Limericks - A Poetry Challenge

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome one and all to the third poetry challenge on this here blog of bloggish bloggering: LIMERICKS! The rules are simple, but we'll get to that.

A limerick is pretty simple, here's an example:

There once was a hippo from London,
Whose shoelaces always were undone;
He tied them again
And time number ten,
But they still untied when he'd run.

Anyway, if you don't know what a limerick is, you can look it up. But anyway, this challenge is comprised of limericks. Here are the rules:

1. No inappropriate limericks. Limericks have a reputation for being as inappropriate as possible and they can be a bit above PG level. I will remove your limerick from the comments if I deem it too unseemly.

2. Write a limerick!!!!! And then post it in the comments if you want to.

3. See if you can come up with a rhyme for "pig iron." Write another limerick and use the two phrases, "pig iron" and whatever you come up with, at the end of your third and fourth lines. Post this in the comments, I want to see what everyone comes up with.

4. Check out the new template! How do you like it? Tell me your thoughts in the comments.

ANYWAY, LET THE CHALLENGE BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Broomstick - Part Thirteen

And hear ye, hear ye, the thirteenth part of Broomstick! Enjoy, all ye who enter here! I'll update the "Inspector Wolfe Tales" page of the blog by Saturday, I promise.

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The squad carriage pulled up to the curb and we all tumbled out. It was me, Thumb, and two others: officers Snow White and Josiah “ugly duckling” Bernard.

Snow White and the ugly duckling were almost completely opposite. Officer White was a tall, slender, charming woman with dark locks and pale skin; Officer Bernard was a squatty musclebound bald man with a lazy eye and several scars on his face.

We all rushed forward to the door without a word, and immediately saw that something was wrong. The door was open and the house was dark. The ugly duckling quietly stepped across the threshold with wand extended, and the other two Peacelocks followed. I was last inside.

“Hello!” called Thumb. “Anybody here?”

“Something’s not right,” Snow White muttered.

“Fan out and search the building,” Thumb ordered. “Wolfe, go with the ug—er, Officer Bernard.”

I followed the Peacelock in question. We burst through several doors and finally ended up in the kitchen.

The worst of my fears were confirmed. A body lay sprawled on the floor, the body of Anthony Shipton.

“Man down!” shouted Officer Bernard. He rushed forward, knelt down, and took the man’s pulse. “He’s dead. Tom, he’s dead!”

I surveyed the scene and noticed several things. A mug of coffee was shattered on the floor, its liquid contents pooled over the tiles. I crouched down and dabbed at the coffee with my finger, raising it to my nose and taking a good sniff.

My nose wrinkled, and my face almost shriveled up in disgust. This guy used way too much creamer.

But then I realized what the pungent smell actually was. “One teaspoon gremlin ash, quarter pound wolfsbane, three tablespoons flour, one cup spider blood, two drops mandrake sap.”

My mind raced back to the scene of the crime yesterday morning. Aleck Shipton’s dead body. In his pocket, a folded piece of paper with a recipe on it.

Aleck Shipton had been in almost as deep as I was right now, and then he was killed before he could piece it together. He must have discovered the recipe when he was snooping around for clues. The recipe for the poison concoction that would kill his father.

My inn where I lodged was more or less halfway between the King’s Men Club and this house that I stood in right now.

They had planned to poison both of them, but Aleck had gotten wind of the operation. He was travelling from the club to warn his father when the spellbolt hit him. A powerful hex custom-crafted to look like a heart attack. He had spasmed and fallen to the ground, white as a sheet, and he had died.

But who would be powerful enough to have wrought such a powerful spell, much less used it without it backfiring? Some very magically adept person, in employ of the Three.

I had no leads, was the truth. All I knew was how the events had fallen in place, nothing more. I needed a new clue, a new lead. I needed some way to draw out whoever was behind all this.

I stared down at the sprawled body on the ground as Thumb came rushing into the room, followed momentarily by Snow. She gasped and looked away.

Thumb skirted around the puddle of deadly coffee on the floor, kneeling beside the victim. He went through various checks of vital signs. I decided to give him some information about it. “Thumb,” I said, “the coffee...it’s got the same ingredients as the list in the back of Aleck’s pocket; I could smell it.”

“What?” Thumb asked. “Oh.” He took a sniff and wrinkled his nose. “Way too much creamer—wait, you’re right. I can pick up the gremlin ash.”

“He’s been poisoned,” I said. “And it’s linked with Aleck.” I was trying to push as much as possible, give him leads. If I could convince Thumb to turn up the pressure on the investigation, then maybe it would play to my advantage in forcing the criminals out of hiding.

“You’re right,” Thumb answered. “And it must also be linked with Alice’s disappearance. Someone’s got a beef with the family or something; this can’t all be coincidence. And you know what? It may be connected with this whole Nether Key business, too!” He was hot on the trail now. Inwardly I started dancing for joy. If Thumb could get some leads, then I would be a step closer toward wrapping up this whole affair. It was going on far too quickly, and who knew how much time Alice had left? She couldn’t be stuck in the Nether Realm indefinitely. I had to free her. With or without the Nether Key she was still in harm’s way, and I was the only one who could help her.

“Get a forensics team,” Thumb ordered Snow, who nodded and left the room eagerly. She didn’t seem keen about staying with a dead body. “You’ve done well, Wolfe,” Thumb commended me. “But the Peacelocks are taking this one over.”

I groaned inside. This was the last thing I wanted. Thumb was back to being an idiotic prickly pear cactus of a detective. “Well, maybe I could help more,” I said.

“No, don’t get me wrong,” Thumb assured me. “I’ll have forensics search the house, and if anything turns up, I’ll inform you. Just this once, you’re on board as temporary consultant. If this goes well, I’ll send you a check. But for now, you don’t have much you can do. Go back home.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Okay,” I said, a bit confused. Thumb was actually being...well, being practical, for once. I nodded. “I’ll let myself out,” I remarked, turning and leaving the room. I felt a touch of pride at the prospect of being a consultant, even if it was a temporary post for just this single investigation. My dreams were close; I was closer than ever to being a certified detective. A temporary consultant’s status would show well on my resumé. Perhaps I would even get some sort of discount or scholarship to the Peacelock University so that I could become a certified investigator. The world would know my fame, at last!

But for now, this investigation was closest at hand. I needed to concentrate my efforts, and I needed a little something done for me.

Broomstick - Part Twelve

I ran up the sidewalk towards the Peacelock HQ. As much as I hated this, it might be the only way. I had to get police help quickly.

I hurried in through the door and brushed past several people to the front desk in the lobby. “I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to wait in line,” the receptionist informed me, a cat in a gray suit.

“No time,” I told her. “I need to see Tom Thumb, it’s an emergency and I think someone’s about to be murdered.”

“I’ll notify him,” the receptionist responded. “Now, I have people in line.”

“No, do it now,” I insisted. The cat at the desk ignored me, so I left and journeyed down the hall. I passed a “No visitors beyond this point” sign but ignored it and acted like I worked there. Not strictly legal, but someone’s life was on the line.

I knocked on the closed door to Tom Thumb’s office. “Come in!” he yelled.

I opened the door, and he started in his chair. “James Wolfe!” he exclaimed. “You’re not supposed to be in here. I’ll escort you out!”

“Tom,” I growled, “Anthony Shipton is about to be murdered, if he isn’t dead already.”

“I’ll get a squad carriage,” Thumb told me. “You’re not off the hook, Wolfe!”

I sat down in a chair in front of his desk. “I don’t care. Someone’s going to be dead if we don’t get to him right this instant.”

Thumb got up from his position behind his desk and made a few quick scries. “Okay, Wolfe, we’ve got a team. Snow White and the ugly duckling volunteered.”

“The ugly duckling?” I chuckled.

            “It’s a nickname,” Thumb explained cryptically. “All right, let’s go.”

The President - A Short Story

The sweaty rain fell upon the earth in hordes upon hordes, like a volley of liquid spears thrown down at the armies of the world. The whipping wind stirred it into spirals as it fell, creating a tearing vicious storm in the hands of the darkness. The bleeding sky tore open in a brilliant flash of forked light. A crack tumbled forward, carried on the wings of the wind, as if a veil had been torn.

In the light the President thought he could see faces, ghostly shapes in the darkness beyond the weeping window. Their eyes, pale and weak, shone with a determined light that was at the same time brave and dwindling.

He could always see them on rainy nights. He remembered these faces well. He remembered the motorcade, the darkness, the slashing storm that bit into the cheeks of hearty men much braver than he. They had protected him. He had not protected them.

He remembered with grave detail the feel of the fountain pen in his hand, the peculiar way it slightly slipped every single time, every single time he inscribed the “u” into the grainy papers at 2:00 a.m. At 2:00 a.m. his signature had changed forever. Even today the pen, the same pen, slipped.

“There’s no such thing as solace,” muttered the President. “No such thing.” He turned his head down and stared at the carpet. All he could hear in the rumbling of the thunder was the firing of the guns. All he felt was the press of the seat into his shoulder as he was flung down away from the window. The lightning was a flashing muzzle. Seven men gave life and limb. Seven men to whom he was more indebted than to anyone, and whom he could never repay. Seven men, seven years ago. Now it was his last night in the Oval Office. He turned away from the window.

Announcement: Concerning Camp NaNoWriMo

www.nanowrimo.org

www.campnanowrimo.org

During the month of April, I fought a long and arduous struggle with several powerful dark creatures: Writer's Block (Wielder of the Blank Page and Evil Overlord of the Slowly Shifting Word Count), Distraction (That Dancing Llama at the corner of your eye who entices you with cotton candy and cookies, only to destroy your whole manuscript when you approach in hopes of treats), School (I won't even go into that; suffice it to say it impeded my word count very much), Despair (at the meager size of my word count), and, perhaps worst of all, Sickness. I came down with some bad poison ivy, coupled with a fever, around the second week of the month.

Any fellow Wrimos out there know how important the second week is. You can catch up on the first week, but if you don't stay on track for the second, it all falls to pieces. I still managed to write quite a lot (I was aiming for 75K, and I cranked out enough to put me in position to conquer 50K). But after my second week, I basically gave up, and only managed about 3000 more the rest of the month.

I have won NaNoWriMo before, last November in fact. But Camp NaNoWriMo, the April session at least, was not in my destiny. I had several essays and projects to write in school, as well as the dreaded ALGEBRA, worst of all horrors, so that when I came home I was exhausted by the time I finished homework. All these factors I've mentioned combined to beat me to a pulp this April. I only managed 30K the whole month. Which isn't bad, considering the obstacles. But it's still far short of the intended goal.

However, in July, I will try again, and there won't be school to impede me. Hopefully, I'm healthy, too. The phoenix will rise again!