Tag Archives: photo

Workshop weekend: Saturday story: The blathering idiot and Spotted Dick

The blathering idiot darts up to a stocking clerk in a grocery store.

“You’re Spotted Dick, where is it?”

The male stocking clerk looks at him. “Come again?”

“Your Spotted Dick,” the blathering idiot said. “I need your Spotted Dick.”

“But I don’t have one.”

“One? One what?”

“Spotted dick, sir.”

“But you’ve advertised that you do.”

The clerk’s face turns red.

“I have not!”

“Yes, you have.”

“No I haven’t!”

“Yes, you have advertised that you have Spotted Dick.”

The clerk blushes. “That’s not what I advertised, sir.”

The blathering idiot stops, looks at the young man, a couple of small clusters of acne on his check and chin, and slowly realizes he may have been misunderstood.

He spots another clerk. This time a woman. He walks up to her. “Have you Spotted Dick?”

“Have you tried aisle nine?” she says and then quickly walks away.

Spotted Dick

Canned Spotted Dick; find it at your local grocery store. Just be careful whom you ask.

“Thank you.” The blathering idiot walks over to aisle nine. It is an aisle of coffee and tea and some drinks in pouches, but there is no Spotted Dick. He stomps up and down the aisle twice and is about the curse this store, the earth, even the universe itself when a woman walks by, Spotted Dick in her cart, near the top, the name in plain view.

His face lights up. He points at the can. “Madam, do you know what you have?!”

She looks him up and down. “It’s not what you think.”

“I know what it is.”

“It’s not disgusting or lewd.”

“Where … did … you … find it? I must have it.”

“It’s the last can and you can’t have it.”

“It’s the last can and I can’t have it?”

“That’s right.”

“No it’s not. It’s the last can and I can have it.” He reaches forward, snatches it out of her cart, and runs to the front of the store. He hears the woman wailing and sobbing, screaming to anybody and everybody that somebody has her Spotted Dick.

The blathering idiot is almost out of the store when he is stopped by an off duty police officer working as a security guard. The blathering idiot has his Spotted Dick firmly clutched in his hands. He told the checkout clerk he didn’t need a bag. Zoey was waiting. It was all she wanted to patch things up between them. It was British, she said, and she wanted to help celebrate the Olympics. She showed him the ad and off he dashed to the store, barely getting his clothes on.

“Sir, I need to see some ID,” the security guard says.

“What?” the blathering idiot asks. “I paid for it fair and square.”

The guard nods. “I’m sure you did, but I still need to see some ID. I’m afraid I am going to have to cite you.”

“For what?”

The guard looks down at what the blathering idiot has clutched in his hand. Then he looks down below that. “Sir, your fly is open and several people have spotted … have seen your spotted….”

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Workshop weekend: Found story Saturday

Tree cutting

In the process of making a small tree. Still much to do. Thankful for a neighbor and smart people who came to help.

There is an old joke.
How do you make a small tree?
Start with a large one.

[Editor’s note: I know, originally, the joke was: how do you make a small fortune? Start with a large one. But fortune would be eight syllables instead of seven and ruin the attempted humorous haiku. Plus, I’ll be more like to have a large tree to start with than a large fortune. I don’t hold much prospect that I’ll have a small fortune, either. As for a small tree, well, that may still take me a little while. You don’t know how much brush one full-grown tree can create until you have to clean up after one.]

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Freeform Friday: haiku and photo: “Fun with nature”

Trees fall, power fails,
Sirens wail into the night.
Thunder laughs; man sighs.

Fallen tree

Fallen Hackberry tree, over 50 feet tall. Unfortunately, it has probably killed many blueberry bushes lying underneath the branches.

[Editor’s note: over 40,000 or the 100,000 customers served by the Knoxville Utilities Board were, at one time, without power due a powerful line of storms that passed through the area on July 5, 2012. I was without power for nearly four hours and have this downed tree to deal with.]

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Found story and haiku: tough times

We Buy Gold

All that glitters could be in your past.

A shack where she once
sold you your future, she now
buys your gold. Tough times.

[Editor’s note: at the university near where I live, this booth was for several years, a place where you could go to have your fortune told. Now, you go there to sell gold. such is how higher education has changed (pardon the pun). When I went to the same university, I don’t remember seeing as many Volvo, Mercedes Benz, and other high-end cars as I do now. I am sure there were many well-to-do students when I attended, and I’m also sure there are many middle- to lower-middle class students driving less prestigious cars. But as higher education costs continue to rise faster than inflation, maybe this booth is an indication of more than tough times.]

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Filed under Found story, haiku, Photo by author, poem, poetry by author, tough times

The question

Love is not the answer

The question begets the answer.

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Whispered embrace

Love whispered your name

Whispered embrace

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Three leaves

Three leaves gather rain. /
Heavy with sky, touch the ground. /
Glistening repose.

Three leaves

Three leaves heavy with rain.

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Filed under haiku, Photo by author, poem, poetry

Found story: The Last Bookshop

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.

Chair in the last bookshop

The last bookshop

She smiled at him, not without some sympathy, then said, “Not tonight, honey, I have to reformat.”

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.

magazine from the last bookshop

Old magazine from the shelves of the last bookshop


The bookshop man slowly picked himself up, limped to the door, and shut it. He could not be sure if the man with the gun was another android, but he put the Hammett novel back on the shelf just to be safe.

#

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.]

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Filed under bookshop, Found story, Photo by author, story, writing

Jesus redeemed

Jesus redeemed

In redeeming even a small part of the Earth, we redeem ourselves.

Jesus tossed among /
the trash in the creek; redeemed /
by a boy: Earth Day.

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Filed under Earth Day, First Creek, haiku, Photo by author, poem, poetry

The 13th noir

Some days, you get the noir, and some days the noir gets you.

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Filed under Friday the Thirteenth, noir, Photo by author