Love – This Jolly Beggar

The Only Way

Word Count: 100; Genre: Realism

The Only Way

“You’re in my world now. What do you think of it?”
“Like a fish out of water. Like I stand out in an unpleasant way, like I don’t belong.”
“Does that offend you? Want out?”
“Not really. I mean, it’s not your world I want. It’s you.”
“To know me is to know the world I came from. You understand?”
“I do. But you’re still missing the point. It’s you that makes my idiotic world and yours worth knowing. I couldn’t care less otherwise.”
“So our ‘love covers a multitude of sins’, in both our worlds?”
“It’s the only way.”

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields very kindly invites us to join the Friday Fictioneers in their weekly creative quests of a hundred words or less prompted by a photo.

Click on the frog to join the party!

Curtain Fall

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields invites us weekly to join the Friday Fictioneers in their creative quests of a hundred words or less, prompted by a photo. Click on the frog to join in!

Curtain Fall

He was a wandering musician, traversing continents, twanging on his banjo, a wordless witness to a universal language.

No one knew his origins.

Still the story is told that he came from another world. And one came seeking him whose betrayal had left him mute. Powerless to make him return, she took with her the memory of his youthful fingers dancing on strings, his eyes expressive of no other purpose than seeking nameless tunes of faithless love.

Raindrops fall like tears on tree-trunk curtains, ethereal remnants of her departure from this world.

In a midnight café, a tuneful banjo plays.

The Old Man and the Sea

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields invites us weekly to join the Friday Fictioneers in their creative quests of a hundred words or less, prompted by a photo. Click on the frog to join in!

The Old Man and the Sea

“Bleu, bleu, l’amour est bleu,” crooned the old man beneath his cap
Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a lad of nineteen
He stood before the sea, and his heart surged piteously
Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a man of thirty-two
“Comme l’eau, comme l’eau qui court,” sang he, wading into surf
Remembering the promise he had failed to keep as a cavalier of fifty-four
His blood ran cold as a sea-voice joined in
“Fou comme toi et fou comme moi,”
then down he went
in a sea-embrace
till he sang
no
more.

Continue reading “The Old Man and the Sea”

Love’s Ballad

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields invites us weekly to join the Friday Fictioneers in their creative quests of a hundred words or less, prompted by a photo. Click on the frog to join in!

Love’s Ballad

Roses he gave her, she took them in her hand
The petals silk warm, still harboring his touch
She knew not where to look, his face was a beacon
A desire of yearning, too bright to stare upon,
So she stared at the roses, their rosy tinge her own.

The years they raced by full of home, hearth, and heaven
Their love knew no bounds and their eyes saw no other
Until the day came when a lone grave boasted roses
One standing alone to see light like a beacon, eclipsed,
And roses ice crusted by death’s wintry dew.

Rebirth

For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. — Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”

There ought not to be anything but that my mind has ordered it so —

So I had been taught — for the mind is designer

Reality but the by-blow, bastard child that diminishes as I diminish

But that the Emperor of Ice-Cream has clay feet

Which stand on eternity’s threshold eyeing a feast.

There the bread and wine of Thy design

Grain and grape sweetly lies upon the tongue

To “taste and see the goodness of the LORD”

Yet nothing tasting if not sanctified by Thy Word

Blood spilled and body broken

Spoken gospel of love heard by a few

Who once nothing being are born in You

Till nothing become sons and daughters

Alive to You.

Laura at dVerse asks us to address paradox as a matter for today’s “Poetics” prompt, including using as a starting point and/or epigraph the above Wallace Stevens quotation. Click on Mr. Linky for more and join in!

Sanctuary Portal

Kim at dVerse has this weeks “Prosery” challenge of a 144 word-story using a certain line from Yeats’ “The Song of Wandering Aengus” (in italics below). I won’t claim to having done it or the wonderful Whelan painting here justice, but what fun trying! Thanks, Kim. ❤ Check out Mr. Linky for more “proseries.”

Michael Whelan, “Sanctuary” (oil on canvas, 2019)

SANCTUARY PORTAL

“A red-ribboned heart he had given me to wear,” the dying woman breathed. “But I went out to the hazel wood, because a fire was in my head.”

The priest nodded wisely. The nun did so likewise.

Outside a young girl stopped to hear all that was said.

“Now I’m unsettled. I miss him so. I lost one world to gain another, both now fading fast.”

A voice came from the portal, a voice that sounded far off. “It’s not too late, my darling. I’ve been waiting this aeon’s passing. There’s more that lies ahead.”

She sat up, her heart failing. She threw open her arms while passing across the threshold’s steps.

The last they saw was a sunlit orb floating into the light.

The priest nodded wisely. The nun did so likewise.

The girl outside the window felt a fire inside her head.

A Rose to You

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

Fallen

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields invites us weekly to join the Friday Fictioneers in their creative quests of a hundred words or less, prompted by a photo; likewise, dVerse’s Sarah prompts us towards “Poetics,” the watchword this time being fungi.

Fallen

No longer there the Edenic tree
though long I linger near its breathing traces
like a dreamer awakening after a song-vision,
aware only of her pounding heart
as witness to the night’s transactions
when what once was a maiden day eternal
or a thousand years, where golden bridges lighted woods
aflame with love so deep betrayal seemed impossible
until a serpent came with clever tongue
sowing seeds of deception,
sly in its jealous conceptions,
and I, plunging into deadly deceits,
unstrung the heart-cords that made us whole,
left instead with the decaying remnants,
and vernal roots now dotted with fungus.

Reverie

*Seated Woman*, 1915 by Rik Wouters (1882-1916)

Time rebounds in dabs of paint
Watery sun soaks through space
Sensations blur
Colors seep
Diminishing lines
Reflections slur
Your hands, your face
Gaze untendered
Unbristled, still
A warm attention
Encompassing all
Formidable will
Probing memory
Dark sublime
Time rebounds in dabs of paint.

Written for D'verse, WhimsyGizmo's Quadrille (44 words)
Click on Mr. Linky & join in!

Our Life, His Work: A Parable

When I first saw, “Servant,” the #JusJoJan prompt for today, the first thought that popped into my head was, “Christ Jesus,” and then the words of Phiippians 2:5-11*(see below). My quandary? M’s prompt word: “Twin-engine turbines.” But it proved to be a blessing in disguise as it gave me the shape of the story: a parable. Serendipity!

Our Life, His Work: A Parable

–What are you making, child? the Servant asked.
Everywhere metal sheets and rotor blades lay in a tangle of wires.
–See this twin-engine turbine? The boy held up a photo. My 3-D printer makes it simple.
–Simple, eh?
The boy looked around before answering.
-Well, it’ll just take a few days, maybe weeks …. maybe months …. His voice trailed away. It looked simpler when I got started. But somewhere along the way, I lost track of what I was meant to do.
He took in the tangled mess around him and finally the shiny aircraft in his photograph. His face fell.
–Well, now, said the Servant, it will be a grand thing when it’s done. Maybe you could use a little help. Mine, for example.
The boy looked up, his face suddenly alight with hope and renewed confidence.
–Really? Will you help? Please.
The Servant looked down at the expectant face, his own lit with Love.
–It’s why I came, child.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2: 5-11(ESV)


Michelle's January 3, 2021 Writing Prompt: "Twin-engine turbines"
Linda's Just Jot It for January 3rd, "Servant"