New Challenge December 2016!! It's different, take a peek., Clichés Options

[Psyche]

Hi everybody!

MM invites poets and writers to answer this challenge that offers well-known (or not so well-known) clichés.
Yes, that's right. You can give yourself total freedom to use those clichés that your critics have taunted you with since you began writing poetry or stories.

These phrases have been taken from a Dictionary of Clichés, by Eric Partridge. No, no... we didn't spend time thinking up a list of our own, these are all in the above mentioned dictionary.

So you may give yourself a bellyful of clichés and use them to suit yourself, in a sonnet, a villanelle or other forms, FV or short story.

This is the list:



dance attendance on

at one's wit's end

axe to grind

come to grief

friend in need

starry heavens

tastefully arranged

weather the storm

blind with rage

moment of truth

in a nutshell

this year of grace

patience of Job

minor matters

new lease of life

sell like hot cakes


There are 16 phrases above. You must use at least 10 of them. All sixteen will mean that you're a highly gifted cliché user... LOL.

We've noticed that there's been a lot of humor around MM lately. Here's your chance to humor yourself. Critics may abstain, please. Today, we love clichés!

Best of luck!

MM

[Psyche]

[Larry]

Hi Syl,

I'm not the first to answer your challenge. Denis used all 16 and added a couple of more for good measure under the heading "Clichés-Throughout Life". I just used 13 of them and added one for good measure.

Twelve Clichés of Christmas
(and one to groan on)

In anger management, a friend in need
who had an axe to grind and blind with rage,
told me of minor matters. He would plead
that he had come to grief and his 12 gauge

shotgun would to the starry heavens send
some folks who dance. Attendance on his lawn
had pushed him to the brink; at one’s wit’s end
because his decorations, deer and fawn,

were trampled now. Once tastefully arranged
to celebrate this year of grace, a crime
had been committed. Christmas mood had changed!
That pair sell like hot cakes and there’s no time

to fix or buy some more, twinkles now strobe!
In a nut shell, I’ve lost patience of Job.




Clichés used: friend in need, axe to grind, blind with rage, minor matters, come to grief, starry heavens, dance attendance on, at one's wit's end, tastefully arranged, this year of grace, sell like hot cakes, in a nutshell, patience of Job


Lots of fun and a real challenge.

Larry

[Rhymer]

Hi Syl,

I'm not the first to answer your challenge. Denis used all 16 and added a couple of more for good measure under the heading "Clichés-Throughout Life". I just used 13 of them and added one for good measure.

Twelve Clichés of Christmas
(and one to groan on)

In anger management, a friend in need
who had an axe to grind and blind with rage,
told me of minor matters. He would plead
that he had come to grief and his 12 gauge

shotgun would to the starry heavens send
some folks who dance. Attendance on his lawn
had pushed him to the brink; at one’s wit’s end
because his decorations, deer and fawn,

were trampled now. Once tastefully arranged
to celebrate this year of grace, a crime
had been committed. Christmas mood had changed!
That pair sell like hot cakes and there’s no time

to fix or buy some more, twinkles now strobe!
In a nut shell, I’ve lost patience of Job.

Great write Larry and something to which I can relate, as on our news tonight was shown the evidence of vandals having wrecked a child's Christmas display. Personally I have no time for 'louts' that think it their way of having fun. I'm not one to get overjoyed at some decorations, but I don't see why this behaviour is regarded as a way to enjoy oneself.

It so happened this Challenge came up as I was contemplating my next move, having spent four hours shovelling my long and wide driveway free of the five inch snowfall we had received overnight! On reading the clichés, something clicked in my head, and I was away to the races!

Where in heck are the rest of this MM gang? Hope some return to give u a sample of their work soon.

Meantime, we'll do what we can, as and when Mother Nature allows! Ciao Denis.
'




Clichés used: friend in need, axe to grind, blind with rage, minor matters, come to grief, starry heavens, dance attendance on, at one's wit's end, tastefully arranged, this year of grace, sell like hot cakes, in a nutshell, patience of Job


Lots of fun and a real challenge.

Larry

[Larry]

Hi Denis,

I can relate to vandals and their mindless destruction. The police in Kentucky have just arrested two teenagers who purposely started fires in the Great Smokey Mountains around Thanksgiving and they grew from that time until now to destroy thousands of homes and kill 14 people. They should arrest the parents of those kids also. It is, after all, the parents responsibility to raise and manage their children.

Glad I live in SE Louisiana. We don't get 5-6 inches of snow down here. I don't have a long driveway I would have to shovel because I live in the woods off a gravel road. An inch of snow down here would bring the southern part of the state to a screeching halt (or sliding halt).

A lot of the people who used to be regulars here at MM have gone to other sites (the sites they joined went under also); or they have devoted all their time to Facebook and Twitter. I will not be one of them and will stay here until they turn off the server for this site.

I hope a few or a bunch of the members come back and join in the fun I have always had here.

Thanks for the visit and the kind words.

Larry

[Rhymer]

Hi Denis,

I can relate to vandals and their mindless destruction. The police in Kentucky have just arrested two teenagers who purposely started fires in the Great Smokey Mountains around Thanksgiving and they grew from that time until now to destroy thousands of homes and kill 14 people. They should arrest the parents of those kids also. It is, after all, the parents responsibility to raise and manage their children.

Glad I live in SE Louisiana. We don't get 5-6 inches of snow down here. I don't have a long driveway I would have to shovel because I live in the woods off a gravel road. An inch of snow down here would bring the southern part of the state to a screeching halt (or sliding halt).

A lot of the people who used to be regulars here at MM have gone to other sites (the sites they joined went under also); or they have devoted all their time to Facebook and Twitter. I will not be one of them and will stay here until they turn off the server for this site.

I hope a few or a bunch of the members come back and join in the fun I have always had here.

Thanks for the visit and the kind words.

Larry

Hi Larry

and here’s hoping we do see more of the old ‘faithfuls’ return. Apropos to your comments, I saw on our news the other night, they had arrested the ‘yobs; - what else can you call them? For the terrible fire destruction we’ve been watching. Two of our Seniors lost their lives IO heard. I agree, that the parents should also be brought to account. It’s something I’ve advocated for years. Lack of parental control accounts for much of the vandalism we see in our neck of the woods too!

As to your comments regarding facebook, twitter, and others infinitum, I too have no time for them. My wife and I have - seemingly - lost out to such sites, but frankly, I don’t give a damn! Time will show that culture and traditions are going out the window. The standard of communication has fallen so badly, it will take generations to recover. Civilisation - that’s laugh too - it’s returning to a time of grunts, burbs and what-have-you ignorance! So what next I ask? I respect my language and deplore the falling standards so evident today! (We don’t even own a ‘cell phone’! And won’t!) I do believe my children think my wife Pauline and I are throwbacks to the dinosaur days! I could care less! Lol.

Incidentally my driveway is gravel too! I have reduced its size to a more manageable dimension. It is almost minuscule now inasmuch as being merely 150 feet long and fifty feet wide! Before? It was a circular drive through, about three times the length and width! Previous owners were both 40 seater, school bus drivers, with a boat and camper, plus trailer! Nuff said! Lol! (I do have a 12 hp power snow blower, but enjoy the exercise shovelling gives me!) Crazy? So some think but at 87 I’m fitter than most half my age!

Enough! Catch you later. Have a great day. Denis aka Rhymer.