10 or Less: Untitled -- by DocShoot

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10 or Less: Silly PM -- by Ebren

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10 or Less: Rodin and Me -- by Guitougoal

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10 or Less: Supercat -- by Mouth of the Mersey

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10 or Less: Serious -- by Paddleman

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10 or Less: Slam -- by Mimitig

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Short and Not Necessarily Sweet

OtherStuffers have proved, with the i-kus and the 50 word stories, that brevity is most certainly the soul of their wit.

That fine writer and friend of OtherStuff, Marcela Mora y Araujo, has pointed out that there have been a few competitions, on blogs and in artsy journals, to write 6-word stories or memoirs. People seem to have enjoyed these, and there's even a book of them, called "Not Quite As I Had Planned".

So here's a new challenge.

I thought perhaps our regular poets and thinkers would like a bit more freedom and/or a few more words, so you have:
10 WORDS OR LESS in which to write A BIOGRAPHY OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

As usual, embellishments and decorations are welcome but not essential. Please don't send decorated versions in Word, though, the Word decorations disappear when I put it onto Blogger - better to send a pdf.

Enjoy!

Z

10 or Less: Career -- by Zephirine

Here's one to start off with:




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Knocking on the Hull -- by File

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Father here I am,
            the woken. Stolen
By nocturnal tides, the taken from
The undertow of your troubled soul,
Your drinking, drowning
Me, I had to go

Father here I am,
            the frozen child
The freezing man forsaken. Lost
Sailor incarcerated, son nailed on
A sunken cross; the Kursk and
Memories of you
And home

Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be this abysmal nave
On earth as inertia and insistence in oceans
Don’t leave us with our sins as we left those who sinned against us
Which led us into conscription and delivered us not from war games
Give us this day viaticum
For their state is their kingdom,
And their power is their glory,
For ever and ever

Father here I am,
            echolocation, the spoken,
The waves, vibrations,
These verses. The hull between us
Is iconostasis; leaking,
Rusty,
Broken.

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Life Sentences -- by File

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‘slike you was on the box Ken, I’d already run but
Looking back in from the outside,
One lit window framed by the night
You there, your heavy hands in the air, your charmlessness
And your sweaty armpits, police everywhere

I left the country and Yes I took the cash
Went somewhere warm and somewhere warmer
Got heat rash, passports, a dicky belly and sunglasses
Missed the Arsenal at home, Heinz soup and Daddies sauce
And not much else, straight up; I was glad you took the rap

At first, but it went on and on, we’d been a team
I was a man with a phantom limb, haunting him
Couldn’t meet a steady gaze, wore a cap to hide my face
Handcuffed to myself, I was chafed by regret, loneliness
Is like tinnitus innit? It grates

You a big man in a tiny cell, me I got smaller in the vastness of the world,
Even so there’s been girls mate, I’ve been lucky with them
Snap happy tourists bussed in no end, cash to spend
Leaving, in the morning like winter was coming,
Litter, emptied jetties and bars and lipstuck graffiti scars

“Wherever you go, there you are” said one
There was me wondering when, how and if I’d be released
And her words caught me like a disease, I realized
I’d never been anywhere; only ever just Not There
There’s no hiding inside as you know Ken

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