Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

NaHaiWriMo/HaikuWriMo is in February, and you write a haiku a day :D

A haiku a day? It sounds like a song by Otori Strunk.

Paula won’t be happy with me, either, Guy. I used her as Callie Pauls in my Scribble City story.

Some called it haiku
à la Homer. Others said that
was a misnomer.

The Wendy’s lady
had seen too much cow. Now she
hollered, “Where’s the Tao?”

RotFL! Otori Strunk?! Is that in any way connected to Matsuo White, of the E'D'oh period of Haiku? LoL!

The Tao of Guy
Could be the Tao of Ghee
Depends how you speak.

Tao of Paula?
I know I can't recall a
Tao of more wit!

Very funny, Paula. I'm pressed for time— I'm being called down to make supper. This is the best I could do.


With the dahl of Tao
eating curry and lentils
tastes better than ghee.

And the dow of Tao
is to make green paper stock
out of soupy sales.

M, Paula and Guy, you make these seem effortless!


I found my Tao
in a Dorian scale
sung by my Fender.

“Dorian’s the mode
to start in,” I knew, picking
the old Martin.

A pentatonic
genie soon summoned a whale
in my martini.

Touché, M!

A martini swim,
while good for the skin, can leave
your Dorian gray.

Much better, I think,
to limit your drink and learn
a Lydian A...

Throw Down the Gauntlet!

"Oh Gawd!" she shouted
But no more had she doubted
her better haiku.

Long ago she'd learned,
To escape from being burned:
best find some shy-ku.

"Of course!", she simpered
And not once more has whimpered
She's learned how to buy-ku!

'Tis best to not think
Use your time well, and wink-wink
Purchase great wry-ku!

So, here's to Guy-Ghee:
You'll not get the best of me:
Give up and sigh-ku!

Now to all the rest -
Who think their haiku's the best?
Don't even try to!

Wow!

RotFL! And a title, too! LoL! Paula, I think the title might be better 'I've Taken the Gauntlet and Shredded It!'

Paula, M, Ryan, great start to my work day. Which has already started, so catch up later.

It was a whiner,
that ode in E minor, on
acoustic guitar.

I grabbed the washboard.
It plays only one chord, but
was better by far.

Ryan and Paula, those are great examples of clever rhyme and precise meter! I read #3713 this morning early. The Dorian Gray reference is priceless.

Thank you, M!

Ryan, you’ve set a standard. I think #3713 is one of the most polished and sophisticated in the thread.

I'm not sure what to say, M. Your praise means so much. Thank you again :)

No Brass Knuckles Here

Your comment is meant
To rouse a roar of dissent
But I'm not yet spent.

Watch yourself M, dear,
There's enough of me left here
To end your career.

For Ryan's sweet youth
I'll spare him my sharp tooth, but
for M, I'm sans ruth!

Ha ha hee hee ho!
To what great lengths shall I go
To break a heart so?

Stay tuned all of you
For superlative haiku:
That day you will rue. . .

You won't know just when
But on my chinny-chin-chin
I'll get the last grin.

Try all you want, it
to find some place to flaunt it -
My verse will haunt it.

Waving the red, three-end-rhyme cape, huh? It will hard for someone as full of bull as I am not to charge that! (After I finish ironing clothes, that is.)

You’re adept at this!

Well, this is the best I could come up with while I was ironing.


Should I, then, have stayed
in the strange, palmetto shade
where Liona played

her soft, haunting strings?
Must I now recall such things,
sunset murmurings

of quiet old streets,
cafés with wrought-iron seats,
when my mind retreats

from life’s dry routine?
Should I have stayed for the lean
of a wall, the sheen

of a noon’s back stair,
of strands, tangled by sea air,
of Phaedra’s long hair?

Pretty, M.

Thank you, Stephanie!

Paula, M, these are a delight to read and re-read! Once again, a great start to another busy day.

Thank you, Guy!

Thank thee, but dear Ghee
your stab at civility's
lost on these ladies.

(It is 4:26 am here, so for the moment I have dropped my haiku-schmaiku just to make certain you all know that I bear no ill will toward any creature except those who think they can best me with their rhyme. And that ill-will takes the form of ghastly, ungodly-like rhyme and syllabic extensions that boggle the mind of even the most eddicated amongst us, who would of course be me. Unless it's somebody else.

Just beware. . .when my sanity, health and braille skills improve, you are all in for it. Until then, well, let's just say, I'm content to compete on an even keel, and give you the benefit of giving me the benefit o the doubt. . .doubtlessly.

Obsequiously and panderingly yours,
PTC

LOL!

I can keep with you
abreast, even if you have two
ladies false or true;

out caw your fair sex
whose lady-likeness can vex
poor Oedipus Rex.

Poor old Eddy, with
a puss without eyes, no one,
nor a Mom would kith.

If a look at the
horoscope had been what he’d
had his Pop Tart with,

Oedipus would have
known giving up hope was the
right thing to start with.

Okay, I admit I can’t write one to compete with Paula’s Eddy and puss (Oedipus), and the play on kin and kiss with the lisping kith. That’s a lot to pack into one short verse!

LoL! I'll give it a shot some time tonight. Eddy's Puss was indeed very clever!

Paula, have you read Confessions Of A Taoist On Wall Street by David Payne? One of the characters in the second half of the book has a cat she named Eddy Puss, because it had one foot bigger than the others — Οἰδίπους Oidípous means "swollen foot".

Well, this isn't great.


Eddies of water
At the foot of his wife's pier
Enrapt the cat's eyes.

Prophecy fulfilled,
his wife's image in water
so like his mother's.

Not sure if that's on track...very hard to follow such great haiku. Hats off M, Paula & Guy :)

so like his mother's
the hand that holds a dry leaf
too soon before fall

-o-

Excellent Ryan! And excellent Jim! Both follow and with great effect.

Falling into the
clear, river water I lost
my sweet, small daughter.

Thank you, Guy!

Stephanie, what a chillingly effective Haiku!


In the clear water,
his eyes eye the river bed
crying a river.

Thanks, Guy! What a sad but somehow beautiful image in your haiku. Well done yourself.

Thank you Stephanie.

:)

Guy wrote: "Paula, have you read Confessions Of A Taoist On Wall Street by David Payne? One of the characters in the second half of the book has a cat she named Eddy Puss, because it had one foot bigger than t..."

Guy I have not read that, but what a great name. I do have in mind a name for the next cat we get that has white socks. He or she will be named "Chicago." I have also heard of a cat named "Meow-see Tongue." THat one is too much even for me.

Let's admit it folks. . .we're ALL great. You must recognize that for me to say that takes quite a gulp - always having felt I am supreme. Not that that makes me the Diana Ross of silly haiku. But honestly, some of your stuff - all of you - is amazing and humbling. Enjoy reading that folks - you are not likely to read it from me again - even though it will always remain true. . .

Can't leave the discussion this evening without one more wee one:

The Tao of cats -
Even crazy cats like me -
feels like sandpaper.

The sandpaper tongue
of hip cats leaves the block heads
feeling silky smooth.


Paula, I highly recommend Confessions of a Taoist. The entire premise is based on the alliterative pun between Tao (which is properly pronounced roughly as 'dow') and 'dow', the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Can there be a Tao in Dow? And if not, then Tao is false! But how to reconcile the capitalistic self-serving depravity Dow represents with the fullness of universal harmony Tao is reputed to represent? It is brilliantly written, and your love of playing with language will delight in this book. And, at the end of the day, besides the many amazingly funny interconnections and plays on language, the book is very wise.

With my Haiku and reference to Tao and sandpaper, I am making an extremely subtle pun-like thing: to be alive fully in Tao is often metaphorically alluded to as being an uncarved block.

And on with silly cat names. When I was a child a tough and beat-up tom cat — he had battle scarred ears, even — adopted our family. Despite my parents' best efforts to dissuade the cat by throwing him from the house that he would race into every time the door was opened — which went on for about a month — he was eventually allowed to join the family. He became known as Smitty the Kitty. I have no idea why. And even now, 40 years later, the image of that very big and tough cat being called Smitty the Kitty made me laugh. Thank you for prompting that memory up from the unconscious.

Dear Guy:

We really should meet. . .some day. Until then, why do you insist upon increasing the length of my reading list? It's worse than college! The book, however, will be put on the list, I just can't tell you where it will appear. My Amazon/Kindle bill is a huge amorphous thing that rises with the neap, but fails to fall with the ebb. Good thing my husband is not on Goodreads. Saves me the trouble of having to explain where my non-existent disposable income goes. All I can say is, "Thank You, God, for PayPal-Bill Me Later!

Once again, I must end with something to tickle the fancy of you or whatever nuts read the crap I write:

Money is funny -
And it has ever been so.
It grows on rare trees.

Harvests stored in barns
crumble before they are used;
Spoiled, infertile seeds

All good money trees
grow both deciduously,
And are evergreen.

In love fields they grow.
Autumn and spring are the same -
Penny seeds yield green.

Each day, sow and reap:
When you give more than you keep
Wealth is called enough...


And to you, my haiku friends - just as for all my blog friends, my wish for you is the true abundance of enough. . .

OMG Al, thank you! Please post something haiku-like here! I love your quixotic haiku expression. I have no idea why you put it down, because it fits as perfectly as any in this very curious thread.

Paula, the college reading lists were just preparatory preamble to the real reading of a capital 'L' Life. LoL!

If ever you find yourself in south western Canada, be sure to look me up. And I have an extra copy of Confessions — rather beat-up as I've read it 5(?) times — that I can lend you. If you want, PM me with some kind of generic box office, and I would be delighted to have my first international borrower from my library. I love lending books — books are to be shared, are they not? I lend books on a regular basis and have 5 or 6 currently in circulation. I even have a sign out system not unlike the old library card and date stamp days, but more open ended on the return-by deadline.

Or, simpler yet, what about using a library instead?

Your money haiku is delightful! And so fushigi because this morning I have been putting together my notes and presentation for my 'anti'-economics course I will be teaching this week. The second one, Banks Skanks is all about currency and money. So, I am laughing at the economic wisdom your Haiku express.

I apologize for what you are about to read. I'll blame Paula and my course writing for the economic pedantry that follows.

The central banker
when stopped at the gates of pearl
was asked 'To what end?'

With calm certainty
he said 'Money is God's face —
unknown but useful.

'Money allows the best
to get from the unworthy
all that God owes them.'

That blesséd banker
stood for an eternity
to out-wait the truth.

Verse that has judgment
to pass stinks like buffalo
pee on prairie grass.

I but mention it
because someone asked why my
verse smells as it does.

Guy: Do me a favor, and visit this particular blog post of mine. Since you live in Southwest Canada, perhaps you know of someone with an internet connection who lives in the glorious Northwest Territories. In my almost three years of blogging, I have managed hits from over 135 countries, all 50 states and the territories of the USA and 12 of the 13 provinces the flag counter says make up Canada. I have heard from someone in Nunavut, for God's sake, but not a peep from the NWT!!! What gives? (There are some Canucks (forgive me - lived too close to Montreal for a while not to use that somewhat derogatory word, although if you are truly Canadian, it's not derogatory), who will tell you that Nunavut is not a province, and that there are really only 12, however, my flag counter tells me there are 13, and by golly I want at least one NWT'er - say, from Yellow Knife, or wherever, to log onto my blog so I can strike that HUGE accomplishment off my list! Here's my blog's ("Reflections From a Cloudy Mirror") post in which I repeat my entreaty to the NWT (I have put forth my case more than once or twice):

http://paulatohlinecalhoun1951.wordpr...

You might enjoy other posts on my blog, so when you get the chance, drop on over and park a spell. I also have a photo blog (through which I hope to make a bit of small change - if only to pay my Amazon and/or PayPal bills: It's called "Reflected Glory - My Adventures in Photography," and the link is:

http://myphotoreflections.wordpress.com

Gotta close with a lowchirp:

With low to high crow
Roosters bellow so hens know
Sun's up for fun stuff.

Their high-piercing call
As dawn breaks does not enthrall
Me. It's far too gruff.

As morning breaks through
A mourning dove's sweet high coo
Wakes me well enough.


I have GOT to quit writing this stuff. My already loose hold on sanity is slipping. . . Guess I'll go to bed and watch educational TV, like "The Golden Girls."

"Oh, shoot!" cried Dawn as
she bent, picking up pieces.
"I've broken morning."