Double Ent-tendres

It's Three-Word Wednesday time, and today, we use the words douse, naughty, and pale.

Some trees come alive in the night

After Luna has doused her pale light.

Naughty pines, like an eel,

Writhe and wriggle until

Morning would find them standing upright.

The Way to a Man's Heart

My triumphal (or at least monumphal) return to three-word Wednesday begins with the words heave, ponder, and valid. So here's a limerick for you:

Someone's Wrong on the Internet, A Sonnet

A Three-Word Wednesday sonnet. Today's words are dismal, luscious, and waffle.

The luscious colors of a well-made page
Bedazzle eyes that stare into the screen
That mirrors back this electronic age
When beauty, with a single click, is seen.

A Three-Word Wednesday Limerick: Hire an Editor

Today's three words are abnormal, dangle, and lavish.

An editor knows how to wrangle
Participles that just want to dangle,
And your abnormal text
Will be lavished, not hexed,
If you hire a pro to untangle.

See what others have done with these three words at ThreeWordWednesday.com.

A Visual Three-Word Wednesday

Today's three words for Three-Word Wednesday are cling, murmur, and taken. It seems like all I've been doing lately is writing and copy editing, so today I thought I would do something different. Which means that all you're really going to get from me are the three words themselves. Here they are:

Three-Word Wednesday: Old Money

Today's Three-Word Wednesday words are error, jingle, and vindicate. Here's a poem about something that really gets to me about the Republican robber barons who are trying to dictate what America is. It's called...

Old Money
The gold that jingles on your wrist
  Is not sophistication.
The hour a day you spend at "work"
  Is not a vindication.
The family wealth in offshore banks
  Is not an indication
    That you are living your life Right,
    Or that your soul is virgin white,
    Or that you should sleep well at night.

If you can look upon a child
  Who lives her life in terror
And think that this so human world
  Could not be any fairer,
And that you earned all that you have,
  Then you would be in error
    About the sum of your true worth,
    Th' importance of your sacred birth,
    And why you're here upon this Earth.

A Trip to the Video Store

A late-night three-word Wednesday post. Better late than never!

Usually.

Today's words are bloody, kinky, and tender, which may also be the title of the next Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Here, though, we visit a couple who are having trouble seeing eye-to-eye.

A Lawyer Leaves the Nest

It's three-word Wednesday. Today's words are dependence, rumple, and kept.

The lawyer gave up his dependence
On the love of his rich, aging parents.
In his rumpled old shirt
He kept trying to flirt,
But the best girls were always defendants.

Searching for Serenity

It's three-word Wednesday time. Today, a limerick based on the words draft, locate, and serenity.

About Blogging

It's three-word Wednesday time. This week's words are growl, hype, and justify.

I usually try to stay on the lighter side with these things, but this poem is what grew out of today's words. It's about this blog, and it's honest.

Three-Word Meta-Wednesday

Three-word Wednesday rolls around once again. This week's words are fragrant, jostle, and remnant.I started tinkering with these words a little, and then I found a thread. That thread led to larger short story idea that I plan to further explore.

The Birth of an "Author"

Just in time for World Poetry Day, here's today's three-word Wednesday poem.
Today's words are amateur, diligent, and nurture.

So diligently, though an amateur, she
Worked all through the night on her story.
She had this small notion that set her in motion
Toward what she had hoped would be glory.

Thought she had quite the hook, she nurtured that book,
Didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't pee.
And when she reached the end, saved the file and clicked Send,
She dreamt what her future might be.

She imagined indeed all the people would read,
And writing would be her new living.
In her mail the next day, they had plenty to say —
And those agents weren't very forgiving.

"What this story has not: Interest, pathos, and plot."
"It's an odious mass of stupidity."
"A complete waste of ink." "Almost drove me to drink."
"Piece of crap!" and some other acidity.

But one guy who read it thought, "Just needs an edit!
And rantings like this are in vogue."
Though the facts were suspect, the text was spellchecked,
And that's how we got Going Rogue.

I'm Sarah Palin, and I endorse this poem.*
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

* No, she doesn't. She really, really doesn't.

Three-Word Wednesday: The Tiniest Spelling Rule

It's three-word Wednesday, and this week's words are deviant, minuscule, and trivial.

So here's a little limerick that would've fit in quite nicely with my Grammar Day poems from Sunday:

It might seem a trivial rule,
But you should have learned it in school:
Only a deviant
Or careless miscreant
Spells minuscule "miniscule."

Foster Care Is Hell

A three-word Wednesday limerick. Today's words are angelic, foster, and ruin.

Such a change in this boy who, now mild,
Was once so sadistic and wild
Until through foster care
Came this angelic pair
Who just ruined poor Lucipher's child.

Amazon Reviews

A three-word Wednesday limerick. Today's words are control, razor, and flesh.

How to Get Noticed on Amazon without Writing Your Own Book

The trick to writing powerful reviews of
Other people's work can be allusive.
The ones that really mesh
Are like razors through one's flesh:
Hostile, uncontrolled, raw, and abusive.

A Three-Word Wednesday Limerick Twofer

Today, I offer you two limericks using the words bubble, lumber, and wreck for Three Word Wednesday.

This wreck of a girl at the club'll

Hop around like she's light as a bubble.

When dancin' she goes

(Oh her poor partner's toes!)

She lumbers like drunk Barney Rubble.

Image by curran.kelleher via Flickr

My ego could burst like a bubble.

I'm a wreck of a poet in trouble.

The way my words lumber

Might induce you to slumber,

Plus I'm not very good at rhyming.

The Importance of Honesty in a Happy Marriage

It's Three-Word Wednesday! Today's words are brutal, sullen, and trust.


If marriage is to take the wanted course —
Avoiding sullen nights of great remorse —
Just tell the brutal truth
Even if it seems uncouth,
And I trust you'll find — forsooth!
That your dreadful wife will grant you a divorce.

'Twas a Sight Before Christmas

A Three-Word Wednesday post. Today's words are belief, festive, and rumple.

'Twas a Sight Before Christmas

or, She Came Upon a Midnight Clear

I bought a festive DVD,
A marked-down Christmas flick
Whose cover was a rumpled mess,
Its face a faded pic.

I took it home and put it on
And stared into the screen.
The story that the movie told
I ne'er before had seen:

The Complaints Department

It's three-word Wednesday time! This week's words are impetus, solace, and vindication.

The Complaints Department
Her impetus for communication
Was to get some retail vindication,
But she found no solace
When she tried to call us
'Cause we were all out on vacation.

Three-Word Wednesday, Plus a Bonus Limerick!

This week's words are carnage, jerk, and puncture. If you want to read more three-word Wednesday submissions, click here.

He drifts into the night to do his work.
In the darkest alleyways he'll lurk.
He punctures people's necks,
Lives on carnage, pain, and sex.
A vampire? No, just some neurotic jerk.

About the bonus limerick

On Tuesday, I was poking around trying to answer the question, "Who discovered oxygen?" In my searches I came across the wonderful word dephlogisticated. And what do I always do when I find a neat new word? I tweet it.

Almost immediately, @kemullholland challenged me to use the word in the sentence. I like a challenge, especially a word challenge, but just a sentence wasn't challenging enough. I told her I'd do her one better and use it in a limerick.

And here is that (historically accurate) limerick:

"The stuff that burns," the chemists used to say,
"Is inessential stuff that burns away."
Then Priestley laid it bare:
"Dephlogisticated air!"
"It's oxygen!" said Doc Lavoisier.