My Weekly Writing Challenge

If you fancy flexing your creative writing brain, why not give my latest writing challenge a go?

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

Option two: Write a poem on the theme of WILDLIFE

Option three: Write a twenty-word story using all of the following words: COLIN, GAMER, INEFFABLE, TRAPEZE and MORRIS DANCING

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

The King of Limericks, Keith Channing, is first up with his brilliant quintet:

I’m missing a number of teeth
From above and a few from beneath
It wouldn’t be great
To wear a false plate
But I need to, or my name’s not Keith.

I’m leaving my igloo sub-polar
To look for some energy solar
My teeth will still chatter
But that doesn’t matter
The last line must end up with ‘molar’.

My pet theory’s just been disproved
And I know that I should be unmoved
But don’t ask how I feel
Coz it’s truly unreal
Like a shark with teeth freshly removed.

The teeth on my gears, post Madrid
Are shattered, so guess what they did.
They ran an upgrade,
And that, I’m afraid,
Will cost me five slots on the grid.

I’m doing some stuff on my blog
About Eos, our lovely new dog,
But Trev was aware;
His teeth he did bare,
And said we should go for a jog.

–

David Harrison has written two highly amusing limericks:

“Ha ha I’ll have them all out!”
Cried the dentist Septimus Sprout
“I love pulling teeth
My contempt is beneath
Any wimp who dares to shout!”

A knight called Sir Lancelot Heath
While jousting lost all of his teeth
To buy a new set
The cash he couldn’t get
So he pinched it from his valet Keith.

Your second option was to write a poem on the theme of WAR:

Rajiv Chopra wrote a very powerful poem:

Raise high the God of War,
Let’s fill the streets with blood and gore.
We must fight with all our might,
And we must avenge every slight.
What’s yours is mine, you little slime;
I’ll kill and plunder till all is mine.

I’ll take your woman, you little shit
We’ll kill everyone, bit by bit.
The world will shake with the thunder,
And drown under the weight of plunder.
Your’e in my way, and that’s your blunder.
We will push you six feet under.

There is only one God, he is mine.
I’ll smash your temples, and your shrine.
Your festivals are just sacrilege
We’ll bury your customs, and your language.
We shall raise my God’s Temple,
And raze yours, it’s just that simple.

One day, when all is yours,
And when you rule, from shore to shore;
There’ll be no people, no more fauna,
The world will be shorn of all it’s flora
Will you then raise high, the Gods of War,
Or quote the Last Raven, “Nevermore”?

–

 Jason Moody also crafted a strong poem:

It rips apart nations
And closes our hearts
It robs us of light
Throws us into the dark

Like a virus it spreads
Men with guns all infected
While those in the middle
Muttered, displaced, neglected

We don’t learn our lessons
We’re still medieval
Lands filled with hate
Intent on upheaval

We mourn for those lost
But lessons aren’t learnt
Our leaders they preach
But their words people spurn

This fighting won’t cease
While the worlds full of hate
This virus, evolving
Perhaps it’s too late

Our future is uncertain
But our voice must implore
Put an end to the hate
Build a world without war.

–

It’s with great pleasure that I welcome Gordon Simmonds to my weekly challenge. As many of you know he’s been my guest writer many a time, with his wonderful poems on the subject of war. Here is an extract from his poem, Williams War which he’d like to present for inclusion in this week’s Writing Challenge:

As the first salvo shattered the silence that day in 1915,

They say you were there, hearing the thunderous roar

And feeling the ship tremble as the big guns fired,

As the great battleship Cornwallis, opened the war at Gallipoli.

They say you were there as she belched flame and fury,

And watched as the great shells reduced their target to blasted rubble.

Were you the first to land on that dreadful shore before they sent for the Army?

Did you watch from your ship as our boys forced the beach-head

And died like the flies that infested the corpse covered beaches?

Or; were you ashore, enduring the stifling heat of summer

And the sickness that killed more men than the Turks?

Then, when the ANZACS came, brash and innocent of total war,

Did you see them suffering in the hell of Suvla Bay, as they died too?

Were you there when the Generals destroyed an army,

And when the last shot was fired, did you join those once proud men

As in the dark of night, they left, in inglorious defeat?

–

Bharul Chhatbar felt inspired to write a poem on this subject:

Oh dear war! Why are you so?
Whore, anger, roar
You make us scare
Raze with despair.

You not so, I know
Enveloped over peace
So ferocious is your clatter
Please change to better.

Such destruction, such great losses
Why not for once reason?
Dear, be winning all rationally
Then metamorphosed to loyalty!

–

Option three was for a twenty-word story using all of the following words: PRINCE CHARMING, GANGSTER, BALLET, APOCOLYPSE and CHUFFEDJason Moody always entertains with his stories:

Prince Charming, as he was known, was rather chuffed. His gangster friend was at ballet, completely unaware of the apocalypse.

–

“Ballet shoes?” said the gangster. He was less than chuffed.

Prince Charming did not lessen his demands, despite the apocalypse.

–

Prince Charming, his gangster friend and the lady from ballet were all chuffed the new nightclub, Apocalypse had finally opened.

–

Prince Charming, now a feared local gangster, was chuffed with the ballet tickets. Swan Lake Apocalypse sounded great, he thought.

–

EDC Writing tapped into my misspelling with a very witty story:

Apocalypse can wait no matter how you spell it , Prince Charming chuffed to see ‘Gangster Queen’ dancing at the ballet!

–

Rajiv Chopra spins a funny yarn:

“Prince Charming fancied himself a gangster. Chuffed with the idea of creating a huge apocalypse, he went to a ballet.”

–

David Harrison brings last week’s delightful entries to a close, with his super story:

“Prince Charming is a fraud and gangster!” said Buttons at the ballet, chuffed at his apocalypse. “He’s now a pumpkin!”

 

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