Rachael and Jee migrate to summer

[Jee Leong]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

alphabet soup
algebra proof

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

shadow devours
shinko pear

golden mountain
under the apple tree
windfall

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

[Featherless Biped]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

alphabet soup
algebra proof

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

shadow devours
shinko pear

golden mountain
under the apple tree
windfall

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

[Jee Leong]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

alphabet soup
algebra proof

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

shadow devours
shinko pear

golden mountain
under the apple tree
windfall

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Featherless Biped]

36 cherries
sucked dry, ashtray full of pits
but there's more champagne

Shall we edit and have another link-by-link conversation (or have a conversation and edit as we go)? I have a bunch of things I'd like to tighten up, but I believe you're the guest, and therefore entitled to go first.

[Jee Leong]

I'd be happy to comment link-by-link and edit as I go.

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

alphabet soup
algebra proof

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

shadow devours
shinko pear

golden mountain
under the apple tree
windfall

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Featherless Biped]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

alphabet soup
algebra proof

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

shadow devours
shinko pear

golden mountain
under the apple tree
windfall

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Jee Leong]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

shadow devours
shinko pear

golden mountain
under the apple tree
windfall

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Featherless Biped]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

Your lines about learning a language made me think of the similarity between natural and mathematical languages. Mathematics can look like terrifying nonsense when you're not familiar with it. (I don't think it helps that in America we indoctrinate kids to be frightened of it, but that's a complaint for another day.) Then, once you work out how all the symbols are supposed to work, it resolves itself from a scramble into a meaningful sequence of statements.

I used Google translate to decompose "tragalibros" into its component parts, and thought "alphabet soup" might also count as a sort of book that one devours.

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

shadow devours
shinko pear

golden mountain
under the apple tree
windfall

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Jee Leong]

[QUOTE=Featherless Biped;587801]green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

Your lines about learning a language made me think of the similarity between natural and mathematical languages. Mathematics can look like terrifying nonsense when you're not familiar with it. (I don't think it helps that in America we indoctrinate kids to be frightened of it, but that's a complaint for another day.) Then, once you work out how all the symbols are supposed to work, it resolves itself from a scramble into a meaningful sequence of statements.

I used Google translate to decompose "tragalibros" into its component parts, and thought "alphabet soup" might also count as a sort of book that one devours.

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

I enjoyed very much the sonic sympathies and semantic dissonances between alphabet soup and algebra proof. Both items struck me as puzzles. I am bad at math and confounded by my soup. They are also solutions, the proof a symbolic kind, the soup a liquid kind (roughly). This link required a moon, and so I asked a question to which I know the answer but not the question.

shadow devours
shinko pear

golden mountain
under the apple tree
windfall

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Featherless Biped]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

Your lines about learning a language made me think of the similarity between natural and mathematical languages. Mathematics can look like terrifying nonsense when you're not familiar with it. (I don't think it helps that in America we indoctrinate kids to be frightened of it, but that's a complaint for another day.) Then, once you work out how all the symbols are supposed to work, it resolves itself from a scramble into a meaningful sequence of statements.

I used Google translate to decompose "tragalibros" into its component parts, and thought "alphabet soup" might also count as a sort of book that one devours.

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

I enjoyed very much the sonic sympathies and semantic dissonances between alphabet soup and algebra proof. Both items struck me as puzzles. I am bad at math and confounded by my soup. They are also solutions, the proof a symbolic kind, the soup a liquid kind (roughly). This link required a moon, and so I asked a question to which I know the answer but not the question.

shinko pear
devoured by shadow

Well, that's an excellent challenge if I ever heard one! I thought I had better supply a puzzle to which "the moon" was a solution. Because the season was autumn, my thoughts turned toward orchards, and I opted for something in the classic riddle style. The moon is pale and round like a shinko pear, and every month, the Earth's shadow devours it.

I'm dissastisfied with the original execution, since the answer would actually appear to be "the Earth's shadow". I've put it into the passive voice to fix the problem. (One of those times when the passive voice is actually called for!) If I had another line, it would say "again", but I don't, so there's no use complaining.

If the riddle is still too obscure, there is also the possibility of swapping it out for another. (I'm coming to the conclusion that I like it the way it is now, but it doesn't hurt to consider all the options.) Here's another that I toyed with, and liked:

if John has five more than twice as many apples as Mary, and eats seven less than a third of them
what will he wish for?

This duplicates "apple", but I could play around with the next link to fix that.

gold
under the apple tree
windfall

In this link, I used misdirection and ambiguity: the golden treasure under the apple tree turns out to be a yellow apple, knocked over by the wind. Or does it? "Windfall" can also mean "lucky break".

I've edited the first line. I tried "golden mountain" (wrong, I think--pulls in too many directions) and "a mound of gold" (better), but there was an obvious solution staring me in the face.

landfall
storm surge

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Jee Leong]

[QUOTE=Featherless Biped;587850]green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

Your lines about learning a language made me think of the similarity between natural and mathematical languages. Mathematics can look like terrifying nonsense when you're not familiar with it. (I don't think it helps that in America we indoctrinate kids to be frightened of it, but that's a complaint for another day.) Then, once you work out how all the symbols are supposed to work, it resolves itself from a scramble into a meaningful sequence of statements.

I used Google translate to decompose "tragalibros" into its component parts, and thought "alphabet soup" might also count as a sort of book that one devours.

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

I enjoyed very much the sonic sympathies and semantic dissonances between alphabet soup and algebra proof. Both items struck me as puzzles. I am bad at math and confounded by my soup. They are also solutions, the proof a symbolic kind, the soup a liquid kind (roughly). This link required a moon, and so I asked a question to which I know the answer but not the question.

shinko pear
devoured by shadow

Well, that's an excellent challenge if I ever heard one! I thought I had better supply a puzzle to which "the moon" was a solution. Because the season was autumn, my thoughts turned toward orchards, and I opted for something in the classic riddle style. The moon is pale and round like a shinko pear, and every month, the Earth's shadow devours it.

I'm dissastisfied with the original execution, since the answer would actually appear to be "the Earth's shadow". I've put it into the passive voice to fix the problem. (One of those times when the passive voice is actually called for!) If I had another line, it would say "again", but I don't, so there's no use complaining.

If the riddle is still too obscure, there is also the possibility of swapping it out for another. (I'm coming to the conclusion that I like it the way it is now, but it doesn't hurt to consider all the options.) Here's another that I toyed with, and liked:

if John has five more than twice as many apples as Mary, and eats seven less than a third of them
what will he wish for?

This duplicates "apple", but I could play around with the next link to fix that.

gold
under the apple tree
windfall

In this link, I used misdirection and ambiguity: the golden treasure under the apple tree turns out to be a yellow apple, knocked over by the wind. Or does it? "Windfall" can also mean "lucky break".

I've edited the first line. I tried "golden mountain" (wrong, I think--pulls in too many directions) and "a mound of gold" (better), but there was an obvious solution staring me in the face.

landfall
storm surge

I heart the shinko pear puzzle. Love it. There is also a mythic aura around "devoured," which reminds me of various creatures, like the dragon, which attempt to swallow the moon.

I like the change to "gold" in the next link. My link puns on "windfall" to produce "landfall," what we don't want. I was thinking of Superstorm Sandy, and the hours of media coverage. First, predicting the landfall, then describing endlessly the storm surge that wrecked such destruction on coastal towns. I guess I changed the playful surprise of your link to an unpleasant shock.

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Featherless Biped]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

Your lines about learning a language made me think of the similarity between natural and mathematical languages. Mathematics can look like terrifying nonsense when you're not familiar with it. (I don't think it helps that in America we indoctrinate kids to be frightened of it, but that's a complaint for another day.) Then, once you work out how all the symbols are supposed to work, it resolves itself from a scramble into a meaningful sequence of statements.

I used Google translate to decompose "tragalibros" into its component parts, and thought "alphabet soup" might also count as a sort of book that one devours.

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

I enjoyed very much the sonic sympathies and semantic dissonances between alphabet soup and algebra proof. Both items struck me as puzzles. I am bad at math and confounded by my soup. They are also solutions, the proof a symbolic kind, the soup a liquid kind (roughly). This link required a moon, and so I asked a question to which I know the answer but not the question.

shinko pear
devoured by shadow

Well, that's an excellent challenge if I ever heard one! I thought I had better supply a puzzle to which "the moon" was a solution. Because the season was autumn, my thoughts turned toward orchards, and I opted for something in the classic riddle style. The moon is pale and round like a shinko pear, and every month, the Earth's shadow devours it.

I'm dissastisfied with the original execution, since the answer would actually appear to be "the Earth's shadow". I've put it into the passive voice to fix the problem. (One of those times when the passive voice is actually called for!) If I had another line, it would say "again", but I don't, so there's no use complaining.

If the riddle is still too obscure, there is also the possibility of swapping it out for another. (I'm coming to the conclusion that I like it the way it is now, but it doesn't hurt to consider all the options.) Here's another that I toyed with, and liked:

if John has five more than twice as many apples as Mary, and eats seven less than a third of them
what will he wish for?

This duplicates "apple", but I could play around with the next link to fix that.

gold
under the apple tree
windfall

In this link, I used misdirection and ambiguity: the golden treasure under the apple tree turns out to be a yellow apple, knocked over by the wind. Or does it? "Windfall" can also mean "lucky break".

I've edited the first line. I tried "golden mountain" (wrong, I think--pulls in too many directions) and "a mound of gold" (better), but there was an obvious solution staring me in the face.

landfall
storm surge

I heart the shinko pear puzzle. Love it. There is also a mythic aura around "devoured," which reminds me of various creatures, like the dragon, which attempt to swallow the moon.

I like the change to "gold" in the next link. My link puns on "windfall" to produce "landfall," what we don't want. I was thinking of Superstorm Sandy, and the hours of media coverage. First, predicting the landfall, then describing endlessly the storm surge that wrecked such destruction on coastal towns. I guess I changed the playful surprise of your link to an unpleasant shock.

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

I am smiling now, because you liked the shinko pear. Your link about storms was timely, because we'd just had a minor flood in Brisbane at the time. (It was major in Bundaberg, but not here.) It's one thing to be watching the rain through the window or on the television from the safety of your apartment, another thing when the roof starts leaking, and another thing entirely when the floodwaters come up from below. In these three lines, I tried to convey a sense of escalating disaster.

vertical marathon
in Singapore

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Jee Leong]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

Your lines about learning a language made me think of the similarity between natural and mathematical languages. Mathematics can look like terrifying nonsense when you're not familiar with it. (I don't think it helps that in America we indoctrinate kids to be frightened of it, but that's a complaint for another day.) Then, once you work out how all the symbols are supposed to work, it resolves itself from a scramble into a meaningful sequence of statements.

I used Google translate to decompose "tragalibros" into its component parts, and thought "alphabet soup" might also count as a sort of book that one devours.

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

I enjoyed very much the sonic sympathies and semantic dissonances between alphabet soup and algebra proof. Both items struck me as puzzles. I am bad at math and confounded by my soup. They are also solutions, the proof a symbolic kind, the soup a liquid kind (roughly). This link required a moon, and so I asked a question to which I know the answer but not the question.

shinko pear
devoured by shadow

Well, that's an excellent challenge if I ever heard one! I thought I had better supply a puzzle to which "the moon" was a solution. Because the season was autumn, my thoughts turned toward orchards, and I opted for something in the classic riddle style. The moon is pale and round like a shinko pear, and every month, the Earth's shadow devours it.

I'm dissastisfied with the original execution, since the answer would actually appear to be "the Earth's shadow". I've put it into the passive voice to fix the problem. (One of those times when the passive voice is actually called for!) If I had another line, it would say "again", but I don't, so there's no use complaining.

If the riddle is still too obscure, there is also the possibility of swapping it out for another. (I'm coming to the conclusion that I like it the way it is now, but it doesn't hurt to consider all the options.) Here's another that I toyed with, and liked:

if John has five more than twice as many apples as Mary, and eats seven less than a third of them
what will he wish for?

This duplicates "apple", but I could play around with the next link to fix that.

gold
under the apple tree
windfall

In this link, I used misdirection and ambiguity: the golden treasure under the apple tree turns out to be a yellow apple, knocked over by the wind. Or does it? "Windfall" can also mean "lucky break".

I've edited the first line. I tried "golden mountain" (wrong, I think--pulls in too many directions) and "a mound of gold" (better), but there was an obvious solution staring me in the face.

landfall
storm surge

I heart the shinko pear puzzle. Love it. There is also a mythic aura around "devoured," which reminds me of various creatures, like the dragon, which attempt to swallow the moon.

I like the change to "gold" in the next link. My link puns on "windfall" to produce "landfall," what we don't want. I was thinking of Superstorm Sandy, and the hours of media coverage. First, predicting the landfall, then describing endlessly the storm surge that wrecked such destruction on coastal towns. I guess I changed the playful surprise of your link to an unpleasant shock.

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

I am smiling now, because you liked the shinko pear. Your link about storms was timely, because we'd just had a minor flood in Brisbane at the time. (It was major in Bundaberg, but not here.) It's one thing to be watching the rain through the window or on the television from the safety of your apartment, another thing when the roof starts leaking, and another thing entirely when the floodwaters come up from below. In these three lines, I tried to convey a sense of escalating disaster.

vertical marathon
in Singapore

Racing up the stairs reminded me of the vertical marathon events once held in Singapore. Runners would race up what was at the time the tallest hotel in the world, now called Westin Stamford. Singapore rains a lot too, and floods. Together, the lines also suggest the rat race in this small island-nation. The government constantly exhorts the population to step up its productivity and skills, because Singapore has no natural resources, as they say. Either you are first or you are last. There is no end in sight for this skyward race.

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Featherless Biped]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

Your lines about learning a language made me think of the similarity between natural and mathematical languages. Mathematics can look like terrifying nonsense when you're not familiar with it. (I don't think it helps that in America we indoctrinate kids to be frightened of it, but that's a complaint for another day.) Then, once you work out how all the symbols are supposed to work, it resolves itself from a scramble into a meaningful sequence of statements.

I used Google translate to decompose "tragalibros" into its component parts, and thought "alphabet soup" might also count as a sort of book that one devours.

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

I enjoyed very much the sonic sympathies and semantic dissonances between alphabet soup and algebra proof. Both items struck me as puzzles. I am bad at math and confounded by my soup. They are also solutions, the proof a symbolic kind, the soup a liquid kind (roughly). This link required a moon, and so I asked a question to which I know the answer but not the question.

shinko pear
devoured by shadow

Well, that's an excellent challenge if I ever heard one! I thought I had better supply a puzzle to which "the moon" was a solution. Because the season was autumn, my thoughts turned toward orchards, and I opted for something in the classic riddle style. The moon is pale and round like a shinko pear, and every month, the Earth's shadow devours it.

I'm dissastisfied with the original execution, since the answer would actually appear to be "the Earth's shadow". I've put it into the passive voice to fix the problem. (One of those times when the passive voice is actually called for!) If I had another line, it would say "again", but I don't, so there's no use complaining.

If the riddle is still too obscure, there is also the possibility of swapping it out for another. (I'm coming to the conclusion that I like it the way it is now, but it doesn't hurt to consider all the options.) Here's another that I toyed with, and liked:

if John has five more than twice as many apples as Mary, and eats seven less than a third of them
what will he wish for?

This duplicates "apple", but I could play around with the next link to fix that.

gold
under the apple tree
windfall

In this link, I used misdirection and ambiguity: the golden treasure under the apple tree turns out to be a yellow apple, knocked over by the wind. Or does it? "Windfall" can also mean "lucky break".

I've edited the first line. I tried "golden mountain" (wrong, I think--pulls in too many directions) and "a mound of gold" (better), but there was an obvious solution staring me in the face.

landfall
storm surge

I heart the shinko pear puzzle. Love it. There is also a mythic aura around "devoured," which reminds me of various creatures, like the dragon, which attempt to swallow the moon.

I like the change to "gold" in the next link. My link puns on "windfall" to produce "landfall," what we don't want. I was thinking of Superstorm Sandy, and the hours of media coverage. First, predicting the landfall, then describing endlessly the storm surge that wrecked such destruction on coastal towns. I guess I changed the playful surprise of your link to an unpleasant shock.

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

I am smiling now, because you liked the shinko pear. Your link about storms was timely, because we'd just had a minor flood in Brisbane at the time. (It was major in Bundaberg, but not here.) It's one thing to be watching the rain through the window or on the television from the safety of your apartment, another thing when the roof starts leaking, and another thing entirely when the floodwaters come up from below. In these three lines, I tried to convey a sense of escalating disaster.

vertical marathon
in Singapore

Racing up the stairs reminded me of the vertical marathon events once held in Singapore. Runners would race up what was at the time the tallest hotel in the world, now called Westin Stamford. Singapore rains a lot too, and floods. Together, the lines also suggest the rat race in this small island-nation. The government constantly exhorts the population to step up its productivity and skills, because Singapore has no natural resources, as they say. Either you are first or you are last. There is no end in sight for this skyward race.

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

I'd never heard of a vertical marathon before--what a bizarrely fascinating idea. I'd been thinking about Philippe Petit the tightrope walker, another person who performs strange physical feats. He seemed like an excellent source of contrast: vertical vs. horizontal sports; fast vs. slow; Southeast Asia vs. Europe; too little space vs. too much.

his mind over
the waterlilies

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen

[Jee Leong]

green macaw
behind bars
on an airplane

The macaws display that fronts the Singapore Bird Park is a splendid, memorable splash of color and chorus of calls. Since this is a summer renga, I chose a lush green macaw, from Central America, to start. He is sadly in a cage, but is wryly flying still, on a plane to Singapore.

hello! pretty boy!
macadamia?

I was charmed by the parrot (poor things should be allowed to fly free), and couldn't resist adopting its voice to greet you and offer you some snacks. It was hard to find a type of nut that wasn't specific to autumn. Macadamias have a long season which lasts all winter and into the spring. They also chime phonetically with "macaw".

read my lips
my Spanish stud
tragalibros

Me, pretty boy? Why, thank you! I am learning beginner's Spanish, and feel a little like a macaw imitating human speech. Your macadamia is a crunchy incentive, as is a Spanish stud. In class that day we learned that tragalibros (literally, swallower of books) is the Spanish name for a nerd or bookworm. It seems apt to invite the stud to read my lips and, ahem, throat.

alphabet soup
algebra proof

Your lines about learning a language made me think of the similarity between natural and mathematical languages. Mathematics can look like terrifying nonsense when you're not familiar with it. (I don't think it helps that in America we indoctrinate kids to be frightened of it, but that's a complaint for another day.) Then, once you work out how all the symbols are supposed to work, it resolves itself from a scramble into a meaningful sequence of statements.

I used Google translate to decompose "tragalibros" into its component parts, and thought "alphabet soup" might also count as a sort of book that one devours.

is the moon
a solution
to a puzzle?

I enjoyed very much the sonic sympathies and semantic dissonances between alphabet soup and algebra proof. Both items struck me as puzzles. I am bad at math and confounded by my soup. They are also solutions, the proof a symbolic kind, the soup a liquid kind (roughly). This link required a moon, and so I asked a question to which I know the answer but not the question.

shinko pear
devoured by shadow

Well, that's an excellent challenge if I ever heard one! I thought I had better supply a puzzle to which "the moon" was a solution. Because the season was autumn, my thoughts turned toward orchards, and I opted for something in the classic riddle style. The moon is pale and round like a shinko pear, and every month, the Earth's shadow devours it.

I'm dissastisfied with the original execution, since the answer would actually appear to be "the Earth's shadow". I've put it into the passive voice to fix the problem. (One of those times when the passive voice is actually called for!) If I had another line, it would say "again", but I don't, so there's no use complaining.

If the riddle is still too obscure, there is also the possibility of swapping it out for another. (I'm coming to the conclusion that I like it the way it is now, but it doesn't hurt to consider all the options.) Here's another that I toyed with, and liked:

if John has five more than twice as many apples as Mary, and eats seven less than a third of them
what will he wish for?

This duplicates "apple", but I could play around with the next link to fix that.

gold
under the apple tree
windfall

In this link, I used misdirection and ambiguity: the golden treasure under the apple tree turns out to be a yellow apple, knocked over by the wind. Or does it? "Windfall" can also mean "lucky break".

I've edited the first line. I tried "golden mountain" (wrong, I think--pulls in too many directions) and "a mound of gold" (better), but there was an obvious solution staring me in the face.

landfall
storm surge

I heart the shinko pear puzzle. Love it. There is also a mythic aura around "devoured," which reminds me of various creatures, like the dragon, which attempt to swallow the moon.

I like the change to "gold" in the next link. My link puns on "windfall" to produce "landfall," what we don't want. I was thinking of Superstorm Sandy, and the hours of media coverage. First, predicting the landfall, then describing endlessly the storm surge that wrecked such destruction on coastal towns. I guess I changed the playful surprise of your link to an unpleasant shock.

record downpour
through the roof
racing up the stairs

I am smiling now, because you liked the shinko pear. Your link about storms was timely, because we'd just had a minor flood in Brisbane at the time. (It was major in Bundaberg, but not here.) It's one thing to be watching the rain through the window or on the television from the safety of your apartment, another thing when the roof starts leaking, and another thing entirely when the floodwaters come up from below. In these three lines, I tried to convey a sense of escalating disaster.

vertical marathon
in Singapore

Racing up the stairs reminded me of the vertical marathon events once held in Singapore. Runners would race up what was at the time the tallest hotel in the world, now called Westin Stamford. Singapore rains a lot too, and floods. Together, the lines also suggest the rat race in this small island-nation. The government constantly exhorts the population to step up its productivity and skills, because Singapore has no natural resources, as they say. Either you are first or you are last. There is no end in sight for this skyward race.

suspended
above the cobblestones of Notre Dame
his body a taut wire

I'd never heard of a vertical marathon before--what a bizarrely fascinating idea. I'd been thinking about Philippe Petit the tightrope walker, another person who performs strange physical feats. He seemed like an excellent source of contrast: vertical vs. horizontal sports; fast vs. slow; Southeast Asia vs. Europe; too little space vs. too much.

his mind over
the waterlilies

I continued the French theme in a mental mode: Monet painting his garden at Giverny. The cobblestones become waterlilies. Both artistes had to balance artistry and fearlessness.

the moon paints
with light strokes
a frosty window

on the dish rack
a white palette

dropped my beret
sank beneath the suds
dada performance piece

navy seals
water ballet

hey G.I. Jane!
a shout from a ute
I flex

now describe a woman
in the italian style

first gold of spring
not the buttercup
but the sun

basking skink
just three more minutes

monitor lizard
teacher's pet
a regular komodo dragon

seven-fingered hippie
feeds the wildlife

hototogisu
the call disappears
behind seven pines

a catchy hook
she mends her fly line

a river
a river runs
a river runs through him

the cool, the muscle, the sharp kiss
of the Hellespont

an essay
on amorous Leander
I did not write

angry red marks
from her furious pen

krakatau
blows off its cap
blue moon

smoke and marshmallows
dissolve in the tart air

in the fog, a figure
with pale cheekbones approaches
the haunted hayride

losing one's head
rolling in the hay

midnight
she slips out of her ballgown and into
a pumpkin

pineapple plaid, avocado anorak
gene mod spring 2020 collection

last season's dragonfly cloak
this month's cherry blossom

japanese bush warbler
heard, not seen