Versification on a March Day

Wayside Rest

The fall colors shed golden light
upon the path of the road.
I see a sign for a wayside rest,
but I am not yet tired.

Musical Friends

We played in the glade
in the shade of some trees,
singing songs we did not write,
celebrating friendship not yet dead.


Amy

Three Limericks for a Tuesday

Peruse This

There once was a man with the flu
Who decided to move to Peru
The plane wouldn’t take him
The boat closed its gate to ‘im
So he realized that Peru wouldn’t do

Sharing

There once was a man with the flu
Who gave it to all whom he knew
How, do you ask,
Could it come to this pass?
When all that he said was ah-choo!


Model Behavior

Rodney was a model man
He did his best to have a plan
One day he slipped
His tongue had tripped
And tipped him in the frying pan


Amy

Three Very Short Stories

1) I never talk to you, but many are the nights that I think of you.

2) He wasn't himself today.

3) What's the worse that could happen?

Amy

The Comic

The comic must first be able to disrespect himself, which is why self-righteous people have trouble being funny.

Amy

In Memoriam

The author has left the building, only the weary typist remains.

Amy

Antagonist, Where Are You?

Books need protagonists, but they also need antagonists to be truly engaging.

What or whom is the main character fighting?

Does the antagonist have to be a person, or just the protagonist’s inner demon? Can one antagonist fall away and another one rise up? Or is that technique too much like the fight scenes in movies today where the protagonist fights a stream of combatants and finally wins, an island in an ocean of fallen foes?

I think the antagonist has to be one consistent person or idea, but I suspect that amateur novelists are too ready to make the antagonist an idea rather than a person.

How does the writer find that truly complicated antagonist and write that person to life?

My biggest failing as a writer is that I haven’t yet learned how to write in the antagonist. My protagonist stands there with arms outstretched waiting for someone to push him down and no one ever really shows up to do so.

Amy

Practicing Opening Paragraphs

What looked like a dried up carnation on the sidewalk, its dew-soaked red color bleeding onto the ground, resolved itself into a half-eaten mouse, its entrails flowering from its center, its tail the imagined stem. Either way you looked at it, it was something dead.

Amy

A Poem for Spring

Sun in sky
Cool air over snow
The birds don’t look for food
They sit huddled in their arbors

Amy