Friday, April 30, 2021

Overheard at Table 2: Best Ex-Husband

Listening to track 1 from John Hiatt's album "Eclipse Sessions" 

Song called "Cry to Me"

Heard the chorus and it inspired this song... I just heard in my head the line, "I'll be the best ex-husband you ever had" and took it from there:


Best Ex-Husband


   C

I won’t break your windshield

                 G

Or slash the tires of your car

   C

I won’t send you drunk texts

           G

At 2am from the bar


           D

I’ll get the kids home on time

         C

I’ll never make things worse

          D

You’ll have the child support 

   C

Every month on the first


Chorus

G       Em      C          D       G

When we’re married, I know I’m gonna let you down

        G       Em            C       D          G

It’ll start out good and then head straight to bad.

        G       Em       C             D                G

But baby when we finally drive this plane to the ground,

         G          Em     C             G

I’ll be the best ex-husband you ever had

         G         Em          C                 G

I’ll be the best ex-husband you’ve ever had


I won’t call up your friends

And tell them petty lies

I won’t hound your new boyfriend

To try to get him to fight


I won’t skip visitation 

Just to go out with some girl

Baby, I’ll make sure you know 

The kids are my world


Chorus

When we’re married, I’ll spend every night painting the town

We’ll got to bed angry and then we’ll wake up mad

But baby when decide to put these wedding rings down

I’ll be the best ex-husband you’ve ever had

I’ll be the best ex-husband you’ve ever had




MR

2021-0430



Thursday, April 29, 2021

Overheard at Booth 3: A Week Before Christmas

A week before Christmas
When the airplane touched down
connection through Denver
snow-blanketed ground
20 dollar sandwich in the airport cafe
then on to SeaTac
and a drive up to Blaine.
 


to be the first verse of the track on the album

Hearing it in my head with a rhythm, that seems to be the rhythm of "Holiday Inn" by Elton John

Note typed on my phone 2021-0121

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Overheard at Table 2: The Way of All Things

 

Wife: We don’t talk any more.

 

Husband: It’s been years since you’ve been interested in anything I have to say.

Sunday, April 25, 2021

Overheard at Table 4: Unkindness of Ravens

 #horrorprompt 447 Unkindness of Ravens


The Unkindness of Ravens, the
old folk said. If seen, grab a sprig of barley,
crush it between your fingers,
blow the dust.

If not, your mother will die.

Thought they were joking.

Until the morning I saw
my father

and the knife.

Overheard at Table 2: Waiting for Birdman (Horrorprompt)

 #horrorprompt 446 Birdman


Birdman,
a needle beak
into the vein,
push that
beautiful
poison.
Eyes wide,
sky high, 'til
Birdman
brings u down
6 feet under-
ground,

He already got
Jimmy,
T-Rex,
AJ.
Now he's coming 4
me.

Old timers chase the dragon.
Me,
I'm waiting 4 Birdman.

Saturday, April 24, 2021

Overheard at Booth 3: Feeding the Cats

Feed the cats in the morning and they should be OK.

Yeah, but it's never just "feeding" the cats ... it's also cleaning up their puke and picking up the poop that they left on the floor AND also cleaning out the box.  It's a frikking whole routine!

That's why I have YOU feeding the cats.



Friday, April 23, 2021

Overheard at Table 4: The Baker and the Beauty

Wife: I really liked her assistant.

Husband: Noa's assistant?

Wife: Yeah.

Husband: Lewis.

Wife: Yeah, he was cute.

Husband: Thanks, babe.  He looks a little like me.

Wife:  Yeah, you're right!  He does kinda look like you.  Only he knows how to dress.

Husband: Well, that's probably because he's gay.

Wife: I think you straight guys just use that excuse so that you won't have to put forth any effort.

 


 

 

Thursday, April 22, 2021

Overheard at Booth 5: Why should I even try?

Why should I even try to continue writing?  Making songs?  Stories?  Poems?

I keep having to work "real" jobs ... and yes, I'm degreed, with a good paying job, and I am thankful for that, but I had two days between jobs - TWO FULL DAYS - and I could have used them to catch up on my music - songs that I'd been meaning to get to - poems that I had ideas for - stories.

But then on those days - my wife decides to work from home, so she not only uses the computer in the office, but I can't even write stories in peace in the other room because every 20 minutes (no exaggeration, I started counting), she called me in to check her spelling for emails to high management.

Then, today, when she goes off to a site visit (to be back by 11), I am trying to record a song, then my son comes down before 10 and needs me to help move the cars so he can get to work, and then when he's done, I'm thinking, "OK, they are both out of the house, daughter's still asleep, I can do this!"

And so I start recording a song and then what do I hear from the next room?  The washing machine!  Then she's knocking on the door, saying, "Dad I moved all your clothes to the basket hope you don't mind."

There are forces at work that prevent me from writing.

I think it's called, "Having a family"


Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Overheard at Table 4: Luis sat in the chair ...

Luis sat in the chair with an
        unabashed stare -
Maria walked over to him
        and asked, "Luis, 
                are you high?
        'Cuz if you high, you
        can't be here.  You know that."



MR
2019-1009

        

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Overheard at Booth 3: Last Night a DJ Saved my Life

What if we knew that art saved lives?  Like, what if there was a way to measure, to quantify, for the news to publish the statistics.  Say, 'Today, poem such-and-such stopped a kid from shooting up a school' or 'A painting by local artist so-and-so is cited as the main reason for peace talks between the government and the rebels of whatever country' ... I mean, we KNOW that art saves lives, we KNOW it, but it's an abstract.  What if we could actually assign it names, and dates, and specific numbers?   

I think then we wouldn't be so blasé about letting them kill art programs in the public schools.


Monday, April 19, 2021

Overheard at Table 2: In Over a Month

Mom: I just wish you'd focus on your career more than going out to the bars all the time.

Daughter: Geez mom it's not like I'm hanging out at bars.  I mean, I haven't gotten laid in over a month.

Mom: A month!  I haven't gotten any in more than that!

Daughter: Ew, Mom!  That sucks, you're married.

Mom: I know!  ... maybe I should hit the bars with you.



Sunday, April 18, 2021

Overheard at Table 4: Trees in the Front Yard

Wife: Those trees in the front yard, do you know why their roots are above the ground?

Husband: No, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me.

Wife: It's because they are getting so much water.  Usually trees are supposed to grow their roots deep in the ground, so that they can find the water.  When we keep over-watering them, they don't feel they need to reach down so far, and that's why they are weak and prone to falling over and get other diseases, because they spend their lives with all the water at the surface.

Husband: So, you're saying our trees are lazy.

Son: All that explanation and THAT was what you got out of it?


Saturday, April 17, 2021

Overheard at Booth 3: America the ...

From sea to shining sea
Is an ocean between you and me
Purple mountains' majesty
Keeps me devoid of empathy
These flaming amber waves of grain
Sweep away whispers of others' pain
These beautiful, spacious skies
Dull my senses with exceptional lies.
And alabaster cities gleam
These white-washed tombs of shattered dreams.
Where God has long since shed His grace,
There is only apathy in its place.

From a notebook, dated 2019-0514


Reworked 2021-0425

From sea to shining sea,
An ocean between you and me.
Purple mountains' majesty
Devoid of all empathy.
These flaming amber waves of grain
Deny five centuries of pain.
These beautiful, spacious skies
Dull my eyes with hollow lies,
And alabaster cities gleam
These white-washed tombs of shattered dreams.
Where God has long since shed His grace,
Leaving apathy in its place.



Friday, April 16, 2021

Overheard at the Counter: Horrorprompts from 2019

"Jeez, OK, kid, here you are!" Verble says, slapping some pages on the top of the counter.  "These are all my writings for Horrorprompt for 2019."

"The kid wants 2020 as well," says the Barista.

"I need a nap," says Verble, leaving the pages there and walking away.



The Horrorprompts of Verble Gherulous

 

 

 

Book One: 2019

 

 

May 28, 2019

 

For 15 long years he had sneered at her for everything.

 

For her cooking.

For going back to school.

For how she performed in bed.

 

Now that answer had been erased by her kitchen scissors.

 

She would not miss that sneer.

 

 

 

May 29, 2019

#horrorprompt 284: tiny eggs

 

This lovely enigma in Raybans and a purse-lipped smile had flirted with him all afternoon at the poolside bar. 

 

Back at her room, she unlocked the door, pulled off the sunglasses, exposing eyes like tiny eggs.

 

Mouth opened: pincers.

She lunged.

 

 

May 30, 2019

#horrorprompt 182: sealed inside

 

Smiling wide, he encouraged the prospective home buyers to knock on the walls that he had framed, sheet-rocked, and painted himself.

 

"The insulation," he said proudly, "is the best that humans can make."

 

Because that's what was sealed inside.

 

June 3, 2019

#horrorprompt 286: wrapped.

 

Wrapped in chains, he sank in the water.

Struggling, he suddenly realized: No escape!

 

He would drown!

 

Frantic, he wondered why the faces outside the glass tank did nothing to save him.

 

Damn! he thought, They think this is just part of the show!

 

 

June 6, 2019

#horrorprompt 287: benevolent love.

 

The monks always welcomed strangers who wandered in from the road.  Such folk were always very welcomed at dinner.

 

And with benevolent love, the monks always ensured the wayfarers went to sleep peacefully before being prepared for the feast.

 

 

June 10, 2019

#horrorprompt 272 last sunrise

 

In the early evening hour,

they turned to see the last sunrise

rise in the east.

 

This final dawning, crowned

in a mushroom cloud,

 

beautiful,

glorious,

 

sent waves of heat

roaring over them,

 

turning flesh to ash,

setting their souls free.

 

 

June 12, 2019

#horrorprompt 288 Last Word

 

After 53 years of his verbal abuse, Grace now watched Roy struggle with his last breaths.

 

"You never let me speak, all these years," she said, "but I get the last word: it's what I put in your nightly tea."

 

She leaned in and whispered, "Cyanide."

 

 

June 18, 2019

#horrorprompt 289 Kill for Me

 

"Who would you kill for me?" she asked.

 

"Anyone," he said.

 

"Liar," she said.  "You wouldn't kill your daughter for me."

 

He stammered a bit.

 

"It's OK," she told him, leaning in close to kiss him.  "I've made sure you won't have to."

 

 

June 20, 2019

#horrorprompt 290: Skinned Alive

 

She was so happy to work for this director, who was known for intense realism.

 

But when he readied the actors to shoot the scene where they would be skinned alive, she understood too late that, this time, when he said, "CUT!" he meant ... BEGIN!

 

 

June 24, 2019

#horrorprompt 291 Layers of Silt

 

Running along the riverbank with his friends, Benny’s foot sank through several layers of silt.  Something grabbed his ankle.  Pulling up, he saw the hand.  The dead hand.

 

Benny screamed.

 

The nightly news told of the girl, missing for 15 years.

 

 

 

July 7, 2019

#horrorprompt Two Drops

 

The old librarian told me, "Back in those days, any man who went to the gallows never wanted the hangman to be 'Two-Drops' Callaghan."

 

"Why's that?" I asked.

 

"Because the sadistic prick would drop you once, then pull you back up and drop you again!"

 

 

 

July 11, 2019

#horrorprompt 294 emaciated remains

 

They were nothing but emaciated remains of what once were human beings.

 

My fellow GI's and I watched in silence as they lumbered out of the camp toward the medics' trucks.

 

I looked up at the sign above the gate.

 

It read ARBEIT MACHT FREI

 

 

July 13, 2019

#horrorprompt 295 stranded

 

After the firefight and his squad was pushed back, Frankie was stranded behind enemy lines. 

 

He tried to hide under a burned out jeep but he saw their boots &heard their laughter and he didn't know their language but he knew "die amerikaner ist tod"

 

 

July 31,2019

#horrorprompt 297 Unending Scar

 

When they came,

when the aliens finally came,

we knew immediately we had nothing

that could stop them.

 

The roar of their engines flattened the trees,

and their weapons ripped the night sky into

an unending scar.

 

 

July 31, 2019

#horrorprompt 298: Greasy Hair

 

It wasn’t the matted, greasy hair or the dirty fingernails or the feral eyes, or even the way the boy was hunched over, rocking slowly back and forth….

 

it was his smile, eeking out around the half-eaten rat that was sandwiched between his teeth.

 

 

August 2, 2019

#horrorprompt 299: Sweltering Heat

 

San Salvador 1982

 

The girl walked to school in the morning, backpack slung over one shoulder.

 

In the sweltering heat, soldiers burned the bodies of dead protesters and revolutionaries.  

 

The smoke rose to the sky.

 

And permeated everything.

 

 

August 6, 2019

#horrorprompt 300 End Times

 

"Welcome to the End Times café," our host said with a sweep of his arm.

 

We stood amazed by the wood decor & plush velvet curtains.

The room was thick with the smell of gasoline.

 

Then, we heard a chain locking the door... & the click of his lighter.

 

 

August 12, 2019

#horrorprompt 301 Glorious Agony

 

The masochist had foregone the safe word.

 

The crank was turned and the screws twisted him into paroxyms of glorious agony.

 

Glorious, yes, until the sadist, inexperienced at this machine, turned the crank one rotation too far.

 

 

August 20, 2019

#horrorprompt 302 - Obliterated

 

What if I could indeed feel the plaque as it wraps around the synapses of my brain?

 

Would it make sense of all this?

 

Or do I just stay numb to the knowledge that in my brain the recognition of my dear wife's face will one day be obliterated?

 

 

August 27, 2019

#horrorprompt 303 Left to Wilt

 

What was it about the flowers, she wondered, left to wilt in the vase on the table?

 

She ran the blade of the pruning shears across her lips, tasting

 

the faint tinge of the blood of the suitor, who will never come to call no more.

 

 

September 5, 2019

#horrorprompt 304 Eviscerated Entrails

 

The Amazonians hung the anthropologist from a tree & eviscerated him.

 

As his entrails spilled on the forest floor & the members began to feast, he thought, "Ha! The bacteria in my intestines will decimate your tribe!"

 

He died smiling.

 

 

September 17, 2019

#horrorprompt 306 Natural Causes

 

Midnight, small town, speed trap.

 

The sheriff blinded me with his flashlight as he looked over my license, saying "You city boys shouldn't race through here like y'all do. You likely to get shot.  'Round here we call that dyin' a natural causes"

 

 

September 27, 2019

#horrorprompt 307 Peachy

 

Kevin always had a feeling that we would die gruesomely, in great pain.

 

So, when the car stalled underneath the bridge just as the 18 wheeler overturned on the overpass and came careening down on him, he murmured "Well isn't that just peachy."

 

 

October 1, 2019

#horrorprompt 308 Let Me Show You

 

We'd been dating a month.

 

I said, "You're the sweetest kindest person ever!"

 

She said, "You don't know me."

 

I said, "Yes I do."

 

She said, "Let me show you," as her hand grabbed the skin under her jaw line and she began to pull her skin...

 

 

October 8, 2019

#horrorprompt 309 Behind the Mask

 

My dad's new wife smiled sweetly, always, and always told us she loved us and was glad to get to know us.

 

I knew at the reading of the will would be the moment we got to see what was behind the mask.

 

 

October 16, 2019

#horrorprompt 310 Weakening Grip

 

Raul awoke at the Hyatt Centric to find bombs strapped to his chest & his hand clasping a dead man's switch. He knew he had to run: throw himself into the Hudson.

 

Hand cramping, grip weakening, he rounded Times Square, bumping into Naked Cowboy

 

 

October 22, 2019

#horrorprompt 311 Thinning Old Guard

 

The thinning old guard of vampire hunters went looking for some new recruits.

 

Finding some, at the start of the interview, they asked, "What interests you about this opportunity."

 

The recruits bared their fangs and said, "Your blood!"

 

 

November 8, 2019

#horrorprompt Plague Doctor

 

Our village was a peaceful one, nestled high in the Pyrenees.

We had never known want, nor disease.  We lived on fresh produce and clean air.  We had not need of a physic ... until that cursed day when, into town

 

came the Plague Doctor.

 

 

November 21, 2019

#horrorprompt 315 Permafrost

 

A millennia.

Maybe ... two.

 

I have forgotten Time.

 

But I have not forgotten how much I love

to feast on fleshlings, those sacks of blood and water and

bone ... oh yes,

 

and now, I can feel the permafrost

thawing, & I shall soon

be

 

disinterred.

 

 

December 8, 2019

#horrorprompt 317 The End

 

11:59pm

 

Our host raises his glass for a toast.

 

We all raise ours. 

 

"To THE END!" he says triumphantly, then he drinks; then, we drink.

 

I lean to my spouse. "Does he mean 'of this year'?"

 

"Wait ... what's in this drink?" she asks.

 

 

 

December 27, 2019

#Horrorprompt 318 Suicide King

 

His name was Jesús. We called him "Suicide King."

He always drew fire from us so that we could take cover.

He always was first to clear the houses.

He said he did it so we didn't have to.

 

Fittingly, it was on a Good Friday when he hit that IED.