SECRET CODES
We are more than one-third through NaPoWriMo. If you feel like you’ve started to make things up (two parts desperation, one part coffee grinds), then Carolee Sherwood’s prompt for Day 12 will play into your hand. Make up a secret code. Begin by writing a few nonsense sentences, like “The raindrops tap out a cry for help” or “The dandelions are saying all at once, ‘You are overwhelmed.’” The formula is easy: come up with a message and assign it to something unlikely. Remember, of course, that inanimate objects can speak and that signs and symbols may be nonverbal. Once you have a few sentences, select the one that is most intriguing to you and use it to start a poem.
HERE'S MINE:
This prompt was right up my street! I love secret codes and messages and riddles and anagrams. I think I strayed from Carolee's prompt, but it was the prompt that got me to write this. So:
EATING DAFF'S
Emit the tin age man drank all the gin
ate all the food and then swallowed
the gate. In the garden the daffodils
in bloom are eating all the daisies
now the daisies are eating daff's for lunch.
Ganite, the food agent I met Monday
declared it an eating disorder,
and said: But don't get in a pickle
fret not or the eating daff's may
fear that they will be beaten
soon, how would you unscramble this?
12042+10
very nice.....thanks for sharing this
ReplyDeleteDaff bulbs leave an aftertaste - i.e tang - that sticks in the throat. No worries - they'll be out in spring...
ReplyDeleteEating in the right (or wrong) order is about as far as I got with this code.
Hi Wayne thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Stan, you're right about eating, but there's more to it than that.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteI think I'll look for some! Good one!
Pamela
I give up... Keep thinking Pompey, but can't quite make it fit...
ReplyDeleteHi everybody, I don't know what's happened here, but it looks like all the comments have been deleted on this post. I post the answer to the secret code later.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I don't know what happened, but the comments are working again.
ReplyDeleteThe Answer is: Dine at Gaff's, lunch time Monday. Sorry Honey it's tuesday - see you at noon.
FULL EXPLANATION:
The secret code is of course an anagram of the title, (I toyed with the idea of making that into an acrostic too, but I didn't want to make it too easy). Dine at Gaff's. But that is only the beginning The first word Emit is Time spelt backwards and the end of the second sentence is Lunch. The second (stanza) which begins with Ganite is another anagram of Eating and the last word on this line is Monday. Then the first word on the bottom line is Soon, if you're talking lunch this could be interrpreted as noon or see you at noon, and the last word 'this' is an anagram of Shit which stands for 'Sorry honey it's tuesday'.
And just to confuse you.
tin age, gin ate, gate in, Ganite, agent I,and, get in a, are all anagrams of eating! Phew!
And there was me thinking it would be a tough nut to crack... What's for breakfast?
ReplyDelete