Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

Great to read, clever pirates!

All alone, empty
bar blues, George eyes a bottle
of green-fairy dreams.

Green fairy modals
call George to late night yodels
and dreams of Freudals.

Alex (Al) wrote: "Anyone understand iambic pentameters well enough to teach an idiot how to write them?

Not sure that I do, but I posted something in the English lesson thread, called Brainstormin' Help/Poetry Clinic.

Let me know if you are still confused after that. If you are, then it will be up to M to help you out.

Iamb much clearer,
hope you reach her. Thanks again,
enlightened teacher.

This is a reply to Ryan’s #3648:


When fighting a case
of Weltschmerz, George sometimes turns
to Pernod’s famed Fées Vertes.

And what an eloquent reply it is, M.
I had to look up Weltschmerz-what a great word!

Thanks, Ryan! I’ve tried absinthe. It’s bitter. No wonder people load it with sugar.

The fairies all blush
when teacher decides to gush.
"Iamb in Queen's debt!"

"Beauty I will bet
if only to see a glimpse
of her dark eclipse."

Ryan, RotFL! Not true, of course, but very funny.

M, 3652 is a brilliant reply. Amazing.

I’ve been reduced, by
her eyes and mood, to utter,
willing servitude.

The soft reduction
of my better parts were braised
and fed to her cat.

Once I'd been eaten
that cat thought I was erased
never to come back.

But I knew better.
I'd over-salted my bits
so left her in fits.

Guy, those verses are the haute cuisine of the haiku thread.


Soon the cat refused
to be quiet, but howled at
the windows and door,

gastrically deranged
by the diet of suitors
fed to it before.

This is a response to Stephanie’s #3644:


Could I but quiet
the thought that stirs my daydreams
and will not be still,

the beckoning, pale
blue eyes of hers, who sings by
by elm-shaded rill.

Excellent, Ellis!

Very nice, Ellis! And very hard to follow...

The mad cat let forth
a belch in twelve modes, George's
Gregorian chant.

M, funny comment! Excellent cat buffoonery Ellis, M. and Ryan.

Ellis, 3661 is brilliant and Ryan, absolutely loved your play on the continuation from it. It was nuanced and multi-layered. Excellent indeed.

In the Psalm of Cats
the Gregorian chanters
sang like jellicles.

Thank you, Guy. And such a beautiful continuation-full of your usual finesse and style.

M wrote: "This is a response to Stephanie’s #3644:


Could I but quiet
the thought that stirs my daydreams
and will not be still,

the beckoning, pale
blue eyes of hers, who sings by
by elm-shaded rill."

Wow. Truly a pair of your best M. I reread these several times. Beautiful in all ways.

Thank you, M and Ryan. Ryan, nice to see you back and in excellent form!

Nice job everyone! M, I totally agree with Guy, #3660 is beautiful!

Carbucketty found,
while practicing scales, a
fresh hunger for fish.

Its scales had gleamed, its
glories found, the fish that soared
into a bear's mouth.

The bear soon puked the
scales and fins, and who cares that
she’s packing her things,

for soon comes the sound
of violins (though the front door
slams) when Smoky sings!

Somehow the fish lived
its freedom sing, though its scales
clothes, 'twas nude in drink.


(...Sorry. I'm bad at connecting these things.)

Violently now
I must extract from your ends
A tinkling haiku.

For what would you do
If it's only number two
Just poo's no haiku.

For don't you all see
Haiku requires the full three
(That means poo and pee!)

I swear tis is the end of my scatalogical haiku. You have to understand my problem. . .we have a dog who is even now whining, whimperig and pleaing for me to turn off the computer and take her out to complete her own haiku.

OH God! Stop me! Kill me before I multiply!)

Very funny, everyone! Emesis and faeces often have their poetical popularity.


In the beauty shop
What was done to all was do,
A hairy Haiku.

Some dos thick with glop.
Others cut as short as they'd go,
Mom's crying 'Oh no!'

My haiku are what
there’s no charm in, so I write
them down on Charmin.

That way, though they are
trite and obtuse, they can still
be put to good use.

Lol, M.

That’s so awful, I can’t believe I posted it.

Hahaha, oh, Ellis. You guys are great.

Thank you, Ellis and Stephanie!


Where do haiku go,
once flushed, if two lines too long?
The septic tanka.

Grimy and filthy,
dark and chunky, it gags me.
Dear honey wagons!

There’s a good reason
the dragons soon go after
those honey wagons!

Dead they drop from the
skies, falling atop good guys.
The smell is lethal.

And on, to Flushing
Meadows, marched St. George. Number
two a pace behind.

Happy with honey
was that dragon, eyes alight
and tail a wagon.

Reply to Ryan’s #3688:


St. George fought bravely
but took his lumps at the dread
Corona Ash Dumps.

Extremely funny, everyone! But when M wrote: "

Where do haiku go,
once flushed, if two lines too long?
The septic tanka."

OMG, M, this is truly one of the most amazing puns I have seen/heard ever. So very funny!

"With me, my dragons,"
St. George cried with jealousy,
"to kill that Baggins!

"We must pluck him out
of his myth's ascendancy,
keep my fame from doubt."

Thank you, Guy!

A dragon seemed vexed.
“’Tis an ill bow,” he warned George,
“that would slay Bilbo.”

Perhaps Gift

The flurry amounts
to little of consequence.
Snow falls; life slips on.

What can be foreseen -
Danger, risk, catastrophe -
is experience lost.

Should such trades be made?
A life prepared for heartbreak,
in exchange for what?

A what where when why
without a handle to hold
for one chance to fly.

********************

OK, my versifying, high-fly-kuing friends and passing acquaintances in the sometimes gobbledegooked world of what some define as poetry and others as schlock-ku, prose, or - God forbid - literature: Be it known that I have spent my haiku five/seven/five this evening writing not one iota of crappy language. Isn't it funny, though, how it still all ends up the same?

Or must I be forced at last to see the futility of my own paltry attempts? You see - as much as I enjoy true, and beautiful, well-written haiku, (understood in English or appreciated on a musical level in Japanese), I simply cannot envision myself spending seventeen long years (one per word or syllable) to achieve what might still, at the end of it all, be just as serviceable as an old Sears catalog in the outhouse?

Do I sound merely momentarily depressed, or is my poetry and prose really taking the nosedive I feel that it is. I shudder now to think that some folks over at "I Appreciate Poetry Critique" are (gulp) right.

@ M's. I was writing this while Paula was writing hers.


It's the only bow
With draw string more than enough
to kill damned Bilbo.

Whose arm will pull it,
Aragorn or great Gandalf,
another hobbit?

Pauline, the introspective Haiku! I like it. I think that these kind of Haiku have their own name, called Senryū. The last stanza is exceptionally fine, perhaps even exquisite. Lovely, at the very least.

LoL! Yes, everything winds up the same: fecal matter to feed the next generation of life eating life forms! You are exploring eastern philosophy; Hinduism, Zen and Taoism, with these kinds of thoughts.

Pauline, I hope you are not depressed, because you sound exceptionally funny to me. And, again, in an especially Taoist way. To become the remains of that which befouls a Sears catalogue, with an ambiguity about what is the real crap, is extremely philosophical.

If you haven't read Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu, or The Way of Chuang Tzu, then it would seem the nature of your Nature is wanting to ingest such excretions. The last one is by a famous philosophical Catholic writer, Thomas Merton. Merton did a very quick, but quite excellent study of the philosophy of Chuang-Tzu in that book. For example:

The Joy of Fishes

Chuang Tzu and Hui Tui
were crossing Hao river
by the dam.

Chuang said:
'See how free
the fishes leap and dart:
That is their happiness.'

Hui replied:
'Since you are not a fish
how do you know
what makes fishes happy?'

Chuang said:
'Since you are not I
how can you possibly know
that I do not know
what makes fishes happy?'

Hui argued:
'If I, not being you,
cannot know what you know
it follows that you
not being a fish
cannot know what they know.'

Chuang said:
'Wait a minute!
Let us go back
to the original question.
What you asked me was
'How do you know
what makes fishes happy?'
From the terms of your question
you evidently know I know
what makes fishes happy.

'I know the joy of fishes
in the river
through my own joy, as I go walking
along the same river' (97-8).

I have no idea why I'd pick that for this thread, but they seemed connected, somehow.

Oh, dear, Guy - the Tao of Steve has NOTHING on the Tao of Paula (and it is PAULA by the way.) It is a completely understandable (and common) error because my middle name - Tohline - (my maiden name) is very rare. There are only about 25 people in the world with that name, so I have hung onto it, even though I'm also now a Calhoun. The "line" of "Tohline" following "Paula,". . .well, you get the idea. BTW, "Tohline " is pronounced "t'LEEN." My father's mother's first name was Pauline. Since she married into the name she had no choice but to be called "pau-LEEN t'LEEN." So my folks wisely decided to not name me after her, exactly, but chose Paula instead. For which I am grateful.

I am a Merton fan, but far from a scholar. Actually, I'm far from a scholar of any sort. I just write, and write, and write. . .ad nauseum (I'll excuse you while you make your way to the vomitorium - and back, I hope). I get just as depressed as most any other writers do, and even though we do have a gas oven, I have no intention of going the way of Sylvia Plath. I think I will bore myself to death instead. After reading this comment, you will understand how very easily it could be accomplished.

Thanks for commenting on my, at the very least, "lovely" bit of Haiku/Senryu! LOL!

Sorry Paula, for conflating your names. Tao of Steve (movie) is very funny, so I'm inferring that your Tao is even funnier.

The Tao of Paula
Will be scribed by ascetics
on tissue paper

where it will be found
to be a treasure of d'oh
and other Homers.

Sorry Paula, I stole your name here. I would have written 'Tao of Guy' but the scan would have been off.

Haha, these are all great, guys :D

Thanks Kat. Hello! What are you doing up this late?

Late? It's only 11 here XD And I usually go to sleep at like, 1 or 2, so this is actually normal XD

You're welcome :D

Have you guys heard of NaHaiWriMo/HaikuWriMo?

LoL! It's only 10 here. No, I haven't. But each year I find myself joining the small stones month of Haiku. Small Stones is a Haiku blog run by Fiona Robyn in Australia.

And now that I've mentioned that, I think I may have missed it this year! Or maybe she didn't run it!

A month of Haiku?
What was poor me going to do
But spew words to rue?