[Nigel Mace]

Yes, Brian, I did kno - as eny fool etc. - but also made sure the last line ended with the opening letter so completing what John neatly calls my 'circular thingy'. I also tried with my first effort to continue the conceit within the title's words but, frustratingly, couldn't manage one - at least with any sense - that positioned the first and last letters as the first and last of the title. (They're stuck in the middle.) I did try with the second but wit/ingenuity failed me completely, so I settled for allusion.

Still, I suspect we are all making vehicles too elaborate for the original notion.

Having said that, Rob, your splendid closing shambles could end....

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe upshot is,
Lamentably, akin to excreta,
And since my talent will not stretch this far
Reviewing these lines takes me quite aback,
Knocking the copy that they’ve made for you.

[Rob Stuart]

It could, Nigel, but then it's less tricksy because it doesn't do your circular thingy!

[Rob Stuart]

It says a lot, doesn't it, that we're all voluntarily introducing complications in order to make the exercise interesting...

[Peter Goulding]

Originally Posted by Rob Stuart

It says a lot, doesn't it, that we're all voluntarily introducing complications in order to make the exercise interesting...

Not me Rob. Tricky enough as it is. I expect someone will end up doing it in Latin with every line a palindrome.

Morbidly, I feel the urge to scream
my name, so those around me have no doubt
that I exist and am not but a dream.

My youth is but a haze-clothed quinquereme
emerging through the mists with mocking shout
to taunt me. Now I feel the urge to scream.

Middle-age has floated down the stream,
meandering like some lost gadabout
to half-exist in someone else’s dream.

My sense of smell is growing more extreme –
every time I twitch this ugly snout,
the stench of death provokes the urge to scream.

Mutiny! Swashbuckling hopes now seem
mere droplets from a broken waterspout.
Trapped, this corpse still feels the urge to scream
my rage that I am now too old to dream.

[Rob Stuart]

[quote=Peter Goulding;287415]Not me Rob. Tricky enough as it is. I expect someone will end up doing it in Latin with every line a palindrome.

Says the man who's just produced a bloody villanelle!

[Brian Allgar]

Well, Rob, you've done the acrostic - but my implicit challenge to Bazza (or anyone else) was to make it rhyme. Ha-ha, chiz, enuff said!

P.S. The last word was originally LARK - I don't know why you've changed it to LARF.

[Graham King]

Threat-filled gusts carouse this night.
Through trees the moon casts fingers:
Shadows long, clutching and bent;
Their grip on one’s heart lingers.

Solemn statues line the drive,
Each stony visage haunting;
Golem-life they seem to have
(Endowed, somehow): dumb, daunting.

Gravel grinds beneath my shoes,
Shifts, scrunching, under tip-toes;
Silent though I strive to stride,
Each crunch (so loud!) yet echoes.

Starting up steps to the door (the key -
Yes - in my pocket!)
To enter – late - unheard, I creep-
Pray wife’s asleep! – then lock it.

[I caught just in time, before sending in the entry, my error - carelessly having S3L2 begin 'Moves', which has become 'Shifts' to suit S3L1's end].
I also, late on, rewrote L1 from 'Wild and windy was the night' to something less hackneyed.]

[Rob Stuart]

P.S. The last word was originally LARK - I don't know why you've changed it to LARF.[/quote]

Simply to make it circular, Brian-it starts and ends with the letter 'f'. For what it's worth. Which is nothing, I know.

[Rob Stuart]

Ah, I see what you mean now, Nigel. A rogue letter crept in to screw up the end of the acrostic, which should (and now does!) read 'LARF'.