AND THE WORDLE CHAMPION IS FRANCIS SCUDELLARI

Both judges unanimously voted Francis Scudellari as this year's WORDLE CHAMPION.

Congratulations Francis. Marianne came a very close second. Footsie and Barbara came third. Because the standard was so high and the challenge was quite difficult everyone will receive a prize. Thank you to all for being courageous enough to participate in this challenge. Next year I will conjure up something even more fiendishly difficult and I hope to see you here again.
Cheers
Rall
PS
The consolation prize for being fashionably late and making herculean efforts to get here as well as writing a ripper poem goes to Pamela Villars.

FOR THE WEEKEND ...Paolo Conte

Go Paolo! An ex lawyer who became a pop star in his 70s.

FINALISTS 100 WORDLE EXTRAVAGANZA

Pamela De Ville (fashionably late entrant and former prize winner )




MARIANNE



DOCTOR FOOTSIE



MOZZARELLA CICCOLINI (Judge)



FRANCIS SCUDELLARI with two Aussie sheilas!



COURTNEY ACT (Judge)



BARBRA SEVILLE

A Message for Mary Bale

For those who don't know Sydney... Elizabeth Bay.






I was rather touched by this plaque outside a block of flats in Elizabeth Bay. It renews my faith in human beings. I am glad there are people out there who still like cats and wouldn't dream of harming a defenceless animal.They say you should judge a society by the way it treats its animals. I think that's correct!

Storm Over Sydney by John Trantner

It has been storming here this afternoon. My favourite poem came to mind and I thought I would share it with you. Beare Park, Elizabeth Bay is the park referred to.




Blustering over the Harbour,brilliant rain
slaps and blathers at the rusty Bridge.
I dodge for cover as the sky turns green.
Cars wobble and skid on William Street
hot with mechanical rage.

Lightning strikes twice: a blinding white
crack! and the echo whacks the concrete.
I fossick and dawdle in the supermarket aisles
safely underground, among the paper plates
and the jars of honey.

The thunder has trundled a thousand miles
and boiled the Pacific black to bother us all,
and it's dull and sick from its long journey.
Now I'm trying to wheel a crook trolley
from the shopping mall.

the chrome's rusty and a bent wheel clanks.
It's the season of ruby cellophane and holly;
the gutters are chock -full of summer hail
fresh frozen and smashed into chunks.
At the cafe I doze

in a corner,read the messages and the mail,
and unwrap the book I've bought. It's old,old:
the writer's fervour whispering down the years,
epigrams elaborating a narrative-
as though such fragments could!

On schedule, the weather grumbles and raves
westwards over the suburbs. I'm happy; I know
a little park where I can park the car,
sit on a wet bench and watch the waves
fume in the amethyst air.

FOR THE WEEKEND

THE INNOCENTS

THE INNOCENTS



My new charges
Miles and Flora
delightful children
sweet happy cherubs
are playing by the lake

Flora is singing
a sad haunting little song
"Who taught you that my darling?"
I ask
" Miss Jessel" she replies.
Miles smirks and his face contorts
supercilious and cruel momentarily
It is the face pressed to my window last night

Perturbed, I walked to the summer house
and watched them from a distance
A slight breeze from nowhere
catches my scarf winding it tightly
around my neck and veils my face.
Through gauze, I see them both
speaking to an imaginary figure
At first,I think it's a game
And then, a goose walks over my grave

I think of all the whispering
soft echoes in the corridors
I think of the excessive politeness
the disingenuous concern
I think of the knowing unsettling looks
well beyond their years when Miss Jessel
and Mr.Quint are mentioned
I think of the mysterious slamming of doors
sobbing in the middle of the night
I think of Mrs Grose , the housekeeper
becoming agitated and turning pale when the
candles flicker inexplicably at supper time
I think of Miss Jessel, my predecessor and her fate
My heart is pounding
I know I am in danger
I know I must flee
Now
before it is too late

Laurie Lee, The Well Loved Stranger by Valerie Grove

Lorna Wishart, Laurie Lee's mistress, one of the great beauties of her day.


A very entertaining biography about Laurie Lee, one of the UK's favourite authors.

TASTY MORSELS

' On frosty mornings he woke cold and desolate.His mind ugly and raw, clutching desperately at the precipice until Lorna came again, with a bag of sweet cakes and two bottles of wine. He played the violin while she cooked him salmon and potatoes
or steak and onions filling the caravan with oily aromas.'We felt secure in the warm shadows of the van'

A German bomber flew over the woods, dropping four bombs; Laurie heard the whistle of a splinter beside him, six feet from the caravan..He was fine as long as the sun shone and she was with him. After she left silence fell like a deafening wave.

As Britain's industrial cities were devasted, Laurie was guiltily conscious of his apparent immunity from engagement. Whole days would pass when he made a few drawings, did a cross word puzzle, cooked a stew,trimmed the lamps, played his fiddle, and wrote two poems,one unprintable and the other incoherent...

" I am in some way amazed that I am allowed to do this. My life is more tranquil, more lacking in incident than it has ever been.When I find myself making love on sunny afternoons with the sound of battle overhead, I can only think there is something marvellously right about my life or something terribly wrong. Although I like to feel, as I have always done, that nothing but life and love is my business, I have a recurrent breath of suspicion that I have some duty to my fellow men. We shall see how long I can ignore it."

He spent an eyeopening weekend with the eccentric artist Cedric Morris in Suffolk.
Morris took him through pink walled rooms hung with sickeningly diseased and cynical portraits. Lorna's painter friend David Carr was there, drooping his grecian locks, and there was a shaven headed Nazi type who cooked staggering meals.Everybody seemed very free and easy and used words that made Laurie blush.

THE TIME OF LIFE by Elizabeth Riddell

I owned my body once but now my body owns me.
It bends me,breaks me,
gnarls my fingers, splits my nails,
paints me in red and grey and brown,
splinters my bones, shreds my skin,
leaches the colour from my lips and eyes.

My body tells me what to do and why
where once I gave the orders-love here,love there.
The takeover was a slow affair,
painful, it diminished me,
but I can say now all is over.
The crying is finished with the kissing. All is quiet
except for a little late rebellious heat,
a random pang of memory in the blood.

FOR THE WEEKEND

Boy, does this spin you back?

My Thoughts on Critiquing

More than ever, I agree with the principle of only giving positive feedback as a commentary on a poem, unless the poet specifically asks for a critique, and even then, I would not advise anyone to do this particularly with my latest Machiavellian experience.

I put on a 100 Wordle competition. A vindictive person posing as a blog friend sent me three comments telling me her poem was absolute rubbish and that she was not prepared to put it on her regular poetry blog. I found this extremely insulting but chose to ignore it and deleted the comments, as finding 100 words takes some time. I could not imagine why anyone would want to submit a poem they thought was such rubbish,that they were too embarrassed to put it on their regular blog site. I do understand now. I am very naive when it comes to being set up.

She persistently sent a 4th comment so I stupidly went to the site where she prefaced her poem with a statement saying it was rubbish and shame should prod her to remove it. I could only agree with her. Since then she has removed the poem with the preface and left my comment which has provoked personal attacks. I walked right into this. So the moral of this tale is don't be coerced into giving a negative comment. Poets are not above viciousness and character assassination, whatever their motivation.

When I was a student I was supposed to read 'The Prince' by Machiavelli. I never did. That was also a mistake.

Muddy Extract Plucked from a B Grade Movie

Allo, I'm Home !
Do you have a
bitter sweet kiss
for me Cato?
Is that a drooping eye
gloss purple bruised
I see before me?
A hard right hook to
your china doll face peut-etre?
Is that your gourd-like head
I see hiding behind the curtains?
Non.
Eh bien
Surprise!

SPILLING THE BEANS

Compelling story of Clarissa Dickson Wright's amazing roller coaster life encompassing an extremely priviledged upbringing, child abuse, alcoholism, addiction, homelessness and finally success. Even though I disagree with her views on hunting, I still found it, a ripper read.

TASTY MORSELS

' It all had the elements of a farce: The anaesthetist was determined I must have a bad heart due to my size and was, I think, mortified when he had to admit that it was the healthiest heart he had seen in ten years;and the operation was
performed unsuccessfully as it transpired by an Indian doctor with very average English. I was in the Dickson Wright ward and we had a ridiculous debate because he couldn't grasp the fact that my name was the same as the ward's and thought I was
mocking him.Later, on the day of the operation, someone came and actually served a summons on me in my hospital bed for unpaid parking fines.'

'..for the five years that followed Clive's death were a mish mash of blackout and unmanageability. He died the day the war in the Falklands was declared in 1982. One day some time later I was standing in the rain under an umbrella and there was a parade going past and I asked a young man standing beside me what it was for.
Smiling, he said it was the Falklands parade. Mystified , I asked him whether something had happened in the Falklands, and not surprisingly he fled. After I was a few years sober someone gave me a book on the eighties: I don't even remember the Pope being shot because I spent the first six years of the decade with my head in a gin bottle.'

THE FOREIGN FOREST by Dorothy Porter

1954 - 2008

You burn your bridges
going into a foreign forest
like a gleaming cruel
new school
where you don't know
the bluffing bullies
from the silent cougars

You learn from experience
going into a foreign forest
where cold pine needles
have a smell
like a new lover's hair
in winter-
slippery ice spiced

You can't name the flowers
going into a foreign forest
but the leaves blaze
against the early snow
like a moment-fire
blowing into your eyes
hot. too much.cold.



MULTIPLEX
Every night
MULTIPLEX
shines through my hospital
window

big blue neoned letters
aimed vertically
at the thick dark sky
like a rocket
steadying its nerve
on a launching pad.

Hiya, MULTIPLEX
Whoever you are
you look like
you're going places.
Take me with you.

100 WORDLE

Well I thought this was great fun. Hopefully, someone will enjoy doing one as well.
All of the words have been taken from my most recent poems.

LOVE
is a choir of sparrows
a bloom of blush red rose buds
a waft of primavera jonquils
a burst of beautiful butterflies
a polite lunch of baked fruit
chocolate figs and iced snow flecked gin
an ardent moist silken cherry kiss
on the nape of a neck set off by a
jewelled clasp

LOVE
is walking along a country road
gazing at puffed sheep clouds
modulated warm hearted laughter
tinkling bells
a gloss moon ball glowing over
distant diamante stars in the night sky
hot urgent fiery young desire
a delicate touch to an alluring naked back
an amazing frisson of cool magic
The stuff of dreams
JOY

But still, a roll of the dice
can change everything
SNAP
SWITCH
Lightning flash, a severe storm
jet engine rumbles, wings sliced
torn apart, rapid descent, downfall
desperate attempt to open tight damaged latch
ranting, screaming like hunted prey
no escape
CRASH

A trickle of sunlight streams across the logs and branches
the tattered debris of dawn
Flotsam and jetsam softly bobbing like a slow swan gliding across a glass sea
At the bottom of the ocean, white tapered shrivelled fingers
will never know the drudgery of old age
Fine maquillaged faces have turned into foetid pap
a frieze from a grubby hippy pot market
A school of fish darts through long flowing hair
wrapped in wilted seaweed plant
Ashes to ashes
Dust to Dust

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIBRANS

To celebrate,here is a challenge for those who love wordles.I hope these 100 words are legible.I found them when I was doing the washing. If more than one person enters there will be a prize; a DVD " Under Milkwood " by Dylan Thomas with Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and Elizabeth Taylor.

For The Weekend

Roulette d'Amour

It can happen
It does happen
Perhaps only once
A throw of the dice
could be your downfall

You might be lucky
You may survive
Or
You may not
Faites vos jeux

A glance
Too ardent
A gaze
Too impertinent
sets off butterflies and hot blushes
illuminated in the candle glow
The atmosphere is crackling
Sizzling
Alarm bells
Faites vos jeux

You feel an urgent need
To escape
To breath cool air
To recompose
You leave
Toute de suite

He follows
He instinctively senses
Vulnerable prey
He knows the latch is damaged
Clicks it open
and walks right in
It's already too late
Rien ne va plus

You feel yourself being dragged
under by the current
Drowning in a sea of rose petals
Rien ne va plus

Cet amour
si violent
si fragile
si tendre
si desespere
splinters and smashes
with tsunami force
Personne ne gagne
Personne ne gagne

Doris and the Domestics ( Drawings by Mary Leunig )

Drudgery
Doris
Domestics
Dreary
Draining
Why me ?
Say no
Say no
Sucker
I am leaving
I am leaving
I am too tired to
LEAVE
I have too much stuff
I am throwing every thing
OUT
I'm going to escape
ESCAPE
from all this stuff
from
THINGS

Friendship

For Jennifer Patterson (1928 - 1999 )
" Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love." Eli Wiesel.

You swore by the magic properties
of the foetid water of the Yangtze River
Of your childhood
Got expelled from the Convent
for being an unsuitable gel
Gave the gels gin for period pain
as matron of a boarding school
Got yourself into scrapes in Portugal
Drove the boys wild in Germany
Cooked up a storm with tapered red claws
Catering to Party Princesses
Loved your dahlings at the Oratory
Roared with laughter crackled with cigarettes
Pontificated in upper crust cut glass
modulated tones about choir boys being egg bound
Laced the custard with Brandy for the nuns
Drink, till it was coming out of your ears
Spill out over your tight black leather
Roaring around with Clarissa on your Harley Davidson
Eccentric adventurous warm kind creatively mad
You gave so much
You planted smiles
And you didn't know it

For The Weekend

Woman In White

Wrapped completely in white
Delicate jewelled hands
Small feet in white high heels
Only bare heels exposed to the world
Jet eyes outlined in kohl
Berry coloured lips
Diamantes sprinkled over scarf
and flowing top like glitter
Tapered white slacks
Alluring

A beauty hold hands with her love
A hand gently placed on his broad back
They gaze out to sea
A camera is handed to a passerby
They stand side by side, apart
They do not touch
I watch
I know
I remember