Minute by minute,
if I can make the hours run,
my heart might endure.
Haiku to you Thursday: “Endure”
Minute by minute,
if I can make the hours run,
my heart might endure.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Monday (morning) writing joke: hair of the dog
Writing tip: keeping tabs on your favorite writer can be surprising.
I’m a writer and I don’t get no respect. I went into a bar that caters to well-known writers.
I told the bar tender, “Give me what your best writer has most often in here.”
She promptly handed me the tab.
The blathering idiot and the Pro-Accordion Party, part 6, the accordion and the door
The photo shot with the blathering idiot and the accordion as the candidate on the Pro-Accordion Party ticket for the highest office in the land was just short of being a disaster.
First, he was not a natural at holding the accordion and wondered if anybody every really was. It seemed an instrument better suited for playing sitting in a chair, or on a bar stool.
Then there was the fingering issue. They wanted him to look like he knew what he was playing and not simply have his fingers splayed across the keys as if he were randomly smashing them.
On top of that was the bellows. He needed to have the bellows open wide on some shorts and closed tight on other photographs.
“Remember our party slogan,” said the consultant with the florid lips. “Say it with me—”
The blathering idiot closed his eyes and said, “We are the party that is wide enough to welcome everybody and small enough to focus on your needs.”
In his imagination, the blathering idiot could picture the consultant made a motion with his hands, opening them wide on the first part and collapsing them together when he said small enough.
“No, no, no,” the consultant said. “The word is broad as in broad enough to welcome everybody but focused enough to understand your individual needs.”
“But I don’t know how to play the accordion,” the blathering idiot said for perhaps the fortieth time since this photography session had started.
“That’s okay,” the consultant said. “I’ve already told you that puts you in touch with most of our potential voters. They don’t know, either. It will give you the common touch.”
The blathering idiot opened his mouth to say something when the consultant said, “ I don’t care about you not wanting to be a common man. Get over it. You are.”
The blathering idiot looked at the door to the studio and willed it to open and for Lydia to walk through it with Xenia. Xenia was in school today, but she would understand all this and explain it to her. But right now she was in class learning to play the recorder. The blathering idiot wished he knew how to play the recorder, wished he was in her class learning right now.
But the door did not budge, and neither did the consultant.
The blathering idiot had a sinking feeling and he felt a little dizzy. He looked at the door again, and it appeared tilted, maybe even spinning.
The blathering idiot had a sinking feeling, as if he might have just crossed over … into The Twilight Zone.
Haiku to you Thursday: “Orbit”
Pebbles in the road,
misshapen to the moment,
orbit underfoot.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
The blathering idiot and the Pro-Accordion Party, part 5: the accordion and vegatables
Sometimes not knowing is important … at least to your electability.
“But I don’t know how to play the accordion,” the blathering idiot said once he understood that he would be posing in ads with one.
“That’s okay,” the consultant said. “That will put you in touch with most of our potential voters. They don’t know, either. It will give you the common touch.”
“But I took this position as candidate for the highest office in the land so I wouldn’t be just another common man.”
The consultant looked at the blathering idiot for a moment and then shrugged.
“People want to feel they could sit down and have a beer with you.”
“But I don’t like beer,” the blathering idiot said. “I do like broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels Sprouts.”
The consultant’s nose scrunched up. “Well, we don’t have to let the voters know that.”
“You mean voters don’t like people who eat their vegetables?”
The consultant opened his mouth to say something, paused, and then closed his florid lips.
Monday morning writing joke: Let me preface this
Let me just preface my remarks by saying I shouldn’t have prefaced my remarks.
My critique group can be rather direct. I turned in the first part of the novel, including the preface. One member said he doesn’t read prefaces or preludes or prologues of any kind.
Another one wrote this on in the margin of her critique: “Your preface states that the characters bear no resemblance to any person living or dead. That’s precisely what’s wrong with this story.”
I guess an epilogue is out of the question.
Freeform Friday: Ramparts of Obscurity
I stand on the ramparts of tautology
Forever eschewing any hint of scatology.
But don’t ask me this fine day
To bind my obfuscations away.
For where o’ where would I be
If I could not in confidence convolute thee?
Oh, where o’ where, pray tell
Would my alliterations have place to dwell?
I am but a humble servant of words
Trundling through this world of the absurd.
A land of regret full of monsters who fete
On a mind that will now be quiet.
Filed under 2012, Freeform Friday, poetry by author
Haiku to you Thursday: “Hidden smile”
Petals opening,
flowers await Sun’s embrace.
Moon’s smile lies hidden.
Filed under 2012, Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
cARtOONSdAY: tHE mILLION mONKEY tYPE
Some say a million monkeys at a million keyboards would eventually write something equal to Shakespeare’s works. Depends upon the monkeys. They might decide upon the million monkey march, or something a little more at play.
Filed under 2012, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
Monday morning (evening) writing joke: the long and short of it
Giving short (story) shrift to a novel idea.
The other day I overheard two people in my writing workshop group talking about my work. One person said she wasn’t sure why, but she would prefer to read something else.
The other person said, “He’s putting everything he knows into his novel. It’s sure to be a short story.”
“And I probably still won’t like it,” the first person said.
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