Dale Tudge? Humor!
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daletudgehumor.bsky.social
Dale Tudge? Humor!
@daletudgehumor.bsky.social
750 followers 620 following 3K posts
Humourist and storyteller, but not necessarily both at the same time, or either at any time. Retired ghostwriter, consultant.

I've lent my pen to the likes of Steve Martin, National Lampoon, Ripley's Believe It or Not!

https://daletudge.substack.com/
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daletudgehumor.bsky.social
I offer a perceptible nod to the Brothers Grimm, whose mirror, in the original Kinder- und Hausmärchen, was at least afforded the dignity of proper wall hanging.

The #shadow and the mirror's grievances are, to nobody’s particular delight, my own invention.

#vss365 #shadow #writing #story
An Umbra Takes Umbrage (Grimm's Fairy Tales Edition) An Umbra Takes Umbrage (Grimm's Fairy Tales Edition) An Umbra Takes Umbrage (Grimm's Fairy Tales Edition) by Dale Tudge The #shadow looked into the full-length mirror, admiring its own figure. "Mirror, mirror, leaning against the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" The mirror, still unhappy about the lack of proper wall mounting, threw shade on the shadow. "All I see is an absence of humility and light."
February 1, 2026 at 4:45 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
No unguents for this savage beast.
The #soothing is but very brief.

#vss365 #writing #poem #poetry #prose #verse
Brief Reflections Following Another Evening of Principle @daletudgehumorBy Dale Tudge Dealing with moral unrest—more or less— and not merely most introspective distress, we sought to soothe, to placate, to soften the sharpness, to lull, to temper our moral excess. Aloud. At length. Amid peers, acquaintances, and incidental guests. We wish we could stay—to arrest— this iniquitous decline, but where inclination meets the inclined, declining is itself decline. This evening, once again— at the customary place and hour prescribed— in indiscriminate company, with familiar friends, provender, and vine, we shall undertake once more to put all this principled business to bed, to rest— as ever—another last final time.
January 31, 2026 at 5:56 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
Max's Zuleika Dobson showed me that romantic tragedy can also be social economics. Once that veil lifts, the mechanism is everywhere. I hold no interest in profiting from the dead. They constitute a demographic less likely to appreciate my work.

#poemsabout #paintedveils #poetry #poem #writing
daletudgehumor.bsky.social Dale Tudge? Humor! @daletudgehumor.bsky.social · 1d
Truth wears no veil, but truthfully, everyone loves an unveiling. Grief, however, insists on coverage. Death has a dress code, and some fabrics prefer the dark. Etiquette asks nothing further, except for the name of a good tailor.

#poem #poemsabout #prose #BlackVeils #writing #poetry
Of Errors, Empresses, and Enterprise @daletudgehumorBy Dale Tudge The thinly painted veils were left in the sun to dry, where they faded—irrevocably—to black. The veil-painter wept at his ruined work, but his tears were premature. Word travels. Windsor held a widow whose grief had transformed an empire’s wardrobe. Black, it transpired, was precisely what mourning required. Fortune favours the bereaved.
January 31, 2026 at 1:53 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
Truth wears no veil, but truthfully, everyone loves an unveiling. Grief, however, insists on coverage. Death has a dress code, and some fabrics prefer the dark. Etiquette asks nothing further, except for the name of a good tailor.

#poem #poemsabout #prose #BlackVeils #writing #poetry
Of Errors, Empresses, and Enterprise @daletudgehumorBy Dale Tudge The thinly painted veils were left in the sun to dry, where they faded—irrevocably—to black. The veil-painter wept at his ruined work, but his tears were premature. Word travels. Windsor held a widow whose grief had transformed an empire’s wardrobe. Black, it transpired, was precisely what mourning required. Fortune favours the bereaved.
January 31, 2026 at 1:06 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
It bears mentioning that William Somerset Maugham wasn't from Somerset. Raised in Kent, certainly, and Paris-born aussi—so neither Man of Kent nor Kentish man. I defer to The River Medway for these distinctions.

I'm not one to #obfuscate, except when I did—previous #prose notwithstanding.

#vss365
daletudgehumor.bsky.social Dale Tudge? Humor! @daletudgehumor.bsky.social · 2d
I deliberately #obfuscated the author in my previous post—out of spite. But now that I'm out of spite, I'll share that it was W. Somerset Maugham, a clever chap who wrote clever plays and cleverer books. His wit was a cleaver—sharp words that could cut deep. And even deeper for some.

#vss365
daletudgehumor.bsky.social Dale Tudge? Humor! @daletudgehumor.bsky.social · 3d
I didn't #loathe Cakes and Ale—the #book, not my lunch. It read like Tatler #writing #satire, a roman à clef where the #author takes the mickey out of Thomas Hardy. Neither was I amused. Lionel Johnson—who wrote the book on Hardy, but not this book on Hardy—were he alive—less amused.
#prose #emoetry
January 30, 2026 at 4:27 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
I deliberately #obfuscated the author in my previous post—out of spite. But now that I'm out of spite, I'll share that it was W. Somerset Maugham, a clever chap who wrote clever plays and cleverer books. His wit was a cleaver—sharp words that could cut deep. And even deeper for some.

#vss365
daletudgehumor.bsky.social Dale Tudge? Humor! @daletudgehumor.bsky.social · 3d
I didn't #loathe Cakes and Ale—the #book, not my lunch. It read like Tatler #writing #satire, a roman à clef where the #author takes the mickey out of Thomas Hardy. Neither was I amused. Lionel Johnson—who wrote the book on Hardy, but not this book on Hardy—were he alive—less amused.
#prose #emoetry
January 30, 2026 at 1:26 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
“Oh, Pooh!” Milne exclaimed.
The author, a bit bothered.
Then a horse whinnied.

#HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #HaikuChallenge #Poetry #MicroPoetry #PoetryCom
munity #writing #poem #reading #verse #prose #inkmine #emoetry
January 30, 2026 at 12:50 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
I didn't #loathe Cakes and Ale—the #book, not my lunch. It read like Tatler #writing #satire, a roman à clef where the #author takes the mickey out of Thomas Hardy. Neither was I amused. Lionel Johnson—who wrote the book on Hardy, but not this book on Hardy—were he alive—less amused.
#prose #emoetry
January 29, 2026 at 3:00 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
The fugitive #Illicit Lee,
brought to justice—finally.
He ran the Above-Board Boarding School
where principals enforce the rules—
until they lose interest
and become unprincipled.

#Poetry #MicroPoetry #PoetryCommunity #poet #writing #poem #inkmine #emoetry #prose #verse
January 28, 2026 at 8:54 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
The #soups I have seen
within bowls those slops have #bean
'tween courses broth forth.

#HaikuFeels #clip #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #HaikuChallenge #Poetry #MicroPoetry #PoetryCommunity #writing #poem #reading #verse #prose #inkmine #emoetry
January 28, 2026 at 8:41 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
I hired a #pack mule
to assist with the packing.
She was such a dear.

#HaikuFeels #clip #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #HaikuChallenge #Poetry #MicroPoetry #PoetryCommunity #writing #poem #reading #verse #prose #inkmine #emoetry
January 28, 2026 at 8:14 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
I was reduced to my last pot of ink with few quills left in my #quiver. I was tottering under rules and forms. Duly, I bought more quills and more ink. I trialed new forms and contrived new rules. If the work was to be rejected, it would be my work. My style. And it was. And then it wasn't.

#vss365
January 28, 2026 at 4:56 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
The accountant's figures weren't adding up—so he #massaged the numbers.

Then the bookkeeper's notes made no sense—so he massaged the letters.

The banker still wasn't satisfied. So he massaged the banker.

#vssdaily #vss
January 28, 2026 at 3:23 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
Coleridge never let a moon #wane without remarking on its waning. He adored the waning—that is, the declining, the fading, the sickly, the pale. The diminishing. The ebbing. The not-quite-there. He catalogued every shade of almost-gone—and then he ran out of laudanum.

#vss365 #poetry #poem #poet
January 28, 2026 at 12:32 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
Clipped were their tickets,
for this titanic voyage—
perforce, a sunk cost.

#HaikuFeels #clip #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #HaikuChallenge #Poetry #MicroPoetry #PoetryCommunity #writing #poem #reading #verse #prose #inkmine #emoetry
January 27, 2026 at 8:25 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
Unclipped fingernails—
like heels on indiff'rent stone,
inapt for keyboards.

#HaikuFeels #clip #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #HaikuChallenge #Poetry #MicroPoetry #PoetryCommunity #writing #poem #reading #verse #prose #inkmine #emoetry
annemorrigan.bsky.social anne @annemorrigan.bsky.social · 5d
sup feelsfam
today's #haikufeels #prompt is

clip
January 27, 2026 at 8:07 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
Wiser heads—in most centuries—recognized that fear and grief required tending, not dismissal. You didn't lecture the frightened into courage. You can't convince the invincible, you'll never sway the unsusceptible, you won't wake the unwilling—baguettes and big tents don't #undo suffering.

#prose
daletudgehumor.bsky.social Dale Tudge? Humor! @daletudgehumor.bsky.social · 5d
The pub had thin walls. You heard the newsboys outside calling headlines about Mafeking, about the Boer camps, about things friends discussed with fury and things they discussed with silence. The silence was instructive. Some horrors required the pub to go silent before anyone could speak.

#vss
January 27, 2026 at 2:02 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
The pub had thin walls. You heard the newsboys outside calling headlines about Mafeking, about the Boer camps, about things friends discussed with fury and things they discussed with silence. The silence was instructive. Some horrors required the pub to go silent before anyone could speak.

#vss
January 27, 2026 at 1:42 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
The hearth liked steamed milk,
but the barbecue preferred
#charcoal lit ice cream.

#HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #HaikuChallenge #Poetry #MicroPoetry #PoetryCommunity #writing #poem #reading #verse #prose #inkmine #emoetry
January 27, 2026 at 1:27 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
Zane hacked his own chip.
"NOBODY will control Zee!"
All that’s done, #undone.

#HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #HaikuChallenge #Poetry #MicroPoetry #PoetryCommunity #writing #poem #reading #verse #prose #inkmine #emoetry #scifi
January 27, 2026 at 12:58 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
At the Threshold Preserve, I was sitting on a #cusp. A man in tweed appeared, with a clipboard—also tweed.

"Sir, that was a heritage cusp. My family tended it for three generations." He stared at the flattened spot. "Nana was very close to that cusp."

I left during the man's cuspy lament.

#vss365
January 26, 2026 at 8:47 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
At the edge of the verge
of the brink—
beside the threshold,
proximate to the precipice
closest to the #cusp—

there lies something.

Beyond that?
Who knows.

My fingers couldn’t keep up
with my edgy, erstwhile thought.

#vss365 #poem #poetry #prose #writing
January 26, 2026 at 4:16 PM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
A #ruse knows its own length. To argue it too long or too short is to know nothing of length, and less of ruses. To argue at all is to confess one has never used a ruse—regardless of its proportions.

#vss365 #prose #writing #poem
moritherapy.bsky.social isabella mori @moritherapy.bsky.social · 6d
I've used the word "ruse" exclusively in my novels. Not a single poem, short story, essay, or unfinished project (and there are many, of all of them). What does that mean? Am I only comfortable with long ruses? What's the difference between and long and a short ruse? Please advise.

#vss365
January 26, 2026 at 4:15 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
The cruelest #ruse is kind
The gentlest #prank is brutal

One is silk
The other
sandpaper

One warmly challenges your wit
to a duel it might win

The other rubs you—

less warmly, and let's agree—
entirely the wrong way,

challenging your dignity
to a duel—

uninvited
and unannounced

#vss365 #poem
January 26, 2026 at 2:47 AM
daletudgehumor.bsky.social
You shall rue the day, sir. Rue the day. Your day shall be rued so hard you won't know what hit you. It will be a rue that hits you, sir, or several rues if they organize, as rues are wont to do. And then, sir, when that day comes, rue it also you shall, even if it takes you all week.

#vss365 #ruse
January 25, 2026 at 6:32 AM