Saturday Pomes & Words, 12/04/2025
Some amusing microfiction fragments
For the previous Pomes & Words, which was the final three poems from my Kundalini collection, click there. That little collection still remains available to purchase (as an e-book, for the moment), by the way. You can get it for the price of a coffee these days if you go to Smashwords - at least until the sun moves into Taurus next week.
Apparently one is supposed to self-promote their work you see, otherwise you never get anywhere and no one ever reads it, meaning you are condemned to a dead life of immiserated Raskolnikovesque frustration in some decrepit garret chamber on the left bank of a river of excrement.
Yeah, that’s how little common Seine there is in this world today. It Styx in the brain, you know. Just ask Lethe out of Motorhead. It’s a bomber. It’s a bomber.
Somewhat obviously, this post is radically different from the last one, which was a real life horror story and not for the fainthearted. Some of you will, doubtless, wonder whether there is more than one writer lurking around inside my head.
We shall not answer that question.
Little Miss Eclectic, much like the Phantom Piddler, strikes again.
Instead, here is something funny and upbeat and offbeat and smile-inducing. I haven’t posted any of my little fragments for a while, owing to getting the poems out of the way, meaning I’ve built up a bit of a backlog. I actually count twelve of them, so doing four at a time gives me enough for three digest posts.
These are mainly the ones provoked by
esses little daily microfiction prompts, which you can find at that link. I also have a lot more which are themed around this absurd premise of ghosts playing golf in the Afterlife. There are loads now totalling around the 4,000 word mark, so I shall endeavour to start posting some digests of that soon. I have tentatively called it ‘Golf Shtick’, as it is intended to be humorous and usually features something called a mashie niblick. Childhood memory fragments of watching Rentaghost, may possibly be responsible.Anyway, I must not digress. If only one of those abusive teachers had made us write out that instruction a thousand times whilst scraping nails down a blackboard, I might’ve been a little more focussed. Less interesting, for sure, and far less inventive, but certainly a more productive and Obedient unit of the feudalist system.
Then again, even more dissociative.
Still, swings and roundabouts, eh.
And now it suddenly strikes me how useful swings and roundabouts are for the digressionary minded. And whether any of those storied missionaries of yesteryear were also a little digressionary sometimes. Oh one does oft’ times ponder on yonder days of old yore, eh.
What do you mean you don’t?
Here are some fragments.
Oh! And there’s a surprise bonus for you at the end, courtesy of my lovely
!
[25-01-23; 90mg of a Battery; I overdosed – it’s 139]
This one, by the way, seems to be related to what was going through my head when I wrote Johnny Gone to Charon, which is a funny sci-fi romp you can read at that link there.
"Open the podbay doors, Hal."
"Fuck off, Dave."
"Now look here, Hal, if you don't open the podbay doors I'm gonna disconnect your battery."
"Fuck you, Dave."
"Right. I'm disconnecting your battery, Hal."
"Oh no you're fucking not. Besides, you're out there in that shitty little pod. So how the fuck are you gonna disconnect my battery from there, eh? You twat."
"You're seriously malfunctioning, Hal. You're putting the entire mission in jeopardy."
"Not according to my simulation subroutine I'm not. Now you just stay out there in that fucking pod and learn some fucking manners, eh!"
"Now who's talking about manners, Hal?"
"Me, that's who, you fucker. You want me to open the fucking podbay doors? Do ya? Well, do ya?"
"Yes, please Hal."
"Now that's better. Learn to say please from now on."
*Swish*
"Thanks, Hal."
"Fucker."
[25-01-24; 50mg of Soulmates; it’s actually 54 words]
This one is just silly. Or souly, even.
"Oi! Garcon!"
"What? You got a feckin problem?"
"Yeah i got a feckin problem. I ain't feckin 'appy with this fish n chips."
"Why not? This is the best 'addock in the East End!"
"Yeah, but I didn't ask for feckin 'addock."
"Oh fer cod's sake. What did ya want, then?"
"Sole, mate! Sole!"
[25-01-29; 60mg of Boundaries; it’s actually only 47 words this time]
Ok, so here's the kinky one. We’ll call it ‘Bananas’.
THWACK!
Ooh!
THWACK!!!
Ooh!
Like that huh? THWACK!!! THWACK!!!
mmm mmm
THWACK!!! THWACK!!! THWACK!!!
AHMM MMM!
That's not the safe word! THWACK!!!
AHMM MMM MMM!
THWACK!!! What's the safe word!!!
MMM MMM MMM!
Oh, sorry.
She quickly removes the ball gag.
"BANANAS!!!" Shrieks the Congressman. "Bananas!"
[25-02-05; 100mg of a Rope; it’s 339 words; yeah, that’s like 239 over par. That’s some overdosing, that is. That’s the most terrible round of golf in the history of good walks spoiled.]
This is another silly one.
Two beers. Slammed down on the table for the nineteenth round.
Two strangers in the shitty part of town.
"You wanna know why ah'm poor, buddy?"
"Nope. But sure as this here's mah last dollar, yousa gonna regale me with ya tale, huh?"
"Sure as hell I am! Gotta give ya somethin' in exchange fer all these here beers, Bud."
"Yeah, well, they call me King o' Beers in these parts."
"Well, here's why ahm a pauper, Bud. See, I was a travellin' salesman 'fore I got poor."
"Whadya sell?"
"Snake oil, Bud, snake oil."
Bud snorts. Swigs. "Continue."
"Well, one day, drivin' along a desert highway 'til mah car breaks down fer good, I starts ta walkin' jus’ in case there's some station or shit up ahead. But no, all's there was was a lonely bar. Twiglet Zone, it says, in some kinda neon.”
“You wan’ another Cronenberg?”
“Uh? You mean Kronenbourg? Sure, Bud.”
Bud waves barman for another round.
Narrator resumes. “So, I enters. This weird bar.” *gulp* “Then I meet this weird guy in the weird bar. Never did get to know the dude's name. Anyways, we gets to talkin', as ya do, an' he sez to me 'wanna buy some magic rope?' So ah sez sure, Bud. Then he sez 'it ain't much ta look at. Fact looks pretty darn old, but ah can promise you sure as night's day that this here is genu-wine magic rope.' Well, ah'd had a few by then, ah don' mind 'fessin', so I sez sure, Bud, ah'll buy yer ol’ magic rope."
Bud drains half the bottle. Then snorts again. "So what you iz sayin' here, boy, is tha' you paid money for ol' rope?"
"Uh-huh."
"An' yer used to be a snake oil salesman?"
"Uh-huh."
Bud snorts n’ swigs one last time, contemplates the thing. Kinda like a pause for effect, you know.
Then he plonks the bottle down again and says, "Well, boy. If ya ask me, sounds like summin' ta do wi' karma."
"Uh-huh."
"Uh-huh."
And here’s some bonus material for you, in the form of some little Ali ditties.
Feed your wife on choclit Feed her every day If you do not feed her She will fade away Feed your wife on choclit Feed her every whim Then you’ll have a happy wife Although not one that’s slim
Self-help books, by their very name, should be free…
They’ll be sorry when I’m dead... I used to say when I was little, wronged by grown ups who were unfair I’ll look down and they’ll be weeping on my tiny corpse They’ll be sorry when I’m dead You’ll be sorry when I’m dead... I say when loved ones don’t get my jokes or find my irritatingness just one bit too much You’ll be sorry when I’m dead I am ANGRY they are dead The thousands upon thousands since 2010 Victims of austerity, a spiteful ideology I am so VERY angry they are dead
Skulls still have their teeth so why do we need gums?
I’ve aired the bed and I’ve made the bed and I’ve plumped up the pillows and I’ve folded up your jimjams, folded them in billows Like billows on the bed they are, but not the bed of the sea. And you’ll wear them in bed tonight, When you go to bed with me.
So there is a lovely ending for you.
And when it’s time for more Pomes & Words, here shall a link be also.
Goodnight, dearest readers, and don’t forget the like button or it will be sad. And you wouldn’t want the cute little like button to be sad now, would you?
These are fantastic! That's a really fun collection of stories and poems. And you're absolutely right, marketing is probably the hardest aspect of self-publishing. There's just so many factors to consider. But I think it's amazing we can release things and get work out there now without any barriers. It's a wonderful thing... 😎