Sometimes his writing “chokes” me up.
I’m a writer and I don’t get no respect. I was at a holiday party for writers the other night when I heard someone say of my latest work: “Reading his novel is like eating an artichoke: you have to go through so much to get a little.”
I wasn’t hungry after that.
Smiles, hugs, and paper; /
Presents, bows, and tape askew. /
Great escape again.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
The Bow Man
By David E. Booker
You say you don’t like them,
Then you begin to shout.
You’d better be very careful
Or the Bow Man will clean you out.
He comes on Christmas Day
After you’ve unwrapped all your toys
To take all the ones back
With which you seem annoyed.
Complain about a doll:
“It’s not the color I like.”
He’ll take away all your toys:
Games, dolls, scooters, and bikes.
Beware what you dislike
For that’s just what he enjoys
He’ll snatch away your gifts
Even from good girls and boys.
Don’t like the new dress?
He’ll snatch it off your body.
He’ll take your jacket and your scarf
While sipping your hot toddy.
He’s worse than the Grinch,
Who took your stuff at night.
The Bow Man will do it today,
In the broadest of daylight.
He once snatched a mouse
Right out of an old cat’s paws.
The cat complained the mouse
Was not from Santa Claus.
The Bow Man’s big and fat,
And wears green ugly clothes.
If he ever comes to see you,
His smell will turn up your nose.
He’s dressed in ribbons and bows
But don’t let the festive look fool you.
If you complain about your toys,
He’ll keep Christmas from being cruel to you.
A grainy photo of the infamous Bow Man. Note the Smiley Face made from bows as a way to lull you into a false sense of security.
Sometimes “coal” comes in strange forms.
I’m a writer and I don’t get no respect. Just the other day, I saw Santa Claus. I said, “Hey Santa, I want a best seller. Just one best seller. That’s all I ask. That’s all I work for. Can you help me out?”
On Christmas morning I found a Stephen King novel under my tree. A used one at that.
Filed under cartoon by author, Monday morning writing joke, no respect, writer
What is a succinct way to say the main course of your meal, your entree is not up to expectation?
You can stick any number of adjectives before the noun. For example, bad entree, lackluster entree, limp entree. But in our fast-paced society, maybe there is a need for a one-word noun that covers the issue.
That’s why we, to collective perspicacity of this blog suggest this new word: “untree.”
For example, “Waiter, my untree.”
That is all you would have to say. You wouldn’t have to say, “Waiter, my entree is unacceptable.”
Just say: “Waiter, my untree.”
Sometimes breakfast is the most untree of the day.
Filed under new word, Photo by author
Christmas Time
By David E. Booker
Christmas comes but once a year
As songs and calendar make clear;
And then the bills come blowing in,
Heralding a new year, amen.
So out into the cold I go,
Fighting wind and debt and snow
Bringing Christmas joy and cheer
’Til my bank account is clear.
Then the credit cards come out
And out and out and then about
The time I think I’ve spent enough
There is a present that I’ve muffed.
So back into the store I go
For my tale of substitute woe
Where the clerk tries to smile
And I feel I’m in Kafka’s Trial.
The guardians of tradition wait to ensure your every move is the right one.
O’ Christmas becomes a time surreal
When some dance and some kneel
And oftentimes my intentions digress
And I come out feeling less and less.
As the stories of Christmas past
Tell tales of deeds that truly last.
Try as I might, I come to the day
Watching the show now on display
And feel as the tree tops glisten
And children listen, that I am missing
A moment of my own to clasp,
Something sweet and ethereal to last.
For it’s those moments ill-defined,
When a smile is given un-timed,
When the heart is opened to the moment,
That the soul finds console-ment
That this season means more than here
And those people you wish to hold dear
Find their place and their own rhyme
In your heart, beating in a new time.
[Editor’s note: This poem was first published in a small publication in 2007.]
Filed under Christmas, Photo by author, poetry by author, Silly Saturday
The blathering idiot was thinking about the Mayan calendar, the supposed end of days soon to be at hand, and of his recent failed run for the highest office in the land and asked himself: What polka goes best with the end of time?
Filed under blathering idiot, Photo by author
TerMoiAll thought of the day: “This job is getting to me — I’m beginning to understand it.”
Love is an art form /
tucked deep into a book’s fold: /
read, forgotten, dreamed.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
The jackass and the giant were outside chewing the fat. At a time when Christmas decorations were the focus of buyers, they were barely tolerated by the shoppers and passersby.
“Do you ever miss it?” the jackass asked when they were alone.
“Oh, sometimes,” the green giant said. “Particularly now that I’m working on my memoir. Brings back a lot of memories.”
The jackass and the green giant were outside chewing the fat.
“I didn’t know you wrote. Didn’t even know you knew how.”
The green giant blushed slightly red on the green. Made him look a little orange in the face. “Taught myself on the sly. Had to. I wanted to prove I wasn’t just another alien here to take their money and take a job away from a local.
“Then my contract came due and since I could now read, I could figure out that was working for beans. So, I demanded more money and they didn’t renew the contract.”
“They fired you?!” the donkey asked, his eyes wide.
“Pretty much.”
“They can’t do that.”
The green giant smiled. “They found somebody who would do it for less.”
“Why, those corporate mules!”
“Something like that.”
The jackass kicked back a hind leg and almost broke a door.
The green giant didn’t say anything more.
“You’re shorter than I expected,” the jackass said. “I thought you’d be taller.”
“A trick of modern film editing.”
“So what’s your memoir going to be called?”
The man smiled. “The memoir of a has bean. How I sold my soul a little green, but got stuck in the brown.”
The jackass nodded. “Catchy. ‘Specially that stuck in the brown part.”
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