Stuck for Words [a true story]

Inside my stomach, wolf cubs growled persistently,
A chipmunk gnawed away deep in my bowels,
The consonants had favoured me consistently,
While all he’d had were double-u’s and vowels.

At Scrabble, I had always been the victim,
However many I got, Dad got more.
But now I knew I’d well and truly licked ‘im,
And gleefully I totted up the score.

“Two-four-eight for you,” I almost gloated,
“Two-eight-six for me, I think you’ll find
My lead is quite substantial and, yea verily,
One tile left, you're thirty eight behind.”

He gazed upon the board for half a minute,
And bit his fingernail in contemplation.
“That Zed’s a hoor," I warbled like a linnet,
“Methinks you’re in a hopeless situation.”

He scanned the board again, his grey head shaking
While all the time my heart was thumping madly,
I smiled at all the noises he was making –
I’d give him all the time he wanted gladly.

The end was near, he faced the final curtain,
Those huge defeats now firmly in the past.
He’d never get that Zed out, that was certain,
The mantle would be handed o’er at last.

His tile lay still. And then I watched him take it,
And at the end of “QUART” he placed his Zed.
“Ten and fourteen’s twenty four, I make it,
And doubled up is forty eight,” he said.

The vict’ry in my grasp just turned to ashes,
Poor Tantalus in Hell ne’er knew such pain.
I packed away the game with tear-stained lashes
And it never saw the light of day again.

.

Recited at the very wonderful BAFFLE festival in Loughrea October 2008 but it didn't get out of the heats.