Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

(sorry this is off topic, but I thought you guys would enjoy it.)


sterile medical
slabs are for more than scattered
bones and dead bodies.

Kat, I did enjoy that! It leaves the imagination open to what else they might be used for. LoL. Have you read We So Seldom Look on Love: Stories by Barbara Gowdy? This book is for people who have the character to write and enjoy haiku about 'medical slabs' and 'dead bodies'.

Book review posted.
No greater feeling than that;
Because it's over.


Do reviews matter?
If no one reads the review
Was the book written?

You can tell I'm tired
I have sunk so low as to
think this is Haiku.

There was a forest
comprised of all books unread
quiet and content.

When they were read talk
began and thus contention
ruled with laws of death.

The gods of word laughed
that truth was quickly lost and
words became sinners.

In the beginning
was the Word, but before long
there was Word Perfect.

But perfect words, is
there such a thing? It seeming
imperfect is truth.

if the words aren't
read, do they exist? are they
figments of being?

Thanks Guy :D I'll have to read that sometime, then :D

But how can they not
exist in a world full of love
and angry people?

How can I keep up
my abs when I stay laid out
on medical slabs?

LoL!

XD oh, that's great XD

Haha

I think the questions posed by #3536 and #3537 are some of the most interesting I came across in school, and I think Guy’s #3534 is spectacular!

It definitely is :D

Thank you M and Kat!
In a near fushigi I'm reading Eco's On Literature and he is talking about Borges' idea of infinite libraries. The Haiku thread's turn in that direction was very amusing to me.

And my philosophical nature has always found these kinds of questions bemusing.

did you know that a
haiku is supposed to use
sounds not syllables?

We won’t talk about that . . .

XD The world as I know it has lied to me XD I just found out yesterday.

I had no idea....

?

Sorry, I did. But the approximation of English as a language proffers us an excuse not to be taken aback by the lack. LoL!

It's the white pages,
and their tomes with words unbound,
staid, and without sound

that to lost ages
give unsound wisdom, mute words
more deadly than swords.

Kat wrote: "XD The world as I know it has lied to me XD I just found out yesterday."

That's just the beginning. You will discover many. A funny one I discovered about ten years ago is that the common understanding, usage and dictionary definition of the word hubris is wrong. As overblown pride it is a relatively contemporaneous usage invented in the book Hubris: A Study of Pride by Pierre Stephen Robert Payne.

I'll have to read that one too, then. Any other lies you can tell me? To take away the surprise when I eventually find out? haha

Hmmm. A curious one I recently came across is the historical myth of barter. Barter as an economic means of exchange has never existed. The myth was invented by Adam Smith and used to justify the use of currency as being more efficient. But the human animal, for about 4000 years of its written history, used neither barter nor currency as its means to enact economic exchange. Currency is actually a very inefficient means, and was rebelled against as late as the 18th and 19th century.

Furthermore, that myth has been successfully perpetuated since Smith's book in 1776 despite it not being found in any culture the colonists destroyed.

Last week, when I was working on the Scribble City story, I got out my copy of A Theatergoer’s Guide to Shakespeare to see whether Macbeth has four acts or five. That same day, after work, Jane was playing some app on her iPad. On her screen, there were the three witches, standing around a cauldron! I said, “What’s that?” She said, “It’s a game called Bubble Witch Saga” (or some such thing). It seemed a curious coincidence.

LoL! Yes, coincidence indeed! That's a fushigi, M. Quite a nice one, actually.

Bubble, bubble, the
bank’s in trouble, and lawsuits
are on the dockets.

Praise Adam Smith, the
greenbacks with which bankers are
lining their pockets.

LOL! That is so funny!

Thank you, Guy!

Lol, nice, M!


Green pockets full of
words and men who stare all day.
Looking at a bay.

She waited for her
ship to come in, and the life
of which she’d be fond.

All that came was a
rowboat, which she felt dumb in,
drifting on a pond.

Nary a comment
on my poor paltry attempt
at sucking haiku

Should I take affront
Or just turn my back on you
who suck at it too?

But I tip my hat
At the few better than I
Their petals bruise not.

Paula, it was wonderful! I just never got past pondering whether a book had never been written if nobody read the reviews.

He begged her not to
take affront, though his silence
had seemed worse than blunt!

“Blunt is all I could
want for me,” he admitted,
“when it’s Emily!”

When can the quiet
of the unsaid word trump truth,
trip the easy Haiku?

When can counting sounds
create choral symphonies,
and sublime Haiku?

When can moral thoughts
immersed beneath words unread,
aspire to Haiku?

What's Haiku to us,
in a universe of saws,
except our words' praise!

There are nonce answers,
sour limericks masked as farce,
and round words that dance.

In the dark of day
When the lost soul wants to pay
that's a Haiku day.

Paula, your efforts here are very fine! I took great inspiration from your review set, so please take that as my appreciation for your thoughtful words. And my last set is likewise, my being inspired by your introspective set.

Wonderful you three! Great haikus!

Thank you, Stephanie!


By far the worst of
all my ills is my love of
counting syllables.

I do it when I’m
taking pills, knocking over
other spillables.

You don’t remember the stuff about Emily Blunt (#2700 . . .)? This thread is almost encyclopedic.

Thank you Stephanie! Hello Alex!

Alex, for the second stanza how about something like

and now her fear was
on the iambics and more
disagreeables.

I'd forgotten the specifics of Emily, so thanks for posting the post# so I can revisit.


His fear of I am
began with her lost iamb
in some Haiku spam.

Guy, I’m just howling! These are delightful, and the second one in particular.

You're welcome Al. I went back to Blunt's haiku thread, and wound up re-reading the entire thread from there to back here. Did you know that there is some ABSOLUTELY AMAZING haiku in this thread?! It was enthralling to re-read them.

Thank you everyone for making this one of the most creative and amazing threads ever!

:-) I'm laughing with you M. Your laugh is quite infectious, thank you!

Still laughing.


I am that iamb
now a roast leg of sweet lamb
to be eaten. Damn.

Write more than just an
iamb. Write a sly amb, a
dry amb, a wry amb!

LoL! RotfL!

The last one I posted is pretty awful. I’ll try to do better.

It’s early. Night’s crea-
tures lurk out. My coffeepot’s
getting a workout.

Sorry all, Shakespeare
defeats me. I've spent my night
hunting the creatures.