My Weekly Writing Challenge

It’s Friday tomorrow and the start of Easter weekend. I wish you all a very happy Easter. Before you indulge in far too many chocolate eggs, here’s my new challenge for you:

Option one: Write a limerick with the word CHOCOLATE in it somewhere

Option two: Write a poem on the theme of HOLIDAYS

Option three: Write a ten-word story using all of the following words: EGGS, EYEBROWS, BREAK, TIZZY, and CHEATING

Last week option one was to write a limerick with the word CODSWALLOP featuring in it somewhere. Here are the brilliant results:

Steve Walksy says he was inspired to write the limerick: ‘Since you like to introduce the world to British terms like ‘codswallop’ 🙂

How many composed people do yell!
When their home team scores not so well.
“That was a sitter!” They shout.
“Ou’nited lets sort it out!”
“Codswallop, my gran could do just as well!”

–

Keith Channing treats us to three delightful limericks:

“You are,” my dad said, “such a trollop.
You don’t walk with grace, you just lollop.”
I’ve heard this before,
Can’t take it no more,
The old man talks so much codswallop!

“Codswallop,” he said, pitching higher,
“You’ll wind up too deep in the mire.
It’s a gift to the bat
When you bowl it so flat,
You must set the stadium on fire.”

“I’ve just read a book by young Trollope,”
He said, tucking into a scollop.
“I found it prosaic
And truly archaic,
In fact, the whole thing was codswallop.”

–

Now it’s over to Graeme Sandford:

Codswallop Limerick #1

“There is no suitable place for codswallop!”
Wrote the writer Mr. Anthony Trollope
“Except in pure tripe,
Written when ripe;
Like in the Barchester’s – where there’s ‘many’ a dollop.”

Codswallop Limerick #2

Why do ‘two’ Limericks about Codswallop, when one would really do?
I should stop after the first attempt; that will surely do!
To over-egg the pudding
May cause the Limerick to malfunction
And you wouldn’t want that to happen – would you?

Codswallop Limerick #3

And as for a third Limerick; that would be really silly;
To write once more and again upon the ‘Cods-wallop-thing subject’ willy-nilly
So, defer, I shall
Lest my impressiveness should pall
And I then receive a reception rather chilly.

–

David Harrison’s limericks made me laugh:

Sister Anna put up a red light

To make extra money at night

It was wicked codswallop

To call her a trollop

She needed the dosh for a flight.

 

An MP devoid of a brain

Demanded a levy on rain

Of waffling codswallop

He served up a dollop

The Speaker cried “Out! You’re a pain!”

–

My second option for you was for a poem on the theme of TRANSPORT.

Rajiv Chopra was first in with a ‘poem on ‘Transport’, kinda inspired by our upcoming Holi festival’:

Grey, grey, the world is grey,
When I wake up every day.
What can I say, the world is drab,
And this makes us all feel sad.

One day, I heard of the festival Holi
I travelled to witness something holy.
What I found, shocked my senses,
The colours, the flowers, broke my fences.

The colours were my means of transport,
Taking my soul to a different port
The grey, I realised, was in my brain
Causing me much needless pain.

I now have become a Holy Fool
And now have made colours my tool
To transport people on a different path
Away, away from a dreary past.

–

Now Graeme Sandford turns his ‘obsession’ to the subject of transport, with many  a poem to enthrall us:

Transport poem #1

A Transport of Delight

On Shanks’s Pony
I stride along
Whilst singing a merry travelling song
Which is neither too short
Nor neither too long
It fits perfectly with the rhythm of my song
Left, right and repeat in turn
It was when I was one that this I did learn
And when I was twenty-one I earned my wings
And flew about upon suspended swings
For an aeroplane is not one of the things
That I would trust me with;
I could train to be a pilot
But, by train I prefer to go
Destination outward
Destination return
Travelling to and fro
And a bicycle made for two
Well that would never do
When I could have such fun
On a bicycle made for one
But, don’t try and tempt me with a unicycle
I would try and fail, or fall
So, don’t you be taking of the Michael
You may as well just saddle up that unicorn
For I was born to ride
Upon an iron horse
Or in a Viking longboat
Guided by the Norse god, Thor
It’s what my journeys are taken for.

Any way, I have transported myself much too much this time
And have to bide a while to recover the rhyme
So, in retrospect, ‘not’ to move is sometimes sublime.

Transport poem #2

Trains are fun;
Rails they run upon
Airports are busy,
Noisy and confusing
Spacecraft are cool;
Planets for the discovering
Omnibuses are red (mostly)
Routemasters definitely are;
Transporting me away.

Transport poem #3

“Steam trains obviously, my man!”
I thought that was a no-brainer
I’m not a diesel or electric train fan
I love the smoke, the steam, the feeling of nostalgia
When I travel upon the old rolling stock
Time goes back… tock!
Tick!
To the olden days I shall stick
As I claim my third-class seat
And await the cry:
“All aboard for Adlestrop!”
Oh, for trains gone by.

Transport poem #4

Transportation

My boat departs at three
And I shall be a stowaway ’til tea
Then I shall be a pirate
Or a pirate’s prating parrot
I don’t mind which
As all I want to say is
‘Pieces of eight!
Pieces of eight!’
I am no ancient mariner
I’m a cabin-boy in my head
I’ll sail the seven oceans
And count myself
As blessed
Until it’s time for bed.

–

Option three was to write a ten-word story using all of the following words: JOKE, SINGING, GRAHAM, GAZUMPED and VICTORY.

Sacha Black didn’t waste time in writing her funny story:

The joke’s on Graham; while singing ‘Victory’ he got gazumped.

–

Rajiv Chopra now entertains with his story:

Singing a joke, I gazumped Graham. Victory! I love you!

–

Sarah Evans‘ is a clever story:

Graham told a joke, got gazumped! So started singing victory. 

–

David Harrison says, ‘As you can see from the 10-worder I’m a Pompey fan with a gallows humour!’:

Graham’s singing was gazumped by Pompey’s victory at Arsenal…joke!

***