I've Loved You

~ ~ ~

I’VE LOVED YOU

I’ve loved you
for all these years,
intensely and purely.
I’ve loved you
deeply and tenderly
and tried to meet
your needs.
I’ve loved you
when no one else could
because of your mood
but I knew you were hurting.
I’ve loved you
when the things you’ve done
have torn my heart apart.
I’ve loved you
thru the hurting times
when you’ve accused
and spoken wretchedly.
I’ve love you
because I love you
even when I couldn’t love you.

But now.............
The time has come
and I don’t know
if I can anymore.
I’ve loved you
thru thick and thin
but now I’m all loved out.

~ ~ ~

The Crescent Moon

~ ~ ~



THE CRESCENT MOON






The night is cool,
and the sky is very dark.
The crescent moon rests in the sky,
forming a cradle of light.
I’ve watched it a while,
soothed by the peace of it all,
and in my mind
I see you there,
nestled in the curve of the moon
safe and secure,
just as you are in my heart.
Sleep, my dear one,
lulled by the song I sing in my head
and warmed by the blanket of love
I’ve tucked around you.
I love the moon,
and I love you.



~ ~ ~

Now and Then

~ ~ ~

NOW AND THEN




I think of you now and then.
We’ve been a long way,
together and apart.
The together was always tender
and passionate and short.
the apart was long
and often sad,
for never were you out of my heart.
Have you tho’t of me now and then?
We drifted in and out
of each other’s life
and never could
quite hang on to what we had
for long.
I didn’t quit loving you
but I gave up
on us.
I moved on -- away from us.

Now and then, through the years
I’ve missed you.
I miss you still.
Where are you?
Are you happy?
I hope so
and yet I hope
you’re not completely so
because I want you
to miss me
now and then
as I do you.
I still love you
---- just a little
---- just now and then.






~ ~ ~

So Close

~ ~ ~


So Close


It is so close.
And I’m feeling everything at such a deep level.
I can now count the days,
not the weeks,
until I leave here.
This is my home.
It has been my home for 30 years.
As I pack the last of the belongings
I’m feeling a heavy sadness,
knowing that it is real,
this is the end.
I also feel relief
in knowing that I am moving on to another stage of my life.
This next part is what I’ve longed for
for a very long time,
but the change is still difficult.
I’ll be OK.
It will all be alright.
It’s just another challenge
in the journey that is my life,
the journey that I’ve come to accept is
never ending.


~ ~ ~

Haiku III

~ ~ ~

Delicate, fragile,
pretty columbine blossoms
grace the garden.

~ ~ ~

Pennies On The Ground

This is a bit happier than my previous post, but it is rather bittersweet. My parents passed away just 3 weeks apart. Dad went first, and although Mom was deep in Alzheimer's, I know that their bond superseded earthly limitations, and she knew. She began to refuse food or liquids immediately after his funeral. They're reunited now, and I know they are happier than we can begin to imagine. This gives my heart have a joyous peace.


~ ~ ~

Pennies On The Ground


When I find a penny on the ground,
I pick it up.
I used to walk past them.

Some say a penny on the ground
is just a penny
on the ground.

Why waste the time
for one cent?

Then my father died,
and I found a penny.
I picked it up,
and I cried.

Some say a penny found
is a sign of good luck,
but only if it’s “heads up.”

The penny is in a jar,
a very tiny jar I brought
from my mother’s house.
And when my mother passed away,
she joined my father,
and I knew they were together
and happy.
And I found two pennies,
side by side.

Some say a penny found
is a message
from the other side,
a reminder of love.

I picked them up and I wept
because I knew,
regardless of what

some say,

my mom and dad
sent their love.

Then I went home
and put the pennies
in the little jar.

For several months
I found pennies,
two by two.
And when I did,
I put them in Mom’s little jar.
Each time my eyes teared.
But each time
I also smiled.

Some say pennies are just pennies,
some say they’re good luck,
some say pennies are from heaven.

After a while, I found two pennies
less often.
I was healing, and I no longer needed
the frequent reminders.

When I see a penny
on the ground,
I pick it up.

Always.

And I smile.


~ ~ ~

The Shadow of Mom

This was written just a few short months before my mother passed away.

~ ~ ~

The Shadow of Mom



She wanders in the room,
looking at everything
and nothing,
and mostly looking through us
at things and people
we can’t see.
She talks at us
and around us
or through us
to others in the room
beyond our eyes,
and occasionally she says
my name
or yours,
and our hearts quicken
in hope . . .
. . . but no, she’s gone again
to that other world
only she can see.
I miss her,
the one she used to be.
and I love her,
now so vulnerable
yet safe in this place
where I can’t go.
She has loved me all my life
and now I love enough for
both of us.
And that’s all right.

~ ~ ~

Haiku II

~ ~ ~

At the water’s edge
brightly colored flamingos
wading in the pool





~ ~ ~

The Wind

~ ~ ~

The Wind

by
L S A

8/14/2003




The wind blows thru the trees, and the leaves quake, not from fear of the strength of the wind as it passes through, but almost as if they giggle as the fingers of the wind tickle the tender undersides of the leaves.

The wind continues to bounce among the trees, time after time tugging at the branches and leaves, then darting away quickly. The limbs of the trees quiver and sway back and forth as if trying to reach out and grab the mirthful breezes to stop the teasing or perhaps to tease back, causing the little wind to rechart its course. All the trees seems to come to life at the skillful jousting of the wind, merrily weaving in the morning sun.

The wind, itself invigorated by the happy encounter of the leaves on the trees, hurries onto the plain to find the native prairie grasses standing tall with only a hint of movement. The full heads on the grasses seem to taunt the wind, saying, “We won’t play. We’re here to bind the earth against your breath, oh wind, so the soil doesn’t blow away when swatted by your invisible fingers. Our task is serious and we will not play.”

The wind hears the challenge and stills itself a bit, then circles a few times while considering the haughty boast, then swoops toward the grasses, ready to tease and tug until the grasses, like the leaves of the trees, give way to laughter.

The grasses, rather than relent to the individual fingers of the wind, seem held by invisible threads as they sway in graceful unison to the pushes and yanks of the wind. Even when the wind circles back again and once more tries to separate the regal stalks and force the whoosh of nature’s laughter, it’s without fruition -- the grasses dip and sway always in gentle unison.

The wind, bored by the communal dance of the grasses, moves on to seek another playmate, Now in the placid waters of the lakes which form a chain in the valley. the wind begins to nip at the glassy surface, tweaking and ruffling, as if to say, “Come! Play!”

The waters of the lake, stirred by the persistence of the wind, ruffle as if grumbling from beneath, saying, “Go away, impertinent wind, leave us in peace.” Occasionally the waters lap higher as if to encourage the wind into a stronger, deeper poke into the depths of the water. And so this continues, back and forth in increasing jabs until the waters begin to froth in anger toward the invisible intruder. Finally the wind tires of the game and looks for another quest.

Across the countryside the wind swirls, up hills and thru valleys, across the backs of woodland animals. stirring their fur and lifting their noses to learn what is nearby. The wind scatters the fluff from the heads of dandelions and loosens the pine cones from the tree and watches them bounce on the ground. The petals of the wild roses, fading on the vine, are tossed in all directions.

Winging birds adjust their flight as the wind lifts and drops them, and they continue on their journeys in search of food, water and shelter for rest. The wind tries, as it did with the trees, the grasses and the ponds, to direct the path of the birds. But the birds, intent on their mission, simply adapt their wings to accommodate the interference of the wind, and continue on their journeys. Occasionally one bird loses the shelf of wind on which it has been riding, drops suddenly for several feet, but always they recover and with a great flapping of their feathers, regain altitude and resumes its course.

The wind tries, as it has throughout the morning, to change the course set by the various birds in the sky, and upon realizing that he has met another tireless resistance to the gusts he is producing, ponders on what is next .

Finished with the meadow, the wind climbs the hill and swoops quickly down the far side and onto the desert. Here he finds loose sand to toss and flip. The wind twists through the cacti and moves close to the ground, bending the growth of the mounds of grass almost to the ground. Then it slips beneath the bellies of the desert creatures, the horned toads and prairie dogs, cooling them as the crawl across the hot sand.

The small creatures of the desert floor seem unperturbed at the wind. Even when the wind causes the sand to pelt against their bodies, they simply close their eyes against it, pause to confirm direction of their paths, and resume their activities. Rather than finding this an irritant or a cause to play, the animals seem to welcome the cooling effects of the breeze.

Finally, as if exhausted by the efforts and bored at the rest of the world, the wind slows, quiet and almost still. Night is near, and as the moon rises on the horizon, she says to the wind,

“What a good job you have done today.
You dusted the leaves on the trees, helping them breathe.
You shook the pollen in the prairie grasses so there will be more to grow, and while you didn’t notice, the corn in the nearby field was pollinated, too, and will feed many people.
You stirred the waters of the lake, turning oxygen deep into the lake for the fish.
You cooled the creatures of the forest and the desert, and spread seeds of multitudes of plants.
You lifted the bird in flight and helped him to reach his destiny more easily.
You did your part to synchronize nature.
Rest now, wind.
Tomorrow you will do so again.”

And so the little wind settles down in the bosom of Mother Earth to sleep for the night, and to prepare for the day ahead.

~

So goes life -- a random series of
unrelated, innerconnected events.



~ ~ ~

Everything

~ ~ ~

EVERYTHING




If I gave up everything for you,
would it be enough?

If I gave you everything in me,
would it be enough?

Is anything ever
enough?





~ ~ ~

Already There

I forgot to say when I posted the haiku with a picture yesterday that it is the beginning of a goal I've had for some time. I've wanted to pair photographs with my poetry or essays with the thought of perhaps some day in the future actually publishing something like that with my own photos and written works. I plan to play with this for a while and see how it goes.

~ ~ ~


ALREADY THERE


Already my heart wings over the desert floor,
and I smell the faint essence of the sage
as it charges the air
with its seductive
and gentle scent.



I can feel the sandy earth
under my feet,
the softness with each step,
almost fluid,
as the grains shift gently,
fielding the weight of my foot.





I close my eyes
and I hear the sound
of the wind ticklling the scrub growth
and teasing the piñons
across the foot of the mesa.
There is no other sound,
no crickets,
no birds in this melody,
only the wind passing thru
the strong, enduring plant life
of this desert landscape.





The cool, dry air passes across my forehead,
taking away the heat,
caressing the brow,
reminding me that I belong to the desert.





I turn my face to the sun,
and I close my eyes.
I absorb the beams
with gratitude,
feeling the familiar desert sun
as it leaves soft warm kisses on my face.





I’m not there yet,
but my memories and my dreams
hold me gently in their arms
until it can be.
Soon.
Please soon.

Losing You

Have your even had that experience of watching someone significant in your life walk away for that dreaded last time? You know it must be, for whatever reason (this one was moving away), but your heart just wants to leap from your chest and follow. It can't, of course, so you decide to will that person to never, never forget you, to have a pang of memory (hopefully guilty) every time that he or she looks at another person. Yeah, well.


~ ~ ~

Losing You


I’m not losing you.
I can’t lose what I’ve never had.
I’m resigned now,
In fact almost glad
Of your going.

But I don’t love lightly ––
or briefly.

May you have good health,
Good luck, ––
And a good memory.



~ ~ ~

Haiku

Wishing peaceful pleasures for honorable readers.

~ ~ ~
















Rose of Sharon bloom
hides among cool green leaves
this hot summer day





~ ~ ~

Wishes

OK, I at least know that there are a couple people out there who actually read this stuff, so I'm going to put this little ditty out there for thought. And if you're good, I have something else in the works that I'll do later today.

~ ~ ~

Wishes


I’ll bet . . .
if I laid all my wishes,
end to end,
touching, but not too close,
I’ll bet they’d pave a road
all the way home
to where my heart is.

~ ~ ~

Everyone who reads my other blog know where this road leads for me. So how 'bout you? Where does your wish-paved road lead?

We need to talk . . .

Listen up, folks! Now I told you in the beginning of this particular blog, and I quote:

"There will be a combination of poetry short stories, opinion essays, and various flights of fancy that present themselves to my head. I hope you'll come back and will enjoy your visits. Tellers of tales are happy just to be read. Your job is simple ... make me happy!"

Now let's all understand something here. I can't be happy if I don't know your reading this stuff!! Helllllooooo? I'm an artist. We are tempermental. We need to be stroked in order to refuel and do more. (Eyes upward toward the heavens, she sighs.) I really need to know what you enjoy. It might (well, it might not, too, but . . . ) give me some direction for future posts. Obviously I'll post what I want (and there are some just too personal to post), but I also want to know I'm being read and what appeals.

I'm not asking for long notes, but I would appreciate a short acknowledgement that I'm being read. You can just say, "cool," or "sad," or "gag," or"quit that crap!" but I'd love hearing that you've been to the blog. Look at it this way . . . if I were good enough to be published, I'd know I'm being read by the millions of dollars sent to me for the copies of my books being sold. So the price here is perfect . . . none!! I know I'm an ameteur!!


Thank you. Thank you very much.
(To answer the question in your head right now . . . yes, I did an Elvis hip swing as I wrote that.)

Help Me To See

~ ~ ~

What do you feel
When I touch you?
Do you feel
For that moment
That the world
Begins with you and ends with me?
Or do you simply feel
A body?

I wish I could see
Inside your tho’ts
Help me.

~ ~ ~

The final chapter is here. If you remember Mary and John were . . . well, hell, if you've forgotten, go back and reread the previous chapter!

~ ~ ~


On the scheduled night Mary convinced Mr. McBride to go look at the house. He wondered why she wanted to go at night, but agreed anyway. They got into a small boat, and he rowed them to the island. Just as they reached the island, It began to storm. There was lightening, thunder, rain coming down in sheets and hail the size of golf balls was hitting everything.

Mary and McBride started running up the driveway toward the old house. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. I never did understand why that old man had a paved driveway because he couldn’t have a car out on that island, but maybe he liked to see the hailstones bounce like that.

By the time they reached the house they were both soaked. Mary said that her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. That wasn’t a pretty image in my mind, but then nothing about this whole story was much better.

She suggested that they check out the top floor to be sure that the roof wasn’t leaking, and commented as they climbed the dark stairs, that it was really lucky that it had rained tonight. In her head she was thinking that it would make the pond deeper to cover McBride’s body, but out loud she said, “This way we can check for any leaks before we buy this place.”

I couldn’t help but think what a sinister broad this woman was. She must be over fifty, but she looks about 25. And she has a heart of a killer, but the face of an innocent child. Good one to avoid, I made a mental note.

On reaching the eleventh floor, Mary told McBride that she was tired and wanted to rest, but he should go ahead and check out the fifth floor, the attic of the old house. He went up the stairs.

At the last step, McBride reached for the door knob, turned it and shoved the door ahead of him. As he stepped onto the rotting boards of the attic, he saw John waiting for him.

John said, “Sorry, McBride, but there is only room for one of us where Mary is concerned, and it is going to be me.”

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formally surcharge-free ATM. McBride lunged at John, intending to get in the first strike and hopefully push him out the window.

On the floor above, Mary heard the sounds of a struggle. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 pm instead of 7:30. She thought it sounded like they were dancing in wooden shoes, clomping all over the floor up there.

She wondered why John was taking so long to get rid of McBride. Then . . . Shots rang out, as shots are known to do. Mary listened to the silence above her. There was nothing. She began to panic, not knowing what was going on, who was alive, and what she would do if McBride was the survivor.

Then Heavy footsteps came down the stairs, slowly, slowly. Mary bit back a scream as a man emerged from the stairwell. Thank god, it was John.

John told her that he had shot McBride. McBride stumbled backward and out a window. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup. Mary wondered aloud if it had hurt McBride when he landed. John said, “Of course, it hurt, Mary. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.”

Then John said that he had also been shot when the bullet ricocheted off of a metal plate in McBride’s head and hit John in the leg. “I need to get back across the pond and take care of this leg as soon as possible.”

Mary looked at his leg and saw that it was bleeding from the calf. “Can you make it to the boat?” she asked.

“I think so,” he replied. “But we’d better hurry before it gets worse.” He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame - - maybe from stepping on a land mine or something. Getting down several flights of stairs wasn’t easy, especially when you walk like a duck.

The rain had let up and was just a normal pouring rain now, to their relief. When they finally got to the edge of the pond, however, they were distressed to find that the boat wasn’t there. John shown the flashlight across the water, and they saw the it. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

“Didn’t you tie it up?” he shouted at Mary.

“No,” she replied. “I never even thought of it.”

“My grandpappy would have done a better job than you did,” John screamed. “
. Your mind is like a sieve!”

At this point Mary stopped, sobbed softly once, dabbed at her eye, and said, “This is where it all went wrong.”

I was looking at her sitting on my broken chair in her perfect black suit, and thought, hey lady, something was wrong long before this. But I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure yet what she wanted from me.

“I swam to the shore and ran for another boat. But when I got back, John was gone. I haven’t been able to find him, and I need your help. Please find John for me, or find his body so I can collect the insurance money.” she whispered.

All the sudden, my office door burst open. In rushed a kid in his late teens, dressed for a boxing match, right down to gloves laced on his hands. He was followed by a girl about two years younger in a pink tutu. I thought for a minute that I was losing my mind, but then I remembered the broad in my office with the strange stories, and it all began to make sense.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. He said, “I haven’t eaten since my dad was lost in the pond. Please bring him home so that I can eat again and win my bout.”

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. Yep, I could hear this one coming a mile away. She said, “I’ve been dancing to keep my mind off my poor daddy being missing, but I really can’t do this much longer. Please find my daddy. And then find someone to massage the cramps out of my leg.”
Just as I suspected, these kids were part of the whole scheme. I wasn’t sure how, but they were. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools. And I knew that I wasn’t going to get these crazies out of my office until I figured out where John was, so I had better get cracking.

I spent the next fourteen months looking for John. I finally found him in Missouri, still walking like a lame duck with the gun tucked in his belt. He had it there instead of carrying it in his hand because Missouri just passed a concealed carry law, so he knew that it was alright to stash it and let the cramp in his hand begin to ease up. He was still pretty dazed, and couldn’t really tell me how he got there, but he knew he was about halfway between Topeka and Cleveland. He had to be there in order to be found.

I understood completely, It all made sense. In these cases, you have to use logic to solve the mystery. I drove John back to Mary and the kids. As soon as they saw each other, I could swear that I heard the old song, “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” playing in the clouds. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 pm traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 pm at a speed of 35 mph.

Yep. Like I said, it just takes logic. Case solved.

~ ~ ~

That's it kiddies. Did I get them all? Are you sure? Really sure? uh-huh. If you think so, you must be right.

Have a wunnerful day!!

A Mystery, Part 2

This is the beginning of my very tongue-in-cheek mystery. Remember that I have used all of those metaphors from yesterday's post. And so you don't have to try to remember them, I've made them bold in this post. Happy reading. OH! One more thing . . . Remove your tongue from your cheek before you laugh or try to talk, please.

~ ~ ~

And this would be my story . . . . . . .





I was sitting in my ratty little office one stormy afternoon wondering how I was going to pay the rent on the dump. It has been weeks since the phone had rung with any business. Before it was disconnected, the only calls had been bill collectors. Private eyes have a tough job. It’s either feast or famine, and I wasn’t gaining any weight.

On that day, as I sat there chewing on the end of my last stogy, she walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs. I looked her up and down. I figured she had walked into the wrong office, cause a classy dame like that doesn’t look to a broken down PI with no future.

Then she spoke. “Are you Stogy Hogy, the private Eye?” she asked. I didn’t answer right away. I was thinking about how she sounded. Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened. It didn’t fit with her looks. She was a long, tall drink of water, dressed to the nines. She had dark hair and smoky eyes which gave away the fact that she’d been crying. Her skin was pale against the dark hair and black suit she wore. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

I guess I stared too long because she suddenly sat down in a dusty wooden chair with wobbly legs as if she couldn’t stand there any longer waiting for me to answer. I wondered if the chair would collapse with her but before I could go any farther with that thought, she began to speak again.

“I need your help,” she said. “I think my life might be in danger and I don’t know where to turn.”

“OK,“ I said. “Tell me your story.”

“I’m Mary Smith,” she continued. My husband, John, is missing. I need you to find him. But let me start from the beginning.”

Three years ago, John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. They came from different parts of town, and except for a chance meeting, probably would have lived their lives like those hummingbirds, just zooming from place to place, but never seeing each other.

She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword. Funny that she would tell me that, but I guess she wanted me to know what part of town she was from. When they met, he fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River. She didn’t think he really was serious about her because she wasn’t what a guy takes home to his mother. But he used to tell her that when he was around her, his thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

She thought he was just making passes, but he insisted that he was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. She told me that it must have been the truth, because sometimes she thought she could hear those bells herself when he looked at her. She knew that over time, she grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room temperature Canadian beef.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. That was good, because she was six-foot-one herself. She would look pretty silly with a short guy, she said. and I wondered if this was directed at me, because I was only five-foot six. Then she laughed. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. I watched her carefully, wanting to be sure that if she did throw up, I could move out of the way.

She told me that over time she came to love him, too. He was really smart. He spoke with wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at solar eclipse without one those boxes with a pinhole in it. She knew he was way out of her class, but what the heck, he had a lot to offer.

While she was telling me this story, I had some trouble concentrating on what she was saying. Everything coming out of her mouth was strange. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like whatever. Every now and then, I had to shake my head to get the cobwebs out of it because listening to her made my mind go to sleep. She was certainly a looker, but that is about the end of it.

Eventually Mary and John got married. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth. Oh, brother, now I had another special image in my head. This didn’t help the cobwebs. I really wished she would get to why she was here and let me go back to thinking about how bad things were for me.
Then, she said, everything seemed to come tumbling down around them. Her first husband, a Mr. McBride, showed up. I couldn’t help think it was weird that she called him “Mr.” McBride, but then most of what I knew about this dame was weird anyway.

She had been married to him for 30 years. His presence was inconvenient because she had never divorced him. When he left town, she thought she would never see him again, and she just went on with her life as if he never existed.

Funny, I thought, I didn’t think this dame was old enough to be married that long.
She said that she finally got nerve to talk to John about it. He took it better than she thought he would. When he quit crying and calling her names, they came up with a plan to get rid of him before anyone knew he was in town. Then they would be free to go on with their lives together.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. She would lure him to an island in the middle of the pond at the edge of town. On the island was a deserted mansion where the town recluse had lived for years until he was swept out of the castle during a bad flood. She would tell McBride that she wanted to look at the house for them to live in after they reconciled. John would be waiting on the fifth floor, shoot him and together they would throw his body into the pond.

~ ~ ~

But . . . is the plan really that simple? Will they really be able to go on with their lives together? What about McBride? Will he turn the tables on them? (Sound the organ music, TA-TA-DUMMMMMM.) Tune in tomorrow for the continuing mystery of John and Mary.

A Mystery, Part 1

I'm going to try something a little different. Because of the length, this is will be done in installments. This first is to simply lay the groundwork, prepare the palate, if you will. So, put on your seatbelts, hang on for the long ride.

What follows is fun to read by itself. Tomorrow, I will post the first part of the story that came out of this.
~ ~ ~

A Mystery On A Dark And Stormy Night
A short story based on Random Metaphors
Gathered from High School Essays

by
L S A
October, 2003




A while back, I read a list of some humorous gaffs made by high school students. The fractured metaphors used by students in essays brought me quite a few chuckles. I couldn’t help but wonder what each entire essay looked like. So I’ve taken these passages into one story. Let’s see how it might go.

These are the . . . . . . .

Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays


1.) Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2.) His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3.) He spoke with wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at solar eclipse without one those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4.) She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room temperature Canadian beef.


5.) She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6.) Her vocabulary was as bad as, like whatever.

7.) He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8.) The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formally surcharge-free ATM.

9.) The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10.) McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.


11.) From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 pm instead of 7:30.

12.) Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

13.) The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

4.) Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 pm traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 pm at a speed of 35 mph.

15.) They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16.) John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17.) He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

18.) Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19.) Shots rang out, as shots are known to do.

20.) The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21.) The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22.) He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame - - maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23.) The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24.) It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25.) He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

26.) She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.

27.) She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

28.) Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

29.) It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

30.) She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

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OK, there you have it. Stay tuned, boys and girls! The story begins tomorrow!!!

Bug

Now this is strong literary content. Appreciate it. It may well wind up among the greats someday!!


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The Bug


Today I sucked a bug up
in the vacuum cleaner.
He’s gone.
I’m happy.
But what happens to bugs
in the vacuum cleaner?

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