Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Do You Want to Be a Zombie

This 50-Word story came to me as a clear vision. It makes me smile.

Do You Want To Be a Zombie?

"You have to ask yourself - Do you want to be a zombie? Well, do you?" Clint asked. "Well, no!" I say. "Then look at the beauty right here in front of you. Right now! Let this dark green, frosty- white, goose poop lying on the brilliant green grass awaken you."

I have been suggesting you write these hummers for awhile. I still recommend it to keep your story telling muscles limber.


But Now a New Challenge --

Twitter.com invites short twitters. You get 140 characters to express yourself including punctuation and spaces. To my eye, this means you get to write needle sharp poems. I find this a challenge.

Here's one I did on January 1st, 2009, my 39th wedding anniversary.


What did J P Getty say
he'd trade all his wealth for?
Wondrous Miracle
I have it.
In love and married to
the endlessly amazing Suzanne.

Note: By MS Word's count this is 132 characters. By Twitter's it's 138. I don't know how they count. But when you go to twitter, they will give you a running total of the characters you have left. Carriage returns are not preserved. You can use the "/" convention to indicate line breaks when writing poetry without the breaks. (See below.)


God Shouts

At this time of the year I look at my finances for the previous year and assess where I am.
"Yikes." I say.

"COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!" the still small voice of my soul bellowed.

"But... but... but... YIKES."

Again the still small voice bellowed, "COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!"

"OK," I say.

Hence the John Paul Getty reference. At the time he said -- I would gladly trade all my wealth for one marriage that worked -- he was the wealthiest man on Earth, and had a series of failed marriages.

One more 140 character twitter -

Dawn on my 39th Anniversary
Hummingbirds darting and
squeaking through soft mist.
Then the otter. Propitious omens!

With the "/" convention this becomes

Dawn on my 39th Anniversary/Hummingbirds darting and/squeaking through soft mist. /Then the otter. Propitious omens!

Go ahead and take the challenge. Twitter 140 characters.

Follow me at http://www.twitter.com/WilliamWittmann/

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