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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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