March 13, 2016

• Bending the Rules

  It's the home stretch for the Winter Scavenger Hunt and I've been working on a single piece that incorporates all the remaining prompts. The prompts are weird, so the piece is weird. I call it a "piece" because I'm not sure exactly what it is; a poem... a story... a nightmare... I'm still writing it, but it's getting too long, so I'm going to bend the non-existent rules again and post it in segments, with a list of prompts and those I've used crossed off.

  I feel I should warn you that this was written under the influence of last night's time change, a bout of insomnia, a rainy Sunday afternoon, and Lewis Carroll and Hey Diddle Diddle running through my head. It's probably not going to end well.

   

  “Liberty consists of doing anything

  Which does not harm others,” he says.

  So he puts a tutu on his wiener dog,

  Blue eyeshadow on his terrified rabbit,

  And teaches them to dance in tandem

  To Flight of the Bumblebee,

  Played by a mystified folk musician.

  “This,” he proclaims, “represents

  Love in all its forms,”

  Forgetting that pets are 'others,' too.

  Perhaps he should consider a hedgehog;

  A hedgehog can fit into almost any lifestyle,

  Except, perhaps, for those who suffer

  Hedgehog specific zoophobia.

  Prompts used in this post are lined out:

  41. contains a line from a historical document

  “Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others” (translated from French)

  Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen 1789

  43. bergamot, denim, elevated, keening, millipede, going Dutch

  44. contains line from the label on  a house-hold product

  46. Flight of the Bumble Bee, blue eye shadow, garage door, wiener dog

  47. ganache, cancellation, magnifying lens, unmentionable sex toy, birds

  49. contains a line from a utility bill.

  50. tadpoles, anniversary, pinprick, bbq sauce, teleportation, genealogy

  51. blood oranges

  52. contains a line from a short story written in 1957.

  53. treasure map, turkey vultures, dodge pickup, mosaic, port-a-potty

  55. Northern lights, prehensile, love in all its forms, dish soap

  56. chain saw, archipelago, tandem, rabbit, emerald

  57. phobias

  58. an ornithologist, bad jokes, erector set, cormorant, Elvis

  59. folk musician, cabbage, elk, fortified, mystified, terrified.

  60. Emu, lunatic, drone, missing, Hank Williams, music box

  61. fur trader, damsel fly, okra, true love’s kiss, organ donation

  62. Contains a line from a pet care manual.

  “A hedgehog can fit into almost any lifestyle.”

  Hedgehogs: The Essential Guide to Ownership and Care for Your Pet

                                Kate H. Pellham

  63. secretion, ambulance, dahlia, gale, Job, tassles

  64. hula dancer, subway, harpoon, faith, Moscato

  65. botany

  66. beautician, spaceship, hot dogs, Fig Newtons, The Grateful Dead

  67. pirates, foil, needle, turpentine, wigs, garden gnome

  68. contains a line from a movie starring Anthony Hopkins.

  69. alchemy

  70. orchard, denial, ember, last call, insomnia, pigeons.

  • 6:18 pm
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