Week Four of the Verse Off – and a special welcome to any who may be joining us for the first time! (Feel free to scroll below to past posts and see what we’ve been up to.) This is the final edition of the Verse Off, for now, so if you’ve been waiting to contribute, now’s your chance.If you’ve played before, you know the routine.. If this is your first time, here’s the drill…May is a dual celebration with the release of Kathryn Apel’s This is the Mud!, 
a humorous rhyming picture book, and Sally Murphy’s Pearl Verses the World,
a humorous rhyming picture book, and Sally Murphy’s Pearl Verses the World,
a free verse novel.To celebrate, each Sunday, we are inviting blog readers to have some fun by responding – in verse – to a prompt. You can choose your style – either free verse (unrhyming) or rhyming verse. This is your chance to prove that your preferred form is the best.If you want to respond in free verse, please post your response on Sally’s blog, and if writing in rhyme, you can post at Kathryn’s blog.The next day – Monday – we’ll post the verses in a new post for all to see.
Here are the rules:
1. There is no ‘right’ answer to the prompt. Be creative.
2. Limit your response to twelve lines (so there is room for everyone’s response)
3. You can respond in either free verse or rhymed verse. If you’d like to do both, post each at the appropriate blog.
4. This is your work, so add your name, and a link to your website or blog, if you’d like.
5. Everyone is a winner! But there is no winner.
Got it? Great. Then here goes with the new prompt…
One cold wet day
in Eucla
I wrote a postcard home
“Having a wail of a time”
At home
they thought I’d made
a spelling error.
But I, after two days driving in the rain,
was disconsolate
And the whale?
Though unexpected,
it did – almost – bring
a smile to my face.
Cutting costs mean
cheaper exports
lower fuel bills
and fewer wages
to pay.
A country
that shall be nameless
requested emus
to lessen the carbon imprint
so we sent them
from Eucla
via a whale.
http://belka37.blogspot.com
Were you the sole survivor?
Seeking refuge from ocean plunderers
did you scale the red-bloodied cliffs of the Bight
and reach
the Nullarbor Plain . . .?
grey swirls
as whale
fluke crests
the rolling waves
of green
leafy shrubs
all at sea
upon dry
sand
I don’t know what to make of this
A whale away beached in the outback.
Are they thinking of ship’s of the sands,
‘Cause,
Well, I always thought
that meant camels?
And emus
Well, they’re on our coat of arms
Aren’t they?
Do we have to export
EVERYTHING Aussie!?!
Whaling about,
I’m feeling blue –
Don’t ruffle my feathers,
Life’s a beach!