Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

I got the idea for this from some posts in the “Thank You to All the Members of the W.S.S.” thread:

#35 (Kat): . . . Everything looks strange.

#36 (M): The broken sheds looked sad and strange . . .

#37 (Guy): . . . and strange it was, how sad they looked.

#38 (M):
. . . as though ’twere strange to be a shed,
or to be a hay barn instead . . .

#43 (Guy):
“Hey!” he said, “I am a stranger in a strange land,
bailing hay to clear this year a couple of grand.”

At once, he recognized the danger:
though he was strange, the land was stranger.

And it was as a stranger he was so sadly branded;
he'd fallen from grace into the hay on which he'd landed.

He heard somebody mumble. He heard somebody grumble.
It was the tax collector’s wife, who’d come to take a tumble.

A tumble on the hey, with the baker's boy
And to grumble at the tumble afterwards.

Special brownies, when paired with wine and tumbles,
will leave their bodies empty but stomachs with rumbles.

To what can I reply to that?
The grumbling rumbles,
Of a passer by.

I find that I am stuck by what I to do
with CRP posting in this thread a Haiku.

The bailiff led her away to the stocks.
She had pulled off her shoes and socks.

With her shoes and socks removed
She felt her ability to walk improved.

Her trying walk relaxing, the road a guide
as her feet swung swiftly, confident in stride.

Relentless in its pride.

She sprayed deodorant in his beard.
He staggered backward and disappeared.

He fell into a thick duvet covered bed
Gasped twice before the fake scent made him dead.

Horrified she ran
But slipped in a puddle
And on her rear did land.

Muddy and soaked, what was she to do
but sit there and ponder wise words of Lao-tzu?

Like the tao of cow we standing chewing and cudding
Passing tao tales like grassy gas with paper and mudding.

The door was open, the time was due
he took the opportunity, stepped out and fell through.

CJ, that one’s quotable. I read it to my wife, and she laughed, too!

Cool. Thanks M! :)

He fell through the roof of a buried tavern
and lay, one leg broken, in a bottle-strewn cavern.

There the dust swirled,
In a long forgotten world.

I like that, Christa! Great image.

Thanks :D

Wit writ terror upon the crew!
The silly quips caused outside a storm to brew

Its torn sails reflected eerily,
an old ship adrift in a glassy sea.

And where the sea was seen by men
They would never more be seen again.

The rocks heard the noise distant from the shore
the waters loudly swallowing the ship whole.

(Wow. that's not even a near rhyme! Ah. Oh well...)

[Hi, CJ!]

The only witness was the moon behind the clouds,
he listened to the pleas and screams so loud.

Sea creatures gathered. The feast was large!
Among those attending were Framy & Barge.

And the beasts of the sea slept uneasily
Knowing full well they too one day will be prey.

[Hi, Leslie!]

The tossing ships saw with dread
The sea serpents ugly green head.

Hungry sea serpents fall back on
the few pirates still left to snack on.

With cries of anguish they sank,
But woke with surprise in another place.

The shipmates found themselves at shore "There it is!"
lay ahead of them the risen land once thought lost Atlantis.

The men found a portal to travel through time
They felt lucky, as they didn't have to spend a dime.

In Atlantis, they found there was no place to park
at the famed diving school of Arthur C. Clarke.

Her father was horrified when she earned her driver's license,
Already imagining the car accidents that would commence.

Lol! Thanks Al, M is a bad influence :D

Me?

They snapped, “You should not a bad influence be!”
I humbly replied, “But I gotta be me!”

Yes, you :D Happy New Year, M! Hug!! :)

Happy New Year, Leslie! (How did it get here so fast?)

But the you you are, is sometimes a mask,
Being who you aren't, is a difficult task.

Life is like a never ending masquerade.
But when someone else has a better mask, you ask to trade.

But sometimes the inside of the mask is too scary,
And makes one commit hari kari.

I'm scared of the monsters under my bed.
One is waiting to prove that blood does run red.

I'm only more scared of the monsters in my head.
Some tell how to live, and others say that I'm already dead.

My guilt and shame have already murdered my soul.
Its absence from my being has left a gaping hole.