Friday Fictioneers 7/24/2020

Many thanks to Rochelle @ Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple for orchestrating Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to write a story based upon a photo prompt (today she gets extra credit for providing the photo, as well). With fewer than 101 words we are challenged to contrive a beginning, middle, and an end.

Credit @ Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

***

Title: Pleasure Palettes
Genre: Romance (autobiographical) Fiction
Word count: 99

I was at my easel trying for a loose, semiabstract, colorful urban cityscape.
Conjetti walked in.
“Did I hear you talking to someone?”
“It was your boyfriend. He’ll call back later.”
She cleared her throat.
“Okay. It was Julie. We discussed art. She said watercolor is a metaphor for letting go.”
“And you said?”

“I told her it was like herding wet, angry cats of different colors that don’t mix well.”

She reached around and grabbed me, biting my neck.
“Follow me,” she said with a sultry gaze.
I smiled, “At your service m’lady.”
“You’d better be.”
“Yes, Ma’am!”

***

Look both ways as
“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life” (Oscar Wilde).
Mind the gaps of romantic truth.

Click blue frogs for link to the party @ inlinkz

Poetry: Pleasing Ghosts

Sounds, like blessed drops
falling as heavenly clouds
grace Earth and bless my ear.

Rhythm now a bit more than
gentle drops of above
playing ecosystem tunes
– distant thunder.

Doves silent in trees, other birds
sit quietly in Mother’s shower
(they’ll return),

The sounds of tires rolling wet
on water, splashing in puddles,
trailing droplet ghosts,
and pleasing me.

Look both ways in rain or sun.
Mind the gaps but enjoy spaces between drops.

Sammi’s Weekender #166 (hinterland)

Lannan banished him to Marfa, city of minimalist art,
in the hinterlands high-plains desert, a Trans-Pecos cowboy patch
in far west Texas. Controversial, wrangled, and angry (bless his heart),
Bloodaxe English poet Peter Reading endured being sacked

For having gallish cheek, remaining ununiformed 22 years,
being poet, For the municipality’s elderly,
as a mindless weighbridge operator and lover
of fine wine and birds, with gruesomely ironic humor.

Peter and I were born on the same Saturday,
he in Liverpool, I was not.
His revenge – Marfan and Shitheads.

Look both ways for hammering truthful humor
and light romantic comedy.
Mind the gap, said the man to the day tripper.

Friday Fictioneers 7/17/2020

Many thanks to Rochelle @ Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple for orchestrating Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to write a story based upon a photo prompt (and thanks to Jean L. Hays for that), with a beginning, middle, and an end in fewer than 101 words. This is my third venture.

 

PHOTO PROMPT © Jean L. Hays

Genre: Ironic (flash) Fiction
Word count: 100

***

Lobo and Robin met and married at the University of New Mexico following his return from Vietnam in 1970. He was from the Atchafalaya Swamp region of Louisiana, she from Montana ranch country.

Doc Robin, as she was called, was an internationally known infectious disease specialist. Lobo, a highly sought after free-lance journalist.

Their 50th anniversary party was planned for Saturday night on their rancho near Albuquerque.

“What’s in the box, Robin?”

“Designer surgical masks for the party.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

“Not really, Babe. But it would not do for our quests to go home with COVID-19.”

Lobo howled.

***

Click blue frogs for link to inlinkz

Look both ways to plan a party.
Mind the gaps of the ironic mind in a literal world.

Poetry: Love Sounds

Thorns are in gardens,
And colors from pretty flowers,
Rose pedal jellies are sweet.

This world of sounds,
Voices heard, long before birth—
Mother, father, sister, brother.

Sounds of nature,
So sweet and quiet,
Some warn of danger,
Others safe passage,
Voices of friends,
A love,
Some grumpy old men.

In time,
Life’s pleasures wane and wither,
Music comes not as before,
Beautiful sounds are
Nothing to waste.

Disallow atrophy
Of lust
For a wondrous life.
Be alert.
Sounds. Enjoy them.
Be aroused
By smiles and touches
Of troubadour drums.

Surround yourself with pleasures.
Hear every note
With silences between.
Waste nothing.
Mind our gifts.

Take care,
my love.
Some things shall not
Always be there.

Look both ways with eyes and ears.
Mind the gaps between notes and words.

Poetry: Sammi’s Weekender #165 (cavalier)

The Cavalier

Never been there,
but I’d like to go
to The Cavalier
in East Austin.

Located across an Interstate
divide, from the University of Texas
proper and the rotund
Texas State Capitol building.

In the
other side of town,
from the Colorado River,
to no farther than
State Highway 111.

It’s real weird as Austin.
No more impulsive days
of let’s go
check it out.

Look both ways driving through Austin, both east and west.
Mind the gaps, the differences, and the history.

***

Here is the link to them.

Friday Fictioneers 7/10/2020

Many thanks to Rochelle @ Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple for orchestrating Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to write a story based upon a photo prompt, with a beginning, middle, and an end in fewer than 101 words. This is my second time at bat.

Photo prompt @ A. Noni Mouse (anonymous)

Genre: (Flash) Fiction: Romantic Drama
Word count: 100

Steven looked through the window at the next building as he washed dishes. His back was toward her.

Karen quietly picked up the butcher knife from the counter-top and walked toward him, the sharp tip pointed directly at his naked back.

When the point touched his skin, he turned around to face her, carefully took the knife, and slid it into the water.

Karen asked, “I didn’t frighten you?”

“I saw your reflection in the window.”

She slid into his arms. They kissed.

“Besides,” he whispered, “it’s a well-known fact, no man has ever been murdered while doing the dishes.”

Look both ways while doing dishes. Wouldn’t want to miss something.
Mind the gaps and sharp objects.

Here’s the link to inlinkz to join the party and read other stories.

Poetry: End Times

You spoke, and I awoke,
yet I fear
the time is near
when the dark depressing truth
of humanity
will take root on its tail
and then devour itself to
end it all
forever. Maybe
that’s our difference.

You claim
god so wants it,
I say let’s ask
him
or her
or it
whatever.

Look both ways.
Because you were alive yesterday does not prove you will be tomorrow.
Mind the gaps in thought and deed.

First Friday Fictioneers

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

This is my first swing at Rochelle’s 100 (or fewer)-word story challenge based on a photo provided by Na’ama Yehuda. Many thanks to both. If I did anything wrong, someone please tell me. My story:

Genre: Fiction
Word Count: 99 (including title)

Mourning Mystery

She told the turban-clad cabby, “Seventy-second and Central Park West.” As he pulled into airport traffic he asked if she was a fan. She said, “No.” But she claimed to be born on December eighth, nineteen-eighty. He looked and shrugged.

She stepped onto the Dakota driveway and walked slowly to the archway door. Then she walked across to the park. As she stepped onto the Strawberry Fields Memorial, she removed the Carter Arms .38 special from her purse, placed the barrel in her mouth, and pulled the trigger. She heard, let me take you down…nothing is real…forever.

***

Look both ways. Forty years ago from next December 8th, Mark Chapman murdered 40-year-old John Lennon by shooting him four times in the back with a Carter Arms Undercover .38 Special, in the arched entrance to the Dakota Apartments. One can walk across the street into Central Park and view the Strawberry Fields Memorial. Within days of Lennon’s death, several fans committed suicide. While this story is fiction, the emotions are not. Mind the gaps.

***

Click this Inlinkz link for more wonderful stories.