“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” – Douglas Adams
Paperwork reduction
More paperwork
Less reduction
Typical bureaucracy
Okay, I know it’s not prose. It’s not haiku, either. It’s just something I wrote during a meeting when we were being told about one more form we had to now complete.
So much for paperwork reduction.
Thunder and lightning.
A flash followed by a bang
Timed with school’s release.
This actually happened yesterday and I wrote this last night. For a while, though, it looked like it might happen today.
Joe writes great haikus all the time. He told me I could write good haiku if I just practiced writing them. So I’m practicing.
Alchera Project No. 29
Option 1
Take any Christmas Carol on this page and use it to write a story. It doesn’t have to read exactly like the carol or even seem related, but somehow the relation of the two should be evident. If you don’t think it will be evident to me or your other readers, it is perfectly fine to explain the relation after the story’s end.
From the time I was 4 or 5 until I was 29, my father would sing “All I want for Christmas” to me on or near Christmas day. It was a tradition my father enjoyed but I hated.
I think I was 4, nearly 5 when it started. Thanks in part to a run in between myself and a bike’s handle bars, I ended up missing all 4 of my front teeth that Christmas.
My father usually just sang the chorus. With a lisp, of course. I have vague memories of him singing the “sister Susie” part. Sometimes he would sing it with the original “two front teeth” and sometimes he’d change it to “four front teeth.”
At 4, nearly 5, it was funny. At 10, it was silly. By 12, it was annoying. By 18, I would chuckle with my father but I really didn’t like the carol. By 30, I missed hearing my father’s version on Christmas day.
When I was 30, my father died a couple of months before Christmas. Not hearing a silly, snippet of a Christmas carol that had annoyed me for most of my life was one of the hardest things about that Christmas.
I still miss hearing that annoying chorus around Christmas time.
For this month’s Alchera project:
Haiku’s are short, little 5-7-5 poems that attempt to capture the beauty of a moment. Write two poems, one capturing the best moment of your life, and one capturing the worst. Remember, it’s not the best or worst day, but just the best or worst moment.
Worst Moment
Green line going flat
His body is not yet still
Lungs forced up and down
Best Moment
By the mirror
Turning around and around
Was twenty now eight!
The worst moment was when my father died. The best was buying clothes after losing a lot of weight. I need to get back to that best moment.
