Thursday! The E-Zine for April 17, 2024
V4, I21
Well, here we are, together for another newsletter full of literary shenanigans1. I have a longer poem for you — a cheeky bit of free verse about a cheeky breeze — plus a couple short stories I think you’ll like just fine.
My ambition, which I’d like to jump into very soon, is to finish a couple of stories I laid aside a while ago. The ideas are pretty cool, at least to my thinking, but I couldn’t figure out quite how to make them work then. Now? Pretty sure I can bring them home in a way that’ll delight. Besides, they deserve to be finished and published. One of them, in particular, is perfect for the warmer weather that’s coming. So you have that to look forward to.
I’ve been writing a bunch of spur-of-the-moment haiku lately that I don’t want to cram into one newsletter — at least not an e-zine. However they might just make for a delicious poetic charcuterie platter for all you wonderful Thursday! subscribers. Let’s see how that goes, Maybe as a special post for my birthday, which is coming up soon2.
As always, if Thursday! makes you happy or gives you a quiet, pleasant few minutes in a busy week, click that lovely little heart at the bottom and leave me a note. The notes help a ton. You can also share Thursday! or heck, why not subscribe? I’m cheaper than Netflix and way more fun!
Cool? Cool.
Poems
Stories
The Laughing Wind
Have you ever heard the wind laugh? I have. Just last week, Thursday, in fact. (Or perhaps not. I could be making this up. Poets do that sometimes, you know.) The afternoon was beautiful, the kind of day About which a fancy poet might wax lyrical But, because I’m not particularly fancy I got distracted by a leaf falling from an oak tree. The leaf was reddish-brown and crispy-edged. It danced in the air unconsciously, as if Practicing for an upcoming ballet audition In a quiet studio where no one could see. I watched the leaf pirouette and whirl, Hang free then spin again, catching the light And holding it just long enough To make me catch my breath. Just as I was finding the words to lay Down on paper, after I had caught my breath And gathered myself enough to be a poet For just a few critical minutes that afternoon, A gust, unexpected and unprovoked, Blew up from the west (the source of all Mischievous winds) and pushed the leaf Into a perfect collision course with my face. That would have been that, except at the Exact moment when the leaf and my face met, I definitely heard the wind laugh at both of us. Because the wind’s a jerk.
(Photo Credit: cocoparisienne on Pixabay)
To This Base Use
The writer looked at the skull. The skull looked at the writer. Minutes passed. Eventually, the writer sighed. “Look at it this way. Metaphysically, you are very much alive.” The writer dipped his quill in the ink, pot and scratched out a few words. “But I don’t want to be metaphysically alive. I want to be actually alive!” The skull’s voice was high-pitched with a whine that set the writer’s teeth on edge. It always had done so when skull had been a living person. Before the accident. And the vat. And the hours of polishing. And the herb treatments and incantations and… “Well, you can’t, George. You can’t be actually alive anymore. This is the best you get. It’s this or oblivion, all right?” The writer had lost his patience hours ago, tired of the whining and whimpering and forever questions. George had been a nuisance when he was alive, always begging a coin for a drink or a pinch of tobacco, always with excuses about why he had never joined the Guild, about why he wasn’t writing great plays for adoring crowds. But he had an excellent ear for dialogue and the writer needed him. Badly. Even beyond death. The skull sighed, a curious airy feeling in the writer’s mind that never disturbed the thin line of smoke from the candle wick. “Okay. Fine. So, what now?” “Well,” said the writer as the quill continued to scratch out lines of dialogue, “First we figure out this gravedigger scene.”
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down
Lena stumbled out of her back door, coffee in hand and mayhem on her mind. Her neighbor Owen stood just on the other side of the fence between their yards, smiling more smugly than any human should have to endure, especially at 10:30 AM. The new cabin stood finished behind him, fragrant tar roof baking in the sun, still too close. Still there. Despite everything. “It’s a beauty, huh”, he asked cheerfully. “Look Owen,” she said with measured calmness. “We’ve been over this. I’ve shown you the plat map. The county assessor’s office verified it right in front of you. Your cabin is too close to the property line. It is an issue. I need it gone.” Owen shrugged regally. “Whatever. It’s built. Nothing you can do about it now..” Lena shook her head. “Owen, Last time. Take it down.” “No.” Owen’s voice was simultaneously icy and oily. “Fine”, Lena said. “Ever heard of Jericho?” She whistled sharply and a dozen large men wearing lederhosen and Tyrolean hats strode around the corner of her garage. Each of them carried long curved horns, which they set in front of them, arrayed in a rough semi-circle with the focal point as Owen’s cabin. They stood, mouthpieces almost to their lips, and looked to Lena. He smirked. That did it. She nodded to the men, who inhaled deeply then blew a single, mighty, blasting note on their alpenhorns. Part of Lena’s fence, two willow trees, and Owen’s doomed cabin blew into splinters.
“Shenanigans” is probably my favorite word. You might have guessed that already if you’ve been a subscriber for a while. I’m not really subtle about it. Do you have a favorite word? Tell me!
April 28, to be precise, or May 2 if you happen to be a Certain Tina.
Excellent shenanigans this week!