Looking For Something
 

The awkward pelican dives
from so far up there
from somewhere
close to the moon
wings spread
straight down
with purpose
determination
and such blazing speed
like a comet falls into the sea
watching him
(I am)
with childlike wonder and awe
(I am)
afraid his little neck will break
at the moment of actual impact
For such an aching hunger
dive, he must
he is not brave
his life simply depends on it
Rising back up from the sea
he longs to feel
just a little something
in his throat
that will justify
risking everything for
one more time

New Challenge: write a story in 6-words or less
 

Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn" and is said to have called it his best work.

Here are some from some favorite authors & auteurs.

Knowing all of you, I would bet that each of you could equal or surpass them.

Mine-no classic but tells a tale:

Failed orgasm. Electricity out. Batteries instead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vacuum collision. Orbits diverge. Farewell, love.
- David Brin

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
- Joss Whedon

Automobile warranty expires. So does engine.
- Stan Lee

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore

Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
- Margaret Atwood

His penis snapped off; he’s pregnant!
- Rudy Rucker

From torched skyscrapers, men grew wings.
- Gregory Maguire

Internet “wakes up?” Ridicu -
no carrier.
- Charles Stross

With bloody hands, I say good-bye.
- Frank Miller

Wasted day. Wasted life. Dessert, please.
- Steven Meretzky

“Cellar?” “Gate to, uh … hell, actually.”
- Ronald D. Moore

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
- Vernor Vinge

It cost too much, staying human.
- Bruce Sterling

We kissed. She melted. Mop please!
- James Patrick Kelly

It’s behind you! Hurry before it
- Rockne S. O’Bannon

I’m your future, child. Don’t cry.
- Stephen Baxter

Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
- Richard Powers

I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss … ?
- Neil Gaiman

The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.
- Orson Scott Card

Kirby had never eaten toes before.
- Kevin Smith

Rained, rained, rained, and never stopped.
- Howard Waldrop

To save humankind he died again.
- Ben Bova

We went solar; sun went nova.
- Ken MacLeod

Husband, transgenic mistress; wife: “You cow!”
- Paul Di Filippo

“I couldn’t believe she’d shoot me.”
- Howard Chaykin

Don’t marry her. Buy a house.
- Stephen R. Donaldson

How did I do?
 

Fantastic as usual!! Lol:)

Puppy, open gate - crash. Children cry.

Life lived, coffin lowered, no mourners.

Serial Killer Haiku

Evolution is
progressing from cutting pets
to the girl next door

story in 6-words or less
 

Now this is funny...and good. Or should I say bad?

"Damn! Dropped the toothpaste," he crestfallenly declared.

Suddenly, she quickly yet slowly opened the car window, inhaling...then exhaling, then inhaling........then exhaling again, the crisp but freakishly muggy foggy air that covered the light fading into bright blue sky.

The random livestock meandering somewhat haphazardly directly accross the paved and gravelly road, boardered on both sides by deep and shallow ditches, were over grown, jacked up on steroids and looking for a fight.

Between the smell of farmer's fields, sidewalk commando livestock and a "new car scent" air freshener hanging from the cigarette lighter knob of her 1978 Gremlin, she knew she was home!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...atin_bull1.jpg

Story in 6-words or less...
 

Wrote her number in lipstick. Smeared.

In my dreams, she never left.

Stay calm. Act natural. Evening officer.

Flat tire. No jack. Bob's towing?

Empty heart
Now lives
Pumping again.


:heartbeat:

Tears fall

Wet face

Dry soul

Haiku you
 

Empty house echos
New family, much laughter
now home once again

Inspired by housekeeping in the modern age....
 

I wake, reluctant
Too cold to get out of bed
but I have to pee

Haikus are easy
but sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

Life is like a river
it winds and wends, ever flows
Should I give a dam?

Chai! This is great!

So happy to see you and JD join us:)

Yes, I realize that most of the recent additions (story in 6-words or less, haiku) strayed from the original intent of the thread.

All of the writing is still off-beat and quirky, so I feel it still fits in with the original intent: a place to write strictly for fun!

Feel free to write whatever you damn well please and I will continue to enjoy, as well as marvel, over the cleverness that I find in each one of you and your writing abilities:)

Study: Children of divorce twice as likely to write bad poetry
 

(Disclaimer: this article is from The Onion)


DURHAM, NC--A study released Monday by Duke University's Center For The American Family confirmed what many child-development experts have asserted for years: Children whose parents are divorced are twice as likely to compose bad poetry as those whose parents are married.

"Because of the terrible trauma divorce can inflict, we're seeing a correlation between kids from broken homes and embarrassing, god-awful verse," said Dr. Ruth Wyler-Feldman, director of the Center For The American Family. "Devastated by the break-up of the family unit, these children are responding with poems awash in bathos, forced rhymes and mixed metaphors comparing their souls to rainstorms."

According to Wyler-Feldman, parental separation most often manifests itself in atrocious poems about isolation and anger.

"Just listen to the words of Ashley Bedrosian, a Pensacola, FL, 14-year-old whose parents split up last May after 17 years of marriage: 'The pain comes down like a harlequin's tears / From my room I can hear my parents screaming / What once was one heart now beats as two / From this nightmare I cannot awake, for I am not dreaming.'"

"Obviously, Ashley is bitter and heartbroken over her parents' divorce," Wyler-Feldman said. "And that's tragic, because what comes out of that bitterness and heartbreak is some of the worst poetry you'll ever hear."

The two-year study found that the rhyming of "despise" with "my eyes," as well as references to Trent Reznor and horses running wild and/or free, occur with 65 percent greater frequency in poems by children of divorced parents than in those by children from stable two-parent homes.

http://www.bryanspage.com/poetry.gif

The Duke researchers also found a strong correlation between the nature of a particular divorce and quality of poetry. In 90 percent of divorces categorized as "amicable," the breakup results in rhyming poems, usually with irritating, "sing-songish" A-B-A-B rhyme schemes. The more acrimonious the split, however, the greater the odds of a child turning to other, more wretch-inducing poetic forms: Eighty-five percent of contested divorces end in free verse, the study found, and three in four divorces involving custody battles end in haiku.

"These children of divorce are really hurting," noted therapist Dr. Eli Wasserbaum said. "But not nearly as much as those of us forced to read this drivel."

Wasserbaum urged America's troubled couples to split up while their children are still very young. "If you have children who are, say, between the ages of three and nine, and you suspect you might not want to spend the rest of your life with your spouse, I would urge you to get divorced now," he said. "At least that way, your kids have a fighting chance to heal emotionally before they reach their prime poetry-writing teenage years, and we can all be spared reading about a beautiful rose that withers and dies because no sunlight ever fell upon it."

"The bottom line is, America's kids could be channeling their anger over the 'loss' of a parent into moving verse, but they're churning out melodramatic crap instead," said Dirk Fransette, director of the Young Writers' Workshop, a Brookline, MA, writing program for 13- to 18-year-olds. "If I have to read one more poem about a lighthouse, I am going to carve out my eyeballs."

The study has provoked strong reactions among young people nationwide. "You just don't understand," said Ethan Cameron, 14, of Salem, OR. Cameron, whose parents recently split up, self-publishes a literary website called Visitation Rites. Among the high-school freshman's poems: "Detention Of The Soul," "My Trenchcoat" and "Bruised."

"Saying that all our poetry is bad, well, it just isn't fair," said 15-year-old Melody Jeffords of Knoxville, TN, whose parents divorced when she was 13. "My parents and teachers just don't understand my pain. Or, as my new poem 'Trust' puts it: 'Who can you trust / With thoughts inside your head?/ You can't trust anyone / Unless they're already dead.'"

Wyler-Feldman said that while the Duke study has shed a great deal of light on the link between divorce and bad poetry, there is still much to be learned.

"So much is still unknown. For example, why so much thunder and lightning imagery? Why so many references to The Crow? And why the recent rise in short stories ending with alarm clocks ringing, revealing the entire story to be a dream? We must answer these crucial questions before we can ever hope to find a cure."

Six word story...
 

Sad Haiku Day
 

It was alive when
she was here, now she is gone
Feels dead once again
**************************

Had to put my butch
on the airplane to no. CA
One more time, hate it

:(

I think I get this?
 

Anya inspired :)
 

haiku
 

Sniff, and sniff again.
Is it popcorn or fritos?
Odor de Dog Feet.