Hey everyone.
If you’re reading this you probably know that “towering” won to move me on to round three, and my “churn” poem lost in the regional semi-finals of the March Madness Poetry tournament, leaving me just shy of the Elite Eight!
But you know I’m a good sport, and it’s all about having fun!
And working with churn was NOTHING BUT FUN.
Here’s my poem, in case you missed it:
At the 25th annual Texas State spelling bee,
little Pat Butter was on a quite a roll.
He correctly spelled spreadable, salted and soften,
but the pressure was finally taking its toll.
his stomach started to churn,
as he patiently waited his turn,
and the temperature rose ever higher.
It soon got unbearably hot,
and he melted, right there on the spot,
when they told him his next word was “friar”
But even better are all the things that were rejected in favor of this poem!
My personal favorites included changing songs to include the word churn:
- Churn, Baby, Churn, disco inferno!
- Churn around, every now and then I get a little bit lonely cuz you never come around…
- Ah…churn it, churn it good, ahh, churn it, churn it REAL GOOD
- You can churn if you want to, you can leave your friends behind, cuz if your friends don’t churn yes if they don’t churn then they ain’t no friends of mine….
Many ridiculous ideas, including:
- churning out wisdom
- churning out children
- you churn it you buy it
- an ad for a colonial housewife who can churn
- a butter sculpture on the beach with the waves churning.
And some partially written stuff that didn’t make the cut:
When little cousin Sammy came to visit from Miami
We had ice cream for dessert, every night.
But even though he’s three, he’ll get as much as me,
And that doesn’t sit with me right.
But if I got him in trouble, maybe I could get double,
(add lines in here saying Sammy was given all kinds of art supplies but paper was taken away, and he was left in the room alone.)
Now dear old Sammy can churn out a picture in no time at all,
and when I opened the door, I noticed the walls
Were covered from floor to ceiling with scribbles and lines.
My diabolical plan was working out fine.
Oh Mom! I called, “Dad, come and see what Sammy did to my room.”
“Oh my goodness,” they cried, “it’s everywhere, it’s a
“masterpiece?”
The rest of the poem would go on and say how they loved the room so much that it drew attention from the media, and, since Sammy mostly drew pictures of ice cream, he won free ice cream for life from a local ice cream shop, which he gladly shared with his cousin, so it all ended well.
Since I couldn’t fit that all into 16 lines, I stopped.
Another one that was promising?
A list describing all these horrible health side-effects, ending with:
This pain wasn’t worth
the five dollars I earned
for licking the inside of
that old butter churn.
and finally, the one that came to poem form but lacked a little at the end:
When Charlie O’Dule
got tired of school
He made a secret machine like no other.
At the flip of a switch,
It’d churn out boogers which
Were so convincing they fooled his dear mother.
“Your sinsues!” she said,
“You get back into bed!”
“If you rest they’ll be sure to clear out.”
This went on every day,
until nearly mid May,
When one morning she heard Charlie shout.
His mom opened the door
and all over the floor,
were boogers, slimy and green.
“Help!” Charlie cried,
“I’ve tried and I’ve tried,
“But I simply can’t stop this machine!”
“Maybe it’s sick?”
joked his mom as she slipped,
And the machine, as if on cue,
ended the assault,
and came to a halt
With a loud and slimy, “AHHCHOO!”
I thought the ending needed more….I may play with it soon and add more of a story.
That’s my problem….I love story too much!
Catching up on blog posts today
so many exciting ones coming your way!
Things that I’ve made,
signed books,
thankful lists,
artist dates,
writing goals (including the 30 before 30)
and more!
Also, my brother and I are going to start a little feature here called Manic Monday.
We had so much fun with the poetry competition that we want to start our own.
We’re going to go against each other but really want to have guests too, so we’ll see how that works out.
We listened to that song a lot as kids, on our parent’s jukebox.
And I CANNOT resist some good old fashioned alliteration.
Ok, back to work. You’ll see what I’m up to soon!
write on dear friends!
KE
