Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

Thank you Al & M. I am honoured to be asked and deemed a viable candidate. And I thought you were joking about the 18+! I've never been in one, before. Now I'm feeling a bit nervous.

My only excuse is that it’s way past my bedtime.

Wow, it's just past 8pm here. Just finished supper, now to clean up the dishes, take the garbage out and do some writing. Night!

Yup, I am! Left over lamb with home made caesar salad. Absolutely delicious! Now coffee for desert, and I'll probably sneak in some dark chocolate because it is with coffee getting pretty close to nirvana.

Oops! Coffee pot just beeped at me.

Me: (Smile.) Ahhhhhh! The coffee is delightful!

Me: Ahhhhh! (Thinks 'The chocolate is delightful. Hint of cinnamon and now the perfect temperature.')
Professor: You do realize that the health benefits of chocolate are most likely a propaganda. So then why are you eating it instead of dropping a couple of pounds?
Me: Quiet! You're spamming Haiku and will get me expunged!
Professor: And that is wrong for what reason, exactly?
...

I see there was activity after I finally cratered! Morning, Alex.

Poor Frank!

I’d better go iron clothes for Boss. My starter was dragging this morning.

And I will, instead, proceed to carry on with perhaps doing more than pretending to work.

Wine, wild mushrooms, and
stars above. Munching wild mush-
rooms is what I love!

'It was the red wine,'
said Penelope the fun gal,
'that turned love to lust.'

'What about the 'shrooms?'
asked Grant, smoking something smooth,
his arm on her hip.

LoL! That was very funny.

Yup, I've been busy. Wife had me running around all day. Had a very long nap after work, yesterday.

I popped into popcorn. Very good. (Feels twinge of guilt. I have been working on M's dream, too. Finished another book, so another book review, etc. etc.)

Does that mean it's going to make it into black and white, soon?

Ink and paper - or, in today's technology, black pixels on a white background.

Al, you are not stupid at all! My reference was very obscure.

To mush is human
when you are in a dog's race
to find snow bound Nome

Begging your pardon,
did you mean a garden gnome
or a Nome garden?

“Do as the Romans
do” is a tract thought up
by the worst rapscallions.

I can’t figure out
how to act like Romans ra-
ther than Italians.

The play is the thing
That will catch the character
of an Italian.

Or maybe it's not
The play, but rather the dance
of an Egyptian

To a pagan god
laughing at the invention
of the pale Roman.

Twenty six letters
Gave us an alphabet
And a myriad of meanings.

I scribbled for all
I was worth to please a fair
lady down in Perth.

Then I cranked up my
battle wagon and chased a
fire-breathing dragon,

dispatching the rogue
summarily. I’ve done it
all, from A to Z.

Nice Jan! Great fun, M.
Al, nice to read that you have been so productive, but I am (paternal instinct kicking in inappropriately again), feeling some concern at your not sleeping!

Alex, I can tell you haven’t read one of my stories lately. That’s why you’re having trouble getting to sleep.

It’s interesting that Jamie and Avery are back. They disappeared from Goodreads last July, I think.

There’s always the Popcorn Served thread . . .

Maybe something new but not proprietary--though we’d have to be careful to make it clear that only moderators can start threads, and that the Popcorn Served thread is to be the only such game in town.

One day, La Giaconda, the W.S.S. pirate ship, makes the mistake of sailing into the Bermuda Triangle . . .

No. Fortunately, you managed to put the kibosh on that, but it seems to me that it’s a fire that will always threaten to break out if roleplaying of any kind is allowed.

Not a haiku...but written a couple of years ago.....

I tried to sleep
But I could not
I am the one
That Sleep forgot.

And this one is for....he'll know...

Myriad starts with M
A letter from the middle of the alphabet
Who starts with dragon slaying
Moves on to writing
But always ends up doing laundry.

Jan, I like #1566! “I am the one / That Sleep forgot.” It seems familiar.

When I am left in
a quand’ry, I find answers
by doing laundry.

M, you're so inspirational.....you just made me think of a whole lot of housework inspired thoughts...sorry no haiku.

Hang out your washing
And take a load off your mind.

Clean out your fridge
And nourish your soul.

Polish the glassware
And things will become crystal clear.

Clean out the closets
And unclutter your mind.

Sweep the pathways
And the way forward will appear.

Dusting the big tray,
of crystal stemware, now I
can't see though the air!

If I vacuumed and dusted, my wife would think she had come home to the wrong house.

Very nice verses, Jan!

Poor Alex. I hope you manage to get some sleep.

Great holy cats and
flying fishes, M is wash-
ing up the dishes!

He tried to put it
off on Guy, who exclaimed, “Not now.
I’m computing pie!”

A low voice murmured
from the galley stair, “Pie are
round. Cornbread are square.”

Alex appeared in
the galley door. “I don’t think
I’ve said this before:

“Something’s gone wrong with
my wiring. I hear the bar-
nacles conspiring.”

“It’s Edward’s game of
D & D. It’s driving me
mad!” cried Stephanie.

“At first I thought it
was mice,” she said, “but it was
polyhedral dice.”

They jumped, startled, when
Guy did pound the scarred table
shouting, “Pie are round!”

Thank you, Alex! I hope you have sweet dreams. I'm fading out fast. Goodnight!

M, funny. LoL. My wife is looking at me funny as I chuckle away.

Al, I hope you don't see this until tomorrow because you have, in fact, found yourself asleep.

I have no idea how to right a response to that, M! Still laughing. (But I think the last line might be better with '... "Pie all round!")

Still laughing!

It was only after I had turned my computer off that it occurred to me that in your case “Guy” doesn’t rhyme with “pie” any more than “Giles” rhymes with “miles” (“Guy” rhymes with “tea” and “Giles” rhymes with “reel.”) I have nothing to offer in my defense. Down here, the street name Alta Mira is pronounced with a short a and a long i.

Sigh, this isn't good at all, but the best I could do.


M said, 'I don't care
If pie are square; truth's within
Al's red cookie tin.'

Al gave her head a shake,
Asked what would be the mistake,
To eat all the cake?

But better would be
To eat all the chocolate
With kind Stephanie.

She gave it, too late,
To the fate of Edward's mate
Checked by his die's state.

'Avast and blast it!'
Guy blurted with frustration,
'This Haiku is s*it.'

Pie are round. Brownies
are square. Hover in the sound
of the salty air!

Sunset glimmers on
the water. What the beauty
of stem and calyx,

the throat of a lord’s
daughter. O the duty to
serve under Alex!

She kept him in her
red cookie tin, and there he
stayed the voyage long

growing ghostly and
more thin as his pale-eyed muse
sang her siren song

and Alex combed her
fine dark hair and Guy explained
philosophically

and Edward watched from
a deck chair as the sun sank
in a wine-dark sea.

It was very nice. I slept through most of it, watched Lord Jim, a movie I know intimately. I memorized every line of dialogue, every bar of music in it, when I was in the tenth grade. I don’t know whether it goes with being an INFP or whether it’s just something peculiar to my wiring, but I tend to have obsessions about things.

Stephanie strolled the
afterdeck, glad to quit the
commotion below

as the pirate ship,
in a sea of dreck, sent spray
flying, the somnolent glow

of a swollen, rust
colored moon leaving the decks
in enchantment dressed.

Jan strummed an old,
seafarer’s tune while Hanzle
climbed to the crow’s nest.

“Winds may blow o’er the
icy sea,” Jan sang under
skies of tattered clouds,

the sound of the strings
swelling wildly as a soft
breeze moved though the shrouds.

M soon crashed out to
a nightmare more lurid than
anything on film,

while at the bow, the
wind in her hair, stood Alex,
Mistress of the Realm.

I seem to be in a mood to write these! My apologies, Alex. I’ve already added to the last one. I’m fading out, though.

I wish you a good night’s sleep and sweet dreams.

Welcome back, M! And speaking of sprezzatura, these are them!

I hope you are both dreaming as I write this.

Rested on the ship
Awaiting travel to leave
Guitar at side- go

To the shore to play
Stay from the world of insults
strum while there seemed cruel.

But here are waves, storms
Risks, tides, lives at stake, as the
world out here is too

That's life, must come back in
and realize life must be this way. . .


Idk.

Hanzle called loudly,
“Thar she blows!” Kyra peered out.
“What’s all the hubbub?”

Off to the right, in
three rows, swam members of the
Women’s Fitness Club.

Guitar melody
Brings peace and calm
In the stormy night.

Days on days moonlit
or sunny, the clear note of
a bronze bell ringing,

haunting chords, a taste
of honey, and Jan’s voice hyp-
notically singing!

Caulk the seams, stow the
wadding and tar. Swelter as
we drift through the lulls.

In late evening, play
your lonely guitar. Hear the
squawks of the seagulls.

Without batting a
lash, she came down the deck through
the purplish glooms,

with an ice bucket,
sour mash, and a tray of
roasted wild mushrooms!

She bent, her face near:
“Would you like to taste the clos-
est thing to heaven?”

And, laughing, into
my hand she placed a shot of
Old No. 7.

The lanterns fore and
aft were lighted, the sunset’s
last orange rays gone.

Guy leaned on the cher-
ry rail and recited “The
Spell of the Yukon.”

Then Edward explained
laconically, “They blast off
in a space rondavel.”

Stephanie muttered,
“It’s too dark for me to start
another novel.”

I sat and sipped Black
Jack and wondered. Neither Span-
ish nor Italian,

not from some ship we
had plundered (unless a Lynch-
burg Spanish galleon),

how had sipping whis-
key come aboard? By Confu-
cius and Siddhartha!

Snatched from the Mermaid
Tavern’s hoard by a wench known
only as Martha.

Meanwhile, tho the lights were dimming
The Women's Fitness Cub
Just kept on swimming.....

I looked at Jan. She
looked at me. We watched, in light
too dim to see in,

them swimming regi-
mentally countless miles in
the Caribbean.

“I think I’d be a-
fraid of sharks,” Alex fingered
an old fish strainer.

Guy quipped, “They’re chasing
other marks. The health club’s got
them on retainer.”

Yikes, M! What's in the Texas water? What a creative explosion. But how to respond, what to write?

Oh, just throw something out there, Guy!

Nice, Al. LoL.

Nothing in the Tex-
as water. I don’t do my
chores when I oughter.