Human Nature

Friday Fictioneers for February 24th, 2023

Our own Kansas City, major league Girl, pronounced Rochelle, who is in a league of her own, has sent us up to the nosebleed section of Royals stadium for inspiration. It’s her pic, but it’s still football (not baseball) season, for which KC will be smiling and thanking Lubbock, Texas, for sending them the likes of Patrick M. (Superbowl Champs) for many moons. May the Royals be so blessed.

This game is all about telling a complete story in fewer than 101 words (more and you strike out). Click on the stadium pic to hit a home run over at Rochelle’s blog to get her pitch. There you can be umpired on the balls and strikes of Friday Fictioneers. Let the baseball metaphors fly!

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Genre: Baseball History
Title: First Base
Word Count: 100

***

Billy and I bummed on cheap wooden bleachers watching the Rangers. Seven bucks covered everything, including Cowtown to Arlington gas and parking.

“Dad, that lady behind me is blowing on me.”

It was hot. I looked back. A lovely young lady was fanning his neck. She smiled. I mouthed thank you.

He punched his glove, but it would take a homer to get us a ball.

“She’s trying to keep you cool. Some day you’ll appreciate such attention.”

He asked, “Do you think she likes baseball?” I looked again. She winked.

“Yep. She and your mother are both big fans.”

Look both ways when life seems like a dreary competition.
Mind the gaps. At those heights, let the ball come to you.

 

Click on Charlie Sheen checking his package (autographed) to get tossed over to inlinkz where you may read more wonderous stories inspired by Rochelle.

Sammi’s Weekender #299 (saturnine)

Click here for Sammi’s blog page where you can participate and/or read other 47-word wonders.

ICR

Why do clowns frown?
They’re funny being sullen and glum.

I like Eeyore. His dark humor and
saturnine persona are both spot-on.
His anti-supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
attitude, taken too literally, can be sad,
but why be so literal? He’s not Russian,
not a nihilist. He’s just an old jackass.

Look both ways for the humor in the ridiculousness of life.
Mind the gaps, but not too closely, they can be downers, too.

Monday’s Rune: Just for me

Humble Sigh

She said, “I write
just for me,
not for any reader.”
All for her own pleasure.
So she said.
So she thought.

But, oh, oh, oh,
the smile she had
and the glint in her eye
over the magazine
that published her story.

Tell me that again my friend,
that part about the writer
without ego or desire
to please or to be pleased.

Look both ways and take the pat on the back.
Mind the gaps for feeling denied.

Sammie’s Weekender #293 (preposterous)

Click here for more preposterous writings linked at Sammi’s blog page.

 

 

Dear Danny,

Here’s the thing, man.

It probably seems pathetically preposterous
to a person such as your profoundly proud self,
but at least pretend to listen.

Don’t worry.

I understand.

You cannot validate me.
You are not me, nor I you.
You’re right about that part.
but I’m more you than you’d think,
in a darkly nonspecific way.

See how silly and sad that is?

You despise me for breathing
——- and for being right.

Look both ways as you try to understand people.
All the same, yet different.
Mind the gaps to help keep communication civil.

 

Sammie’s Weekender #291 (acrimony)

Click this graphic for Sammi’s blog page and more acrimonious writing,

Maniacal Mordancy

How does it happen?
Love never dies.
It changes,
and perhaps it fades and dwindles
away. That’s life.

But when it is replaced
by acrimony,
what happened?

Was it greed, lies, cheating,
unfaithfulness, or disloyalty?

Did it happen suddenly
or was it a gradual cancerous growth?
When does letting go
cease to be an option?

Look both ways to see the mystery of human nature.
Mind the gaps for secrets and hidden bones of historical scandal.

 

Who sent out these wedding invitations?

Friday Fictioneers for November 18th, 2022

Rochelle, our dear dancing diva with big black boots and broken toes, has punted a Friday Fictioneers photo from Starsinclayjars to us, twice actually. Her intent is for us to score goals by netting our 100-word (or fewer) stories for mid-November. We are to look and see the picture, big or small, and then write a story from our mused inspiration. Thence, to blog post said fibs for all the world to admire and love.

Be bold and click on the boot by the bush for a fast flash over to Mistress Rochelle’s rockin’ blog to kick up some fun with micro fiction. Post your story in one of the squares thingies and jump in on others to tell them what you think, even if you don’t know who they are.

PHOTO PROMPT © Starsinclayjars

Genre: Historical Fiction
Title: Canned English
Word Count: 100

***

The young Englishman intended to stand against the obstinate, award-winning poet, and sardonic senior citizen.

“You must wear the standard green uniform, Sir, or face the boot.”

Peter glared, “Unsatisfactory. I’ve done this vapid work well-enough for twenty-two years. I want the job. Not uniforms.”

“Sir, the National Agribusiness empowered me to inform you that you are suspended. Agree to our terms, the job is still yours.”

Peter watched a bird and sipped his wine, “You’re a callow, grotesquely inadequate twit. I’d rather live in Marfa bloody Texas than work for you jackasses.”

The young man was beet-red, “Where’s Marfan?”

***

Look both ways and be true to your conscience.
Mind the gaps, especially if your day job is on the proverbial line.

English poet Peter Reading and I were born an ocean apart on the same day, 27 July 1946. He was “one of Britan’s most original and controversial poets: angry, uncompromising, gruesomely ironic, hilarious, and heartbreaking. His scathing and grotesque accounts of lives blighted by greed, meanness, ignorance, and cultural impoverishment” captured this Bokowski-lover’s mind, heart, and imagination.

He was fired for refusing to wear a uniform, lived in Marfa, Texas, for a time, and titled the book about that experience Marfan. Peter died about 11 years ago, but his attitude and poetry live on.

Click on Peter enjoying his wine and giving some twit a look. Photo is the cover portrait (by Peter Edwards) of Reading’s Collected Poems (1970-1984), Blookaxe Books Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

Sammi’s Weekender #285 (thalassic)

Click this graphic to read more from Sammi’s page.

I found thalassic in Robin Devoe’s Dictionary of the Strange, Curious, & Lovely. I wrote an acrostic insult poem with more rare words from the same book. It’s Monday. I started this Saturday morning. I’m tardy.

***

Tin gods abound worldwide. Practiced prevaricators
Hemipygicly half-assed witlessness,
Adonized avatars in their own lost and low minds,
Lardaceous lickpennies of limicolous living with
Acherontic soulless evil demonic spirits, those
Snollygosters comfortable within any snobocracy,
Slubberdegullions of the lowest order or less,
Imbruted by nature without redemption.
Cacodemons with sycophants.

***

Look both ways when searching for right.
Mind the gaps for the tin gods because they disguise well.

Monday’s Rune: fear

 

Solicitude—

I fear my last day
but not my death

I fear loneliness
but not being alone

I fear pain
but not its causes

I fear love
but I love loving and being loved

I fear the strike
more than the pitch

I fear my own anger
more than I fear that of others

I fear decline of all kinds
but not being old or slow

I fear the worst
but I try to do my best

I fear the sudden stop
but not the long fall

I fear within me
feeling fear itself

But most of all, I fear
anger born out of my own fear.

Look both ways when feeling trapped or controlled by fear. Paranoia runs deep.
Mind the gaps where you might find the reasons why.

 

Monday’s Rune: Columbus Day

Got Yer Number

You sailed the ocean blue.
In fourteen-ninety-two,
and whatnot.

We love you less.
Five hundred years later
and your victims more.

A national Monday holiday
in a land and country
nonexistent for another
three hundred years.

One you never heard of.
One you’d never understand.
One with statues and tributes
to you for getting lost.

Facts are facts.
History
less of a mystery.
And me,
‘avin’ ta work on
Saint Paddy’s
of all troublesome things.

Look both ways and try to appreciate reality and history.
Mind the gaps they drive deep to hide the truth.
Some heroes just suck.

Sammi’s Weekender #280 (amok)

Click this to open Sammi’s page where you’ll find more fun prose and poems run amok.

Small Battles: Big Wars

We
would rather f-bomb
or recite angry litanies
of forbidden witchery
than speak the word: cancer.

It’s when few of one’s
trillions of cells run amok,
it’s a war fought with
knives, rads, and poisons.

Look both ways to see your own beginning and end.
Mind the gaps, fight the battle, die with dignity.

John Updike, best known, perhaps, as a novelist, was a poet. This short poem of his is one of my favorites regarding life and death. He died of lung cancer in 2009.