so much Michaelangeloing,
SMOKY party air parting, give him merest glance:
BADLY assembled, badly turned out him

A stretched-out Quordle poem

This verse might have an end that’s SMOKY –
I might need my mouth out to rinse,
since I’m convinced that should I say, WOMEN,
as well as men, can do things BADLY,
I’d be vilified as much as Edward, the Black Prince;
the triggering thus aroused would make me WINCE.

I can’t find the name of the person who painted this picture….