New Holiday Character: “Bow Man”

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.

The Bow Man

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.

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Monday morning writing joke: “Best seller”

Sometimes "coal" comes in strange forms.

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.

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New word: “Untree”

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.”

bowl of oatmeal

Sometimes breakfast is the most untree of the day.

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Silly Saturday: “Christmas Time”

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.

Four nutcrackers

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.]

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The blathering idiot and the end of days

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?

20121221-154752.jpg

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TerMoiAll thought of the day

TerMoiAll thought of the day: “This job is getting to me — I’m beginning to understand it.”

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Haiku to you Thursday: “Love in the folds”

Love is an art form /
tucked deep into a book’s fold: /
read, forgotten, dreamed.

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Monday (morning) writing joke: “Memoir”

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.

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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Haiku to you Thursday: “Clotted Christmas”

Glass sparkled roadway /
cold winds and clotted metal /
Christmas and cop lights.

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Writing Tip Wednesday: Deadbeat news

From a TV station web site:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) — More people have already died on Tennessee roads this year than all of last year. We studied the numbers with state troopers and tells us the solution is simple.

The sign shows 941 people have died this year on Tennessee roadways that’s up from 937 last year. Kathy Smith says, “That’s an awful lot. An awful lot.”

The lighted billboards let drivers know how dangerous driving can be in Tennessee. Wayne Parker says, “To see a real number and compare it to the previous year it puts things in perspective.”

Just knowing the risk isn’t helping drivers stay alive mainly because they’re not buckling up. 60% of the people killed weren’t wearing a seat belt.(Emphasis mine.) Tennessee State Trooper Sgt. Randall Martin says, “That’s a large number of people dying on the roads who could just buckle up.”

Troopers say the warmer weather had more people out on the roads leading to the increase in deadly crashes. Sgt. Randall Martin says, “Distracted driving people just not paying attention not attentive in driving not looking in defensive mode not looking at driver.”

Remember we have three weeks left so buckle up and go the speed limit so the number doesn’t go up. We also found that 71 of those deaths this year were either walking or riding a bicycle. (Emphasis mine.)

Editorial comment:
Hmmm.

“60% of the people killed weren’t wearing a seat belt.”

My smart aleck response to this is: with ONE (a) seat belt for over 560 people, it was bound to happen that there would be at least one (and probably more) driving (and dying) without the one (a) seat belt. “A seat belt” can only stretch so far.

And then there is this:
“We also found that 71 of those deaths this year were either walking or riding a bicycle.”

So the dead can walk and ride bicycles now?

Zombies live! (Pardon the contradiction in terms.)

I grasp the meaning, but the grammar and syntax in this article is an “unbelted” wreck. It wouldn’t take much to fix either issue. It could have been written: “Sixty percent of the people killed weren’t wearing their seat belts.” And “We also found that 71 of those killed this year were either walking or riding a bicycle.”

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