Where the skies are blue and the lions, too.
If worse comes to worst, start writing verse.
A rhyme in time will take your mind
away from this cursed ‘verse.
It will take you to worlds never you knew.
It will take you to worlds never more true.
Where the skies are blue and the lions are, too.
Filed under cartoon by author, poem, rhyming poetry
[Editor’s note: some things you can’t make up. While the national media has rightly been poking (pardon the pun) fun at the Tennessee State legislature for some of the asinine legislation it has passed this session, this was going on in a neighboring state.]
Sources: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/may/07/another-testicle-ticket-written-in-south/?partner=popular
Associated Press
Monday, May 7, 2012
SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — For the second time in a year, a motorist has been ticketed in South Carolina for displaying a replica of testicles on a vehicle.
A Spartanburg County sheriff’s deputy stopped a truck Sunday evening after noticing the “anatomically correct” display on the rear bumper. The incident report says the driver removed the display after being stopped but he was arrested for driving without a license. He was also given a warning ticket for having an obscene display.
Last July, a Berkeley County woman was ticketed for having a similar display on the back of her truck.
That case is to go to trial in municipal court in the town of Bonneau. That trial has been delayed three times and no new trial date has been set.
[Some final commentary in haiku form:
Testicle arrest:
lifelike on the dash. Driver
in pain; wife arraigned.
Hemingway once claimed that the shortest story he knew of was: “For sale: pair of baby’s shoes. Never used.” I challenge you to take the news article above and turn it into a short short short story or poem. You can paste the results in the Leave a Reply section of this blog entry.]
Filed under haiku, pain, true story
Yes, we all must live /
in the here and now — at least /
every now and then.
Filed under haiku, humor and haiku, poem, poetry
The last bookshop man in the world sat alone in his small store. There was a knock on the door. Startled, he looked up from his science fiction book to find the woman of his dreams standing in the doorway, wearing very little at all. And though she was an android, it had been a long time, so he proposed something indecent to her.
The last bookshop
She then turned and left the room.
He put the book back on the shelf and went to another section.
#
The last bookshop man in the world sat alone in his store. There was a knock on his door.
Before he could answer, the door swung open and a man in a fedora with a tommy gun barged in and started spraying the room with bullets.
The man with the machine gun aimed high, but was bringing his aim lower and lower, yelling over the noise that “The Boss” had sent him to get “the dame.” So where was she?
The last man barely had time to dive to the floor and even then he heard one speeding over his head.
The gun ran out of bullets. The man with the fedora backed out of the room and disappeared.
Old magazine from the shelves of the last bookshop
#
The last bookshop man in the world sat alone in his store.
This time a Conan-like brute with a broadsword did not bother to knock, but kicked the door open and charged into the room, swinging. He hit books, slicing the spines, knocking them off the shelves. He hit shelves, splintering wood, embedding his sword.
He yelled something about a woman, or that’s what the last man thought he heard.
Because the room was small, Conan-like was having trouble getting a full, strong swing of his massive sword. Still, as he stomped toward the last man, the last man was not sure how he would escape this one. The same thing preventing this Conan type from getting a complete swing of his sword was also prevent his escape.
The last bookshop man was sure this was going to be his last. Then the scantily clad android woman appeared in the door and announced, “I’m reformatted.”
The Conan-like man jerked his sword out of the shelf, turned, and lunged toward her.
She squealed in an almost mechanical way and ran away, the muscle-bound Conan-like in determined pursuit.
The last bookshop man slumped into his chair and waited for his heart rate to return to normal.
#
The last bookshop man in the world sat alone in his store. This time, there was a lock on his door. This time, he was reading haikus.
[Editor’s note: inspired by a visit to Central Street Books, dealer in old and rare books, in Knoxville, TN.]
Filed under bookshop, Found story, Photo by author, story, writing
Speaking Geek is not that hard.
Filed under cartoon by author, Drawing conclusions, Geek speak
Rejection might not be “forever.”
I’m a writer and I don’t get no respect. Just the other day I got a rejection notice. Not only was it a one-page form letter, photocopied cockeyed on the copy machine, the self-addressed stamped envelope came postage due — and I had used two forever stamps!
Filed under cartoon by author, no respect, writer
The blathering idiot knew April was poetry month and he thought he could impress his on again, off again girl friend Zoey with a poem or two. But the month was running out and he had not yet thought of anything poetic to write, though he had taken the time to study some about poetry making.
Additionally, after the restaurant fiasco where he had waited and waited and waited for an employee to come and wash his hands because the sign in the rest room clearly said: Employees must wash hands, and this caused him to leave Zoey’s young daughter Xenia sitting by herself for over 30 minutes, which she then reported to her mother, well, his relationship with Zoey had cooled once again.
So, this was his chance, though a part of him was beginning to wonder why he should care.
He started with something at least a little familiar:
Roses are red and violets are blue
Your eyes are weird and you are, too.
The blathering idiot was proud to have gotten three rhymes in two lines, but the more he looked at the couplet, the more he realized Zoey would not appreciate his poetic efforts at assonance. At least that what he thought it was called. She would probably say he was just being one.
He then tried something that incorporated the month:
The month of poetry is about to end
The rains of April have been real thin.
A new month stands about to begin.
May nouns, verbs & rain come again.
Once upon a poem dreary....
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who went on a dinner date and got stuck with it.
Not the bill, I say,
though that, too, came his way,
but the knife in his heart and the luck of it.
He read it and reread it and re-reread it, and then finally decided to put it in an envelope and mail it to her. He wasn’t from Nantucket – wherever that was – but she knew that. And while it didn’t directly mention love, love was there. And while Zoey wasn’t mentioned directly, she was in there, too.
He could only hope it wouldn’t give her too many ideas.
Filed under blathering idiot, cartoon by author, poetry
There once was a woman from Knoxville. /
Who couldn’t quite get her pot full /
Of coffee, she’d say, /
“There’s not enough today. /
And that makes my way just awful.”
For Kristina, who inspired this full pot of silliness; and for my daughter, who posed with a coffee pot to give me an idea of how to do this.
Filed under cartoon by author, limerick, poem, poetry
Sometimes parents are SO oblivious!
Filed under cartoon by author, Drawing conclusions, humor, parents
Every now and then, it is good to revisit a classic, or even a curiosity from the past. The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce was originally published in newspaper installments from 1881 until 1906. You might be surprised how current many of the entries are.
For example, since April is poetry month, here is a definition for the words poetry and blank verse. The Old definition is Bierce’s. The New definition or comment are mine (and in this case a few other folks, too. Sometimes, you need help).
From time to time, just as it was originally published, we will come back to The Devil’s Dictionary, for a look at it then and how it applies today. Click on Devil’s Dictionary in the tags below to bring up the other entries.
OLD DEFINITIONS:
Poetry, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.
Blank verse, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters — the most difficult kind of English verse to writer acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.
NEW DEFINITIONS:
Poetry, n. In this age of digital publishing, to say that poetry is peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines is more prescient than sarcastic. Maybe I will call upon some other folks give a modern perspective, if not definition of poetry:
Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases. –William Shenstone
(If I have to choose, I’ll take poetry, though I would probably be better at consumption.)
Poetry is nobody’s business except the poet’s, and everybody else can f*&k off. –Philip Larkin
(If true, no wonder poets feel misunderstood, unappreciated, and beyond the Land of Magazines.)
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say. –Jean Cocteau
(Probably more indispensable than this blog.)
I think that one possible definition of our modern culture is that it is one in which nine-tenths of our intellectuals can’t read any poetry. –Randall Jarrell
(And what is the percentage of the non-intellectuals?)
Free verse, n. Free verse is like free love; it is a contradiction in terms. –G.K. Chesterton
(Yeah, but paid love is illegal in most states.)
Filed under Ambrose Bierce, definitions, Devil's Dictionary, poetry
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