Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Friday afternoon’s the dead zone
they warned in solemn tones.
Said I, Couldn’t care less,
loathe to confess
I did.
Experimentally
one Friday I gingerly
hit PUBLISH on WordPress —
The silence?
Momentous.
I wonder, has anyone noticed these “dead zones” or is it just me? When is your most popular time when you get the most traffic? WordPress tells me it’s Thursday morning.
a rose to you and you and you
dear readers that stumbled onto this page
and familiar friends who’ve long remained
through drought or storm as balmy days
faithful ones who exchange the fruits
gleaned from weedy words and pruned vines
some tangy to the taste or sweetly spiced
all enlivened with the sunlit labor of moments
transcribed to screens of dispersed bytes
to be received like petals furled and unfurled
as if a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
when given in love
For Cee's FOTD, February 14, 2021; Michelle's February Writing Prompts, "Balmy Days"; Joseph's 2021 Home Photo Challenge; also posted on PilgrimDreams.com
“You’re looking at the wrong camera.”
“No, you are, May. I’m looking at camera B.”
“Camera A’s on first. Get a grip, Mitchell!”
“Camera B, May. Why are you wearing brown? I told you I was wearing brown today.”
“This? It’s more maroon than brown! Do I have to get you a color wheel? And go easy on the makeup. Good grief! Is that blush, Mitchell?”
“So? What’s wrong with a little color?”
“Just feels like you’re auditioning for the Moulin Rouge, that’s all.”
The producer sighed. “More like the Punch and Judy show,” he mumbled in the control booth.
100 words; Fiction For Rochelle Wisooff-Fields' Friday Fictioneers Click on the frog and join in!
“Tweet me not weary in this whirligig of time.” She stabbed the Styrofoam cup with the stick end of a small American flag. “I’m homeless by design unmet by need. You need not apply.”
The politician’s flunkie grimaced. “Ma’am, we’ve been told to clear the area.”
“Nobody’s here. Starbucks brothers in the Amazon, sister’s Facebooking. Red Zone, Blue Zone, Ozone. Google it.”
“They’re armed,” he warned.
“Say, Moby Dick’s back from the dead. ‘Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy.’ Tell them Ambergris is worth a fortune.”
“Ma’am?”
“Eyes and pearls. My home’s on my back. Your bones are too light. ‘From hell’s heart, I stab . . . .’”
A shot rang out. The bag lady crumpled, fell.
“’Ye damned whale’,” said the flunkie, winking at the FBI agent. “’I don’t give reasons. I give orders!’”
Written for dVerse's Prosery: Bone Weary -- 144 words utilizing the line: "Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy." All other quotes are from Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember
Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden wrote “September 1, 1939” at the outbreak of World War II in Europe. It’s a poem that’s often quoted during times of crises such as ours, and only seems to highlight the recurring cycles of political dissimulation and media exacerbated fury that escalates into tragedy. While battling a virus, we’ve “cancelled” each other and branded each other racists and bigots. We’ve listened to politicians and oligopolies wildly denounce opponents of their agendas as terrorists. We’ve been witness to unchecked brutality this past year as our cities burned with mob violence during which thirty people were murdered, and neighborhoods and livelihoods went up in smoke while governors and mayors watched.
Auden began the poem with these words:
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
In the penultimate stanza he cautions: “We must love one another or die.” The same holds true today.
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.Defenceless under the night
excerpt from W. H. Auden’s September 1, 1939
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
Read the complete poem at poets.org. And hear the poet Dylan Thomas read it below.
This is not a mirror
Ground silica back-silvered
A labyrinth to unravel your soul
But splintered fragmentation
Of all your expectations
A story to re-glue and emboss.
This is not a mirror
Portal to another world
Left-handed universe
Turnabouts of phantoms
A touch on your shoulder
That welt on your cheek.
This is not a mirror
It is an owl’s feather
A rat’s tail, a torn page
Blood of jilted lover
The sigh of an empress
Dethroned by endless war.
This is not a mirror, a mirror, a mirror.
For Dverse, Mish's Poetics: Object Poems "This is not ..."
Click on Mr. Linky and join in!
Written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll Click on the frog and join in the fun!
Genre: horror; word count: 100
Discovery
“Did you bring the mirror?” Eli asked.
Lena rummaged through her backpack behind him. “Do we have to do this?”
Eli snorted impatiently at his best friend. “Don’t you want to know why kids from this school have gone missing? Mr. Drobkoni’s gotta be a vampire. I’ll stay here. You keep a lookout. Whistle when you see him coming.”
“Right-oh,” Lena said. “Here.”
Eli held the mirror so he could see over his shoulder.
Lena had already left.
She’s fast, he thought.
“What’s that?” asked Lena behind him.
He turned around quickly. “The dead travel fast,” he said, suddenly pale.
“Am I loved?” she asked wonderingly,
throwing back hair, sultry under silken shawl
scrutinizing her groomed shimmering form.
He walked glancingly past a mirror
then stopped to take a more admiring look.
“Darling?” Reluctantly she turned from
her reflection against the dark sky;
he tore himself from his dashing figure.
“How asinine, dear heart,” he ejaculated.
“To love oneself is most divine!”
Embracing by mirror and window
they stood, idols with eyes of glass.
Jude's The Saturday Symphony #14: "Romance" Sammi's Weekend Writing Prompt: use "Asinine" in prose or poem with exactly 74 words Cyranny's Word of the Day Challenge: "sultry"
Many, perhaps, from so simple a flower,
This little lesson may borrow,
Patient today, through its gloomiest hour,
We come out the brighter tomorrow.
H. F. Gould
For Cee's FOTD Challenge
“You can’t be serious, Maude!”
“And just why can’t I, Fred? Twenty baby showers I’ve been to this August and I’m fed up!”
“But it’s your own niece’s, Maude!”
“Fred, we’ve spent a fortune on her already! Graduation from art school, and did you see the garbage that passed for modern art?! Then her birthday, bridal shower, now . . . .”
“Okay, okay! But a baby chair somebody threw out with the garbage, that’s going too far!”
(pause) “Is it garbage though? Or an art exhibit? Fred! Take a picture! Let’s take it all! Just the way it is!”
word count: 100 written for Rochelle's Friday Fictioneers click on Rochelle Wisoff-Fields's hand-drawing of the frog for more tales of a hundred words or less. And join the fun!
This Jolly Beggar 