HI!
I had nowhere easy to go with this lot, or at least, none came to mind! Having, again, never heard of two of the words I was wrong footed; and then only had under ten minutes to compose something after looking them up.
So I’m not overawed by my offering, but here it is:
Octans Average Ouzel Minnow Mourn Willow Salmon Outlandish Complex
He knew what the Octans was and
(Being of much greater than average intelligence)
He pointed to the blackbird
And declared it an Ouzel.
In his vast sea of knowledge
I felt like a minnow – or
Forced to mourn, like the willow,
At the edge of his mighty ripples.
With a flash of silver, his
Amazing thoughts leapt from the depths;
As determined as Salmon.
No postulation too outlandish,
If it came from his lips, and
No puzzle (for him) too complex
To be solved.
So my speaker sounds neglected and/or jealous of this world the man (she?) is describing inhabits. I think he is supposed to be some sort of scientist, but I did not get a very clear picture of anything in my head as I was too busy scribbling!
It would appear that the constellation ‘Octans’ does not have ‘the’ before it in normal speech, but I (later) read of a ship that shares its name with the constellation, so that kinda works if I italicise it…
I could NOT think how to get garden birdwatching in with the fish references, so I kinda copped out with getting ‘Ouzel’ in there!!
After writing, I started thinking that willows do not grow by the sea, but then read this and at least one does, but it doesn’t look like a weeping kind; so that verse will need to be tweaked…
True Minnows are also not salty fish, but Salmon start off as freshwater and then head to the sea; returning to leap up waterfalls to lay eggs 😉
I scraped my time limit by the skin of my teeth, so I couldn’t tweak anything after I scribbled it down. (The syllable counting was again just out of interest, and came later, but surprised me as usual).
How would you have handled these words? Drop me a comment and let me know!
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