Wordgrove Post & Review

Quoted in the Grove:
Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.
~Samuel Adams

The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.
~Jacques Benigne Bossuel

Cry as much as you want to, but just make sure when you’re finished, you never cry for the same reason again.
~Wiz Khalifa

~~

Posted from the Grove:
Things are about to get weird. October has traditionally been a month of extremes in Wordgrove. After the newsletter’s summer hiatus and the return from vacation’s diaspora, this month began the season of parties and events that took us all the way to year’s end … then the Wordgrove Prize writing contest. This was all great fun for Wordgrove Nutters, but October also stole away one of Wordgrove’s founding members and broke the club’s collective heart. It rained in Wordgrove for a month. It still does in WG’s memorial, Bedd Meadow.

And this is where it gets weird <flourish of trumpets> Welcome to WeirdGrave!

Got a spooky paz? WeirdGrave is a great place to showcase it. Do you have a favorite paz you like to bring out for special occasions? WeirdGrave is the showplace for it. There are plains and forests and hillsides aplenty @WeirdGrave, but save them for your best.

This is a month-long event for October and everyone is welcome to drop their ‘event’ anytime, but the good spaces go early. This is the club’s annual invitation to go from Nutters to Weird and have fun in the meantime. Go for it!

There will be a brightly ornate Puta Table near WeirdGrave’s Vladform for visitors to leave Scrolled links to their exhibits elsewhere.

~

As requested by Odin, something by ~Faun at Faeriecon: Luna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Tv1lkmYTc

~

Prewritten for Thurs (08/20) @6pm PT/9 ET is: synopsis, poltergeist

~~

@Writers Platform

Prewritten: Physical trait to kill for

~MissMerry:

Eyes to Die For

5′ 10 and 104 pounds, long slim legs, long, wavy, dark auburn hair, and tilted dark eyes to die for.

Eat the peas or the carrots… or eat both and throw it all up THROW IT UP GET IT OUT! Damn calories. My hip bones are prominent and all my ribs are standing out.

Stomach growls loud enough to catch the attention of others in class. I am so hungry all I can think of is food.

4 nights a week I serve cocktails to state legislators and capital city ‘who’s who”. My stilletto heels and net stockings with the black velvet mini skirt is easy on the eyes… my tips are good.

The manager says one night “The senator likes your tiny waist. Maybe you should skip a meal or two.”

I quit.

I found a job in a barbeque restaurant serving real MEAT and FRIES, and salads with REAL dressing! I wore SNEAKERS to work instead of heels and got real. I went to class with a full tummy and could concentrate on the lesson, not starvation.

I gained some weight and was still beautiful. And I still have eyes to die for!

~

~Greymane:

Work Work Work

Igor sighed mournful as he punched his card into the time clock. He was still exhausted from the night before as he lumbered down the hall in a stupor. When he passed by the break room he could hear Frank was already in there cussing something or other as he usually was. He always seemed to be upset about something trivial.

He got in line at the dispatcher’s window behind The Covington Slasher. He was a pleasant enough guy, hey had met at the last company picnic and had had a few beers together. They had gotten along well enough despite the fact that Igor wasn’t a big fan of those who took so much pleasure in the work. To him it had always been just a job.

“Hey! How’s it goin’ Igor?” He asked

“Oh, can’t complain Bill, Can’t complain” He replied

Taking his schedule from dispatch and patting Igor on the hump, he left to start his daily route.

“Take it easy Igor, I’ll see you Friday night at Vlad’s for poker.”

“Sounds Good.” Igor nodded, Thinking it would be a great pleasure taking Bill’s money. He was the card shark of their group and hardly ever ended the night in the hole.

“Mornin’ Marge,” he said when he reached the window.

“Good Morning Igor.” She smiled back at him, “I’ve got a good one for you today. An order came in for Hazel eyes and size 6 feet. That puts Adele, mayor Moonstone’s wife on your list.

“Oh my,” he laughed, “she seems like she could be a screamer.”

“You have only two days to meet the deadline, it’s a rush job, been expedited straight out of the front office.”

He left the window grumbling. The mayor and his wife were friends of a friend and he had just last month attended their annual spring soiree. He was grateful that their clientelle demanded complete discretion, if the mayor had any suspicions he would not be attending any more fancy parties.

He went to the employees lounge for a quick brandy before checking out a nondescript panel wagon from the carriage house. On the way he stopped to take a longing look at the picture he had hung in his locker for inspiration.

Ahhh, Tahiti! Mmmm someday, someday soon, he thought to himself. Only 79 more assignments and he would have enough saved up to finally retire there comfortably as he had dreamed for centuries.

“Such a stressful job, but worth it,” he said out loud too no one there. It was easy for him though; he had a natural talent for procurement. There seemed to be a predisposition for such work in his family history.

He followed Adele for the better part of the afternoon and finally caught her alone towards the evening hours as the darkness began to fall.

He made quick work of it using his favorite knife and cleaver. Expertly removing her beautiful hazel eyes and her flawless size 6 feet he sealed them hermetically in sterile containers and packed them in ice. Covered in blood he made no attempt to disguise what he had just done in any way. He dropped off her remains with a paper that read …

“Renfield Procurement Agency”
“Purveyors of attributes to kill for for over 600 years!”
“Guaranteed Fresh”
“IGOR”
“Procurement Specialist IV”

This he knew would exempt him from any criminal prosecution from the Transylvanian authorities. He then packed up the wagon and headed for Old Doc Freakenstooge’s castle to deliver his order.

“Only 78 more to go!,” He mused to himself, Tahiti one less breath closer.

~

~BarTalk: Eyes to Die For

~~

Impromptu: merciful, morsel

~Greymane:

Corners

She painted her passions with barely aware
and lost herself under the veil
With a merciful morsel of what she could share
expressing delicious detail
Confessing confusion she challenged the dark
chaining her shadows with light
Hiding in corners where dreams disembark
somewhere too deep in the night

~

~whitefeather: haiku

savoring each morsel
a merciless temptation
melting in my mouth

~

~BarTalk: Duo Diablo

~ . ~

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Quoted in the Grove:
The more I see, the less I know for sure.
~John Lennon

During my life I have seen, known, and lost too much to be the prey of vain dread; and, as for the hope of immortality, I am as weary of that as I am of gods and kings. For my own sake only I write this; and herein I differ from all other writers, past and to come.
~Mika Waltari

Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.
~Bergen Evans

~~

Posted from the Grove:
The band’s name and song title almost give the plot away, but then the music kicks in. Suggested by Whitefeather @Message in a Bottle.

~The Burned: Hard Lesson

~

Prewritten for Thurs (08/20) @6pm PT/9 ET is: Physical traits to kill for

~~

@Writers Platform:

Prewritten: The mood was grim and only the town drunk was dancing

~MissMerry: untitled

“Fuck the air raids, fuck Hitler, and FUCK yer gawdamn bombers!” A very drunk Daryl was toasting his luck and thumbing his nose at his own suicidal refusal to go to shelter. He had found the back door open to the Green Dragon Pub and was helping himself to the best in the house while the sirens wailed and everyone else was scrambling to underground safety.

“I believe I will have another!” He laughed sarcastically and put another nickel in the juke box. He had finally found that really righteous buzz he had been seeking for the past year, ever since he got labeled “4F”. Liquor, like most other pleasures, were all rationed, but nobody was around to enforce that rule at the moment.

Daryl soft-shoed to the bar and selected a full bottle, tucked it under his arm and waltzed out into the smokey chaos of the street. As he turned to look to see if the door closed behind him, an incendiary bomb hit a bulls-eye on the Green Dragon building, reducing it to rubble and flames.

“I saved one soldier tonight!” He mumbled as he held the bottle up, shaking it toward the sky. “But not for long…” he opened the bottle and took a long swig as he swayed down the ruined street.

~

~BarTalk: 2:47 AM

~

Impromptu: Tell the story behind a nickname

~Greymane: untitled

There upon the edge of time where aether turns to stone
The Reaper harvests tired souls and sends them home alone

He pulls the plug and nothing more, judgment not his scene
He rides the waves of destiny that lie somewhere in between

A fleeting glance of ragged robes that wail in the wind
No time to stop and ponder if the dear departed sinned

He stands beside a thousand nights hid in shadows deep
Tattered misty tendrils wrapping lovingly to sleep

Just a black hole apparition with a simple job to do
This phantasmic ageless spectre has a date to visit you

He’ll visit each and every one, an angel some may say
His name forgotten long ago when people used to pray

~

~ReenRen:

wat the fuck zen!?!

i told her of his awesomeness.
she listened with due awe.
but then i found she wished me ill
thot she could swipe my prize.

i told her he was not as great
as i had hoped he’d be
she looked at me all innocent
she saw opportunity!

trusting my naivety,
she put on a full on press
the fuck zen!?!

wat the fuck zen!?!
i told her of his awesomeness.
she listened with due awe.
but then i found she wished me ill
thot she could swipe my prize.

i told her he was not as great
as i had hoped he’d be
she looked at me all innocent
she saw opportunity!

trusting my naivety,
she put on a full on press

~

~Jessalee:

nickname 0917

‘quarter’ they called me, and that’s what stuck
for the regulars at the local hee-haw bar
a freshman in college, in a town that cared less
about learning or teeth or your type of car

from boston to arkansas seems like a joke
but it hosted the best degree for my field
nightlife near campus made culture shock jarring
so i sought the side streets for nightlife more real

it was then i saw the fluorescent display
for a club they called ‘butter balls’
as soon as i entered, the ma’s and the pa’s
welcomed me by slinging shit and cat calls

from the south of boston, i finally felt home
in this redneck dark lit crappy booze hole
and so i’d sling back, until the buzz was warm
and wander home to study, or pray to the bowl

every night, they’d laugh and yell “quarter go home!”
and say “piss off” never getting the jokes
at thirty i met an arkansan with older ears
and now this quitter misses those backward folks

~

~MissMerry:

Yonnis

Everyone knows him as “Yonnis”. He rides an old shovel head Harley, wears leathers that are all patched and covered with scuffs and stitched up places. His long thin hair looked as if it never saw a comb. He chain smokes Pall-Mall reds with no filters, and is known to dabble in a few illegal substances for his enjoyment.

I like to ride and my husband used to work in the local Harley dealership shop, so I had met him and got to know him through mutual friends and by riding with him on poker runs and going to some of the same parties. I found he looked a fright, but was pretty nice in fact.

After knowing him for several years, I asked about his unusual name. Was it from Scandinavia or Holland perhaps? The story he told me touched my heart and changed the way I would look at him forever.

He told me that he had once had a nephew, JJ, who loved and idolized his 10 year older uncle. When JJ first started walking, they noticed he seemed a bit slow, but did not at first think anything of it. As time went on it became apparent that something was wrong. He learned to speak baby-talk at age two and a half, but then did not seem to get any better at it. He dubbed his uncle Thomas “Yonnis” and, as a joke, Thomas’ brothers teased and called him that too. And then, though JJ had walked as a toddler, by age three he no longer attempted to get up on two feet.

After many trips to specialists, they found that JJ had a rare type of brain cancer… and it was inoperable. JJ would never walk again, and gradually lost the ability to make sentences. However, he would always light up when Thomas would walk into the room and JJ would always call out “YONNIS!” with happiness just to see him.

JJ lived to the great old age of five. At the end the only words he would say were “Mama” and … Yonnis.
Thomas’ brothers, friends, and family then lovingly called him “Yonnis” from then on in memory of little JJ.

The nickname stuck through high school and on into his adult life, with many (including myself) not even knowing his “real” name at all. All in honor of little JJ who loved him so many years ago.

~

~BarTalk: Bio: Para 3

~~

Writers in Residence

~Whitefeather @Message in a Bottle
Whitefeather is stretching, spreading wings, is online now DJing her own music program twice a week.

Whitefeather’s DJing music stream. Email me your requests, and I will get them on at my next gig! I play Blues, Southern Rock, Rock, Country and everything in between. (cRap and Opera excluded)

On air schedule:
Thursday nights from 9 to 11PM Eastern Time Zone
Saturday nights from 8 to 10PM Eastern Time Zone

Just copy and paste the stream info below, into your radio player inworld under “Tune To URL” then update.

http://cp3.digistream.info:2199/tunein/admin8180.pls

Follow me on facebook at WhiteFeather MacBeth

~ . ~

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Quoted in the Grove:
Marriage is a dinner that begins with dessert.
~Toulouse Lautrec

Marriage – a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose.
~Beverly Nichols

There are many women who are happy to be married, but only a few who are married happily.
~Curt Goetz

~~

Posted from the Grove:
Married and unmarried women. Married and unmarried men. Actuarial tables state that married men live longer than unmarried men. Common knowledge. But what about happiness? As a test of your understanding how marital bliss plays out over the course of a marriage, write down numbers 1 to 4, and catalog from happiest to least happy the four groups listed above. This is just an exercise. The actual rankings are listed at the bottom of this newsletter. Whether you read and weep, or read and rejoice, will depend largely on your gender.

~

Prewritten for Thurs (09/17) @6pm PT/9 ET is: The mood was grim and only the town drunk was dancing…

~~

@Writers Platform

Prewritten: watermelon flunky

~MissMerry:

Watermelon Flunky

“Beyond here there be dragons”… some days it may not be a good idea to think too hard.

I was doing yard maintenance. Simple stuff, trimming, weeding, dead heading the rose bushes- I did not forsee getting into an existential dilemma over pest control.

I had noticed the ant mound last week, made a note to myself to put out the ant poison before it got too big.

Early this morning I cleaned out the refrigerator of a few things that had been in a bit too long. We have frequent visits by coons and possums who usually hit us up for some kitty kibble or table scraps. It is no trouble to us. So, instead of throwing out-of-date food in the trash when it needs to be disposed of, I put it out at the fence for the critters to feast upon.

I was not thinking about the ants when I left the uneaten half watermelon. When I came out later to pick up sticks and work on the yard and noticed the ant trail. Each tiny worker walking east was loaded with bright pink melon flesh. They were cutting it into small blobs and carrying it to the ant hill. Hundreds of tiny workers hauling chunks larger than themselves across a long, hot yard, then struggling to fit it into the hole in the ant hill. Then, they joined the long trail of unburdened ants making their way west going back for another load.

I had to admire their spirit… In less than two hours they broke down a gallon-jug sized half of a melon, transported, and stored it all… in the underground home I planned to destroy.

I felt bad. After watching them for awhile it felt like it would be wrong to reward all that effort with death.

But then… each little ant was just a flunky to the hive. Did ants receive praise for a job well done? Do they have a sense of joy in their accomplishments? Or, are they simple mindless slaves, each day doing the drudgery of backbreaking labor until the day they die and then are swept unceremoniously out onto the debris ring around the outside of the mound.

How different are their little lives from our own? Perhaps I would be doing them each a favor, putting an end to their slavery.

I hear people talk about how rewarding it is to work hard and look forward to retirement, to helping their children and leaving a legacy to their family.

I however, have no children. I am just a drone in the hive of my employer, trying to do well and working hard, but dreading the next efficiency drive where they add more and more weight to each of our loads. We DO get the occasional “pat on the back” and of course the bi-weekly paycheck. But, is it rewarding? Is it worthy of our effort? Does it make a difference? Am I happy?
Am I worthy? Is an ant worthy?

How DARE I consider ending all of these hard working little lives… just because their choice of mound position is INCONVENIENT to me. They are scheduled to be destroyed because they MAY bite me. Even though I know that they will bite me only if they are forced to defend their mound.

I can plan to stay away from it, but will they grow from one mound to a bunch of mounds, taking over my yard? And, I am not always the most graceful of souls. I KNOW me. At some point I WILL step in it and the little bastards will swarm up my legs and bite the hell out of me. Then, I will angrily regret my Janeian impulse to let them live today, declare all out war and LAY WASTE to the entire ant empire (Mwahahaahaa!)

Is this how Hitler felt about the Jews?

I put the ant poison away in the shed unopened. I can’t deal with this now, It hurts my head.

I hope the ants enjoy their watermelon feast. It may be their last. And, I refuse to even consider the mole trails across my grass… That is a headache for another day.

~

~Greymane:

~Greymane:

Melony Offense

He worked at the plant on route 79
‘Til his gluttonous greed shut down the main line
He’d worked 10 years as eggplant engineer
but the harvest came in a bit early that year
Promoted from veggies to boss of the fruit
He developed a palate refined and acute
He’d taste from each batch as it passed through the gates
Discernibly picky he’d delegate crates
Peaches, papayas and all of the rest
but with red juicy melons he soon was obsessed
Seven for breakfast and twenty for lunch
Who knows about dinner but probly a bunch
When he halted production and shut down the floor
Melonious overflow rolled out the door
‘Not enough melons!’ He’d constant complain,
Spinning, delirious, bloated, in pain
He lusted for melon so out of his mind
that they found him half-dead almost buried in rind
Mountains of melons so tasty and sweet
Puddles of evidence under his feet
Red melon handed they caught the poor junky
Demoted with pleasure to watermelon flunky

~

~Piffin: haiku

Piling the produce
A watermelon flunky
Dreaming of D-cups

~

~BarTalk: aisle 9

~~

Impromptu: sceptre, specter

Tymes Two

Spirits whispered lies
Everyone scepter knew
Didn’t spectre two

~

He held his dark scepter caressing her hair
Swearing revenge on them all
She closed his still eyes and she whispered a prayer
Alone in the crumbling hall
She watched as the spectre was carried away
on screams of the horror outside
She slipped out the back and she hoped they would say
At least the old bastard had tried

~

~MissMerry: untitled

Sittin’ on a trash pile of deep depression,
breathing in the fog of “just let me be”.
Gotta get my life in a right direction,
Cause I’m gettin’ damn sick of “just wait and see”.

Queen of my fate – wave my remote control scepter,
Watching cartoons and playing guitar
Credit rating poofed to a smokey grey specter –
I say just screw it and head out to the bar.

Looking for a job when your flag’s in tatters-
You walk the red carpet in your undies and bra.
You try to spar only with someone who matters
and hope that this round is not your last hoorah.

One step at a time
One more problem down
I can’t beat the mountain
so I gotta go around.

~

~Piffin:

The Queen of the Dead

The Queen of the Dead
Was an elegant wraith
I adored her, I confess
Her visage was regal,
Brocade and dark faith,
Scepter hair, which was a mess
One mortal, as I,
Had not ghost of a chance
With that banshee in shimmering blue
Who did not accept
My invitation to dance
But I didn’t really spectre to

~

~BarTalk: Of Royal Blood

~~

Happiness by Gender, In and Out of Marriage.
From happiest to least happy:
1. Married men
2. Unmarried women
3. Unmarried men
4. Married women

~ . ~

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