As our craft approached the island's coast, the swelling sea grew rough. Every eye on board was wide watching the darkened beach. We rounded the bluff. The nervous crew began to perceive a stench from a yawning chasm in the hill that no night wind, no downpour could quench. The rain ceased. The moon came forth like noontide from behind her veil of cloud, bathing in ghostly light the seaside; and the night sky at last began to allow increasing illumination, no longer overcast. All on board could tell that a foul shadow, something sickly-sour, emanated from entrance of the hillside bower, and closer view of the pit forced even the captain and officers to admit that the hanging cadaver, head still bearing the crown, was the withered and rotting body of the clown. The crowd of sailors strained and jostled to see: in the moonlight, even from a distance, the clown's face in its grimace appeared strangely proud . . .
We knew the members of the first mission were all gone now—no need to excavate the bodies in the cave. The purpose of the hanging corpse, to motivate us to abandon the encounter was successful. We anchored the vessel near the foot of the looming summit, and prepared to mount her.
PROMPT #13:
Start by creating a “word bank” of ten simple words. They should only have one or two syllables apiece. Five should correspond to each of the five senses (i.e., one word that is a thing you can see, one word that is a type of sound, one word that is a thing you can taste, etc). Three more should be concrete nouns of whatever character you choose (i.e., “bridge,” “sun,” “airplane,” “cat”), and the last two should be verbs. Now, come up with rhymes for each of your ten words. Use your expanded word-bank, with rhymes, as the seeds for your poem. Your effort doesn’t actually have to rhyme in the sense of having each line end with a rhymed word, but try to use as much soundplay in your poem as possible.
rough/bluff
stench/quench
noontide/seaside
last/overcast
sour/bower
pit/admit
clown/crown
crowd/proud
excavate/motivate
encounter/mount her