Silver Blaze: Home to Roost

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Title: Silver Blaze: Home to Roost
Author: gardnerhill               
Word Count: 60
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: “The trainer, John Straker, is a retired jockey…before he became too heavy for the weighing-chair.”
                                                                                       
***

We had our orders – all four of us in the stables. Wait. Wait till one of us was alone with him.

He was our stable-boss now. But in the days when he rode we called him The Whip.

That blow I struck was for every flank he’d cut to bleeding ribbons, every bit he’d yanked. We were avenged at last.

Silver Blaze: Watson's Pockets

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Title: Watson’s Pockets

Canon Story: Silver Blaze

Rating: Gen

Author’s Note: “As a man of the world, Colonel, you know that men do not carry other people's bills about in their pockets.”

“Doctor! Man at the kennel says to give you this. Mister Holmes’ bill for what happened to Pompey.”

I took the paper, then reached into my pocket, retrieving others.

Doctor Watson,

Would you kindly ask Mister Holmes to settle the additional locksmith charges immediately…

FALSE WESSEX CUP TIP NOT AMUSING STOP FIVE POUNDS OWED STOP [REDACTED] HOLMES! FULL STOP

LESTRADE

Discussion Post: Silver Blaze

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

This week, the canon story we’re looking at is Silver Blaze, and the chosen topic is Horse Racing in Victorian England.

( Discussion continues... )

Mrs. Hudson's Poetry Page: Silver Blaze

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Welcome once again to my poetry page!

I hope each week you will read Dr. Watson’s delightful narrative and then go on to write a poem related to it in some way. All forms of poetry are permitted, and further down the page there is a selection you might like to consider using over the coming weeks.

And here, courtesy of my housemaid Rachel, is this week’s suggested poem to read—a suggestion inspired by the themes and subjects in this week's story. Hopefully you will enjoy the poem, and perhaps it may give you some ideas for a poem of your own or allow you to look at Dr. Watson's story in a new way.


Horse in the Cage

by Stanley Plumly


Note from Rachel: This sad, surreal poem remembers a man, now dead, whose abuse of a horse highlighted his own brokenness and desperation. The final few lines seem to capture something about Mr. Straker’s confused last moments, as he falls into a tragedy of his own making.


Thank you so much to Rachel. And here is my suggested form to revisit this week: the elfje. (The link will take you back to a previous poetry page.)


But you do not have to use that form. Any form of poetry is welcome this week—and every week! Here are a few suggestions for you:

221B verselet, abecedarian poetry, acrostic poetry, alexandrine, ballad, beeswing, blackout poetry, blues stanza, bref double, Burns stanza, call and response, chastushka, cinquain, circular poetry, clerihew, colour poems, concrete poetry, Cornish verse, curtal sonnet, diamante, doggerel, double dactyl, ekphrasis, elegiac couplet, elegiac stanza, elfje, englyn, epigram, epitaph, epulaeryu, Etheree, fable, Fib, found poetry, ghazal, haiku, Italian sonnet, jueju, kennings poem, lanturne, limerick, lyric poetry, mathnawī, micropoetry, mini-monoverse, palindrome poetry, pantoum, Parallelismus Membrorum, poem cycle, quintilla, renga, riddle, rime couée, Schüttelreim, sedoka, septet, sestina, sonnet, tanka, tercet, terza rima, tongue twister poetry, triangular triplet, triolet, Tyburn, villanelle


Please leave all your poems inspired by Silver Blaze in the comments on this post. I look forward to seeing them!



Warm regards,

Mrs. Hudson

Silver Blaze: Four Days Later & Silver Blaze of Glory

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Two for the price of one!

Canon Story: Silver Blaze
Title: Four Days Later
Author: scfrankles
Rating: G
Author's Notes: “I follow my own methods, and tell as much or as little as I choose.”


Baker Street

“And that’s that, Watson!” smiled Holmes. “The Colonel has his horse and the explanation of his trainer’s death. All loose ends neatly tied up..!”


Dartmoor Prison

“Any news?” cried Fitzroy Simpson.

“Still hoping to get away with it?”

The warder sneered.

“If Mr. Holmes had deduced someone else was the murderer, he would have informed the police immediately.”



Canon Story: Silver Blaze
Title: Silver Blaze of Glory
Author: scfrankles
Rating: G
Author's Notes: “You have only to wash his face and his leg in spirits of wine, and you will find that he is the same old Silver Blaze as ever.”


Holmes’s voice travelled out from the bathroom.

“It’s not that I’m vain…”

“Of course not...” Watson studied the Sussex Chronicle’s racing page.

“But one single grey streak looks ridiculous!”

Holmes opened the door.

“What do you think?”

“I think…”

The dye was all over the towel, the sink—and Holmes’s ears.

Watson smiled.

“...it’s still a splendid mane of hair.”

Silver Blaze: Infidelity

[castiron.livejournal.com]

Canon Story: Silver Blaze
Title: Infidelity
Author: Castiron
Rating: G
Author's Notes: Mrs. Stryker reflects.

I knew nothing of my husband. Of course I wondered when he spent nights away -- all wives suspect -- but many men must work night and day, and he provided well.

She and I compared marriage licenses, afterwards. I, at least, was his legal wife; she, the bigamous connection.

Still, I cannot bear to wear the dove silk with ostrich feathers.

Silver Blaze: Cavalier

[grrlpup]

Canon story: Silver Blaze
Title: Cavalier
Author: grrlpup
Rating: G

By the time Straker reached the hollow he was sweating in his mackintosh. The real event always feels different from practice. But he'd thought of everything. Hadn't he?

One last thought, kicked into his head, never had time to exit. (The dog, silent, could have told him. The boy could have told him, as well.) This horse was no sheep.

Silver Blaze: Rail Travel with Holmes

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Canon Story: Silver Blaze
Title: Rail Travel with Holmes (the serialisation of the Private Journal of Dr Watson)
Author:thesmallhobbit
Rating: G

At least we travelled to Winchester without incident.  Why Holmes insisted we change trains at Clapham Junction I know not.  Having to wait on the station for a second train when we could as simply have taken a cab from Waterloo as Victoria merely prolonged the journey.  Surely he could have found an easier way of deflecting Colonel Ross’ question?