Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

What, Al listens Feist?! She knows that song? Yes, it is indeed a good one. (I've got two of her CDs, and will be picking up her latest soon.)

I have also got Nina Simone's version too, called See Line Woman. 'See line woman she drink coffee. She drink tea....'

Al, that was a fun video.


I woke to thunder
Only to see my left ear
Pressed against her heart.

Tears stream down her cheek
Rivers of sorrow falling
Into a puddle.

Tears they all fall down
A shudder, pouring release
Then dry, but better. . .

(Sorry. I did not realize the part where they each had to be a little in common. I am "learnding" now. lol).

“Oh, don’t stop!” I shook
her and pleaded. “Sobs and tears
are what is needed.”

No problem, CJ.


Is he a moron?
Was what I thought, while sleeping
In the lumpy cot.

Sobs and tears are not
the thing, to catch the conscience
of the empty ring.

But to dream, to sing
and hope for life. Sigh no more,
I will be your wife.

Cooking, Cleaning, Strife
a Wife ,a Wife, is the life
Vanquished are my dreams

LoL!
That is sooooo funny.

The goose is cooked
and the game afoot. To dream
of freedom from soot.

Married and sad, she
climbed the stairs, with no joys left
but to have affairs.

His bliss would soon end,
when he learned she was pregnant
by his dearest friend.

Better wedded to
a bottle than to a dame
he’d love to throttle.

He's rude when he's drunk
and he's drunk for all time though
there is mercy still

Ones turn to harsh things
They are ways of life, darkness. . .
Seems no other way

But there is light, ye
Hope and water sprung today
And there be sun now.

Al wrote: "Who know my dad could write haiku?"

Whoever feels the encouragement. That is awesome about your dad. :D

If you count nuptial as "Nup-choo-uhl" it works. Lol. That's what I did reading it since it seemed it didn't. . . so one compensates. . :)

I think of Liar Liar with Jim Carrey. He said it he same way and I assumed that. LOL.

"Pre-nuptial agreements" (he sings it, dances during the bloopers)... and then he looks like he was just condemned by the judge that just stared at him. Then walks off. . . they laughed. It was great.

Al, so great that your father jumped in to show that there's still life in the old man.


One life at a time
is the theme. Finding one's bliss
the narcissist's dream.

Alex, you’re wonderful! Your dad’s haiku is great. The rhyme is just right. CJ, your haiku are contemplative. It will a challenge to write a reply. I just got back from a day at our local Renaissance fair. Imagine me wearing a rapier and a dagger!

I don’t care about
finding my bliss. I just want
fame out of all this.

It is the stoic
who is blasé. To grasp fame
will make him queasy.

Arnold tried to be
heroic. Failing that, he
tried to be stoic.

For awhile he thought
he’d go nuts with an insane
craving for doughnuts.

Oh, that’s funny! The clerk with the beard. “No more doughnuts for you!”

There was but one thing
to do, of course. Arnold joined
the town’s police force,

not one iota
daunted. Now he could have all
doughnuts he wanted!

I love it, especially the first stanza!

He threw down his hat,
dropped his gun, ran to the phone,
and dialed 911.

Doomed, one of those five-
hole belt notchers, he gasped, “Quick!
Get me Weight Watchers!”

"You've chosen Homework
Help. Do you need help with Health
Class?" Threw phone! Face red.

Oh wow. Sounds like something I would do.

The phone landed in
the big bowl where dough was mixed
for pigs in blankets.

Later, a patron
was seen talking long distance
on a kolache.

The kolache phone app
was a marketing success:
Who could have guessed it?

That small poppy seeds
would put texting messages
into the Zagat.

But he could talk no
longer than thirteen minutes
on the sausage plan.

I just read online "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Wow.

And everytime the
dough would rise. . .the phone would ring
then they'd take it out.

I can’t say just why, but I have a feeling our local doughnut shop isn’t ever going to make it to the Zagat guide.

M wrote: "I can’t say just why, but I have a feeling our local doughnut shop isn’t ever going to make it to the Zagat guide."

"Rings" of dough mean something else. . . and the sausage plan is not covered by T-Mobile!

When speaking of cuisine
and rank, this shop’s light years
from what is tony.

It’s whispered of the
pigs in blankets that there must
be something phoney.

This thing called the tree
So proud it once stood sadly
Chopped- it met its death.

The woodsman took a
backache pill and muttered, “It’s
time to buy a Stihl!”

He'd lived on life's edge
Hewing trees for a living.
One day he was cleaved.

Always an inde-
cisive cook, here an on-
ion, there a shallot,

now he lay dead by
the forest brook, of two minds,
with a cleft palate.

LoL! M, that is so so clever and funny!

Thanks, Guy!

I'm still (supposed to be) working on my (and my wife's) taxes, so not up to creating even my weakest Haiku effort.

Hmmm. Oops, my imagination couldn't be suppressed by the thought of my upcoming largesse...


To the worms and bugs
The axeman's rough hewn corpse
Was palatable.

Not in your league, but under the trying circumstances, who's going to split hares? LoL. Sorry, a bit punch drunk, it would seem.

Have a good night's sleep A. (P.S. I Am still analyzing the dream you sent, and will report back soon.)

Sorry A, eh. That was supposed to be A l of course.


As with the sawyer,
The wood worms worm wood like
a good wood worm could.

Sheesh! Like I said, punch drunk. I'll blame being taxed by my taxes.

Can I play? I am not sure I get the game, have you already answered this question a million times? Sorry.

ChristaRP, YES absolutely you can play!
The rule is very simple - link your Haiku (or Haiku-like thing), to an element within the previous person's.

Look over the previous few and you will see. Note: M takes these to an extreme level, with interlocking rhyming patterns and stanzas. Let your imagination rip! This is one of the funnest and funniest threads in all of Goodreads, let alone WSS.

So, give us your best shot! We take it as inspiration for ourselves. And no subject is off- limits; we at one point had a series involving a drunk priest urinating in a graveyard. It was SO funny I was ROTFL with every Haiku-like-thing.

Al, you don't have to think of one, anymore. You have an entire list to draw from. Or is the the problem 'Choice' as it is so aptly phrased in The Matrix.

And I laughed at yours too. Trying to start a new fad? The nursery rhyme rhyming haiku? LoL.

Hey! Why aren't you in bed resting your body and encouraging its recovery from whatever industrial disease you've been afflicted with?

Alex, do you want me to put up a new topic?

The worms were here, the
worms were there, the slimy worms
crawled round and around.

They chewed his eyelids,
but his hair was wormproofed by
some oily compound.

The Dapper Dan man
Has untold legacies
Known only to worms.

When Gabriel came
It was their hair that made it
Up to the Big Wig.

I can’t write a reply till I quit laughing!

They clapped each other
on the back at the graveside,
swigged, and sang all day

their familiar, row-
dy lay: “He’s just a lumber-
jack, and he’s okay . . .”

I'm a lumberjack
and I'm okay, sleep all night
and I work all day!

((:P Sorry had to do that))

LoL - RotFL! Nicely done M & CJ. Too, too funny!


Still laughing!