Age

Friday Fictioneers for April 29th, 2022

Yesterday, Fictioneers Mistress Rochelle dealt us an urban photo by Ted Strutz from which we were prompted to contrive, via inspiration, a micro-fiction story. May my tardiness be forgiven. Three more NaPoWriMo poems and my life returns to whatever my normal may be.

Click on the prompt picture to be hustled over to her purple majesty’s page for the plan.

Genre: urban fiction
Title: Tony Loves Rosie
Word count: 100

The slow walking old man stopped. He remembered this corner with ambivalence, but that day with dread.

The ironic sign was near where he’d shot and killed Ted Coffey during the gang rumble. Hearing the Third Avenue elevated pass brought a tear. The bike lay were he almost bled to death. Behind him the spot where Rosie died. Then, her loud voice.

“Tony fucking Del Toro. Is that you? Remember me? It’s Rosie Reyes. I heard you died in Viet Nam. Marines, right? Hey, let’s get a cup a joe and talk old times. Good memories.”

Seeing her changed everything.

Look both ways, even on one-way streets.
Mind the gaps hidden in the crevasses of your mind.

Click on the movie scene to read more stories inspired by the prompt.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 27)

Click for prompt and more poems.

Today, I was to write a duplex poem, a variation on the 14-line sonnet form (also echoes ghazal and blues) developed by Jericho Brown. While I did not make the last line the same as the first, I think it still fits the form near enough.

Look Both Ways

In my seventh decade I can sense
How the shortened horizon stimulates me.

As near horizons power my desire
I feel impatient and curious.

Curious about much, impatient to learn
As my memory seeks its own beginning.

Like flashing movie trailers of memory
I feel a revival of haste when I see

Time is not long, and my need is urgent.
Reality has broken though my dreams

And my dreams bow to stark reality.
From this end I see better my beginning,

My story told from beginning till now.
My seventh decade has finally arrived.

Look both ways regardless of how near or far the horizon is.
Mind the gaps because memory is tricky business.

Friday Fictioneers for April 22, 2022

Mistress Rochelle, the colorful manager and FF maven of artistic madness, prompts us today, with the aid of a Carole Erdman-Grant photo of an abandoned building with a marvelous paint job.

PHOTO PROMPT © Carole Erdman-Grant Click on the picture to zip on over to Rochelle’s page for all the news and graphic rules.

Genre: Family Fiction
Title: Overheard Gen Art
Word Count: 99

“Mom! Look at that! It’s beautiful. Let’s get dad to buy it.

Julie, that is junk. It’s sad—the worst of gang graffiti. It’s ugly.

Mother, you have no taste. That rocks—it is the fucking bomb. That’s great urban art.

Sweetheart, that is not art. It’s gang turf tagging and watch your language. This was once a nice place to eat. Now look at it: a concrete canvas for bored morons.

It’s metaphorical, Mom. You’re so shallow. If dad doesn’t buy it, I’ll kill myself.

And if he does you won’t have to because I’ll kill you both.”

Look both ways for all that is seen and felt.
Mind gaps and don’t touch the wet paint.

Click on Mels (sic) drive-in from the American Graffiti movie to find more fictioneering.

Friday Fictioneers for April 15th 2022

Once again, the lovely Rochelle, Maven of artistic fact and fiction, and Dale, ingenious photographer to the ethereal and adroit crafter of masterful tales, have conspired to extract mid-April narratives from the noggins and minds of Friday Fictioneer followers.

My song-related reportage maxed out at the 100-word limit and follows Dale’s visual. Click on the chair to write your story if you dare.

Click on the photo to ride on over to Rochelle’s page to read all about it.

Genre: Senior Gonzo Fiction
Title: Concealed Carry
Word Count: 100

***

We limped in. Kris needed his cane. The music sucked, but our old table was available. We sat and waited.

A young man approached.

He said, “You need to leave. We don’t want your kind in here. Now get out.”

I glared at him for a minute. “Two waters, coffee with cream, and menus, please.” His anger was visible as he moved closer. Kris placed his pistol on the table.

“Listen motherfucker, I’m Bobby McGee. We’ve nothing left to lose. You do. Repeat the order, fetch it with a smile or say ‘goodbye.’ We ain’t leaving alive. We’ll await Janis.”

Look both ways but remember the seventies if you can.
Mind the gaps for Glocks and dead grumpy waiters.

Give a Glock Click HERE to find more great stories. And for your happy entertainment, four of the finest good ol’ boys.

NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 3)

Since it’s Sunday, (I’ve no idea why that matters to Maureen Thorson [Napo creator and prompt director], but I acknowledge that most folks who work do so on approximately five of the other six days) so today’s NaPo prompt is (she said “a bit”) complex. I’m to write a poem in a Spanish form called glosa (or glose). Glosa explains or responds to another poem or part of one. Until today, I was unfamiliar with this form, but now I am intrigued by it.

THE GLOSA OR GLOSE requires:

  1. a) A cabeza (or motto) – the quatrain borrowed from another poet, whose authorship must be acknowledged.
  2. b) Four 10-line stanzas, each ending with one of the lines in sequence from the cabeza.
  3. c) A rhyme-scheme requirement that lines 6 and 9 rhyme with the final word of line 10.

It seems challenging, but “The point of any formal (poem) constraint is primarily to put you under pressure to write a little differently from your default style, and in the case of the glosa, you’re forced to participate quite explicitly in the work of another poet, many new possibilities for writing differently can be magically released.

“There’s great scope for playing with this form, by varying the constraints. You could choose a different stanza length, write in free verse, in a metre of your choice, or in syllabics; dispense with rhyme or increase the amount of rhyme; use a different length of cabeza, or introduce the lines of the cabeza in different positions in your stanza.” ~ John Wheway, “How to write a Glosa.” (https://www.johnwheway.com/?p=4)

I did the prompt and followed the form as closely as I could, except for one rhyme. Who cares, right?

The most difficult part of this was browsing through my favorite poets to find the perfect quatrain, then to cull that dozen down to one.

I could feel the day offering itself to me
and I wanted nothing more
than to be in the moment—but which moment?
Not that one, or that one, or that one,

From the book, The Trouble with Poetry (and other poems): “In the Moment,” by Billy Collins.

Life’s Moments

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
they’d ask, “Do you have a girl friend?
I needed answers. Also, “How was school today?”
I grew up without ever knowing
what it was I wanted to be.
I married young and that stopped
all questions about any girlfriend,
and then one day I woke on up.
The value of school I started to see
I could feel the day offering itself to me.

One day at a time, moment by moment
I lived my life, and I slowly learned
what I wanted to do, he who I wanted to be
even though, before, I didn’t know or want
to be the he who was evolving into me.
Each day of my life I opened another door.
The important people in my life called me
Bill or Dad or Opa, not sir or major.
I finally had my feet on the floor
and I wanted nothing more.

Forty million moments later I knew
the answers to so many of their questions
but I can’t tell them now, not that they
ever really cared, like everyone does
after they’ve grown up (if they do),
they’re all gone now to find others to torment.
So little I remember, the work I did,
the people I loved (and those I did not)
I think about my future, I want nothing more
than to be in the moment—but which moment?

I wish I could tell them now
what I didn’t know then, what I’ve become,
and how I made my way, and what
I have to say. I never liked school,
a necessary evil at best,
but that’s all long over and done.
I’ve paid my dues. Didn’t always give my best
even when life was some questioning test.
I try moments and memories I could’ve become,
Not that one, or that one, or that one, …

Look both ways to the future and the past
but live every moment like it might be your last.
Mind the gaps and the questions, but live long into the answers.

Thursday’s Rune

Discordant Disguise: Tiger is Gone

I was searching for past experiences,
memories of an impossible back then,
when I wore younger men’s clothes,
and I carried a smoking coolness
now long hidden
behind my taste for tranquility. Memories, vague feelings
not fully forgotten I want resurrected.

It was for writing project research
that I strolled into a huge game arcade
in northwest Austin.
A pay-to-play place, a land of profound noises,
a nightmarish field of dreams without payoff.
I saw few protective parents and a grand or two
with kids (school?), fewer still couples
who seemed pointlessly confused,
and me, one lone but alert and somewhat spry,
out of place, no longer young man
who had stumbled onto hearing aid hell.

I switched them off to mask needlessly
amplified din down to merely survivable decibels
as excruciating blares from hundreds of electronic games
simultaneously competed for my attention
with blasts, bangs, zips, loud inhuman screams,
and other onomatopoeic, nonsense of
computer generated junk sounds funneled
into my resistant ear canals.

Flashing lights
from each mad machine making them all the same;
flat pops, grunts, and groans,
melding into one pot of brain numbing total sensory
overload, paled by screams too fake to be scary,
making unappealing demands of humans
to pay for the privilege of interacting
with computer generated absurdities
charging each equally, about a dollar a minute.

I won some games on a vintage Williams
electromechanical pinball machine,
then promptly lost them while discovering
how much faster the silver balls fly around,
how slowly my flippers and tiltless taps responded
to my now vastly reduced reaction times on
the bumper-filled clacker playfield,
sixty years since I last pressed play.

Are we having fun yet? No one asked.
The eyes of others looked unsatisfied
and bored except for the few youths
unaware of being had by the unreal stimuli.
If a man with a gun over there was firing,
no one would notice except the victim.
I did not find the kid I was looking for.

Look longer for lost ubiquitous games played by great-grands.
Find the genesis of brain numbing entertainment.
Look both ways for bar zombies that refuse to die.
Mind the gaps if you dare delve into a past that will never exist again, except in the souls of the old players.

Thursday’s Rune: The Intern

I really don’t understand this retirement gig. I never worked this damn hard when I was (over) paid for what I did.

I know. All those years of experience, knowing and rarely telling where the bodies were buried. They paid me with hush money and free coffee.

Now I work for the worst slave driver of my life: relentless me. And I am not giving myself a good review or a raise.

Too many goals I’ve missed by miles, shabby work posted for the world to see. No pay, no benefits, but staff meetings are mercifully short. Praise social programs and media.

Art supplies going dry. Travel bennies unused. Zoom training ignored in favor of you tubes and naps in the afternoon.

The sexual harassment policy, while mild is embarrassing, even though nobody knows how it all goes. Breaks lead to fun honey-dos I often prefer.

Don’t get me wrong. I love retirement. The highlight of some days is wasting time in erotically creative ways. I love to say that tired cliché, “been there and done that.” Experience never gets old.

When I look both ways, seeing more past than future, it’s telling.
I mind the gaps as best I can, and I still hope for a happy ending to my wildly romantic life.

***

I shall allow Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. (as old Ben) show me the way.

Friday Fictioneers for February 4th, 2022

The lovelies, Rochelle and Na’ama, teamed up to tempt my darker, speculative, micro-fiction side. It’s 100 words. Fewer is fine, but more is too many. My story follows Na’ama’s enticing photo. Click on it to bat fly over to Rochelle’s place for rest of the tantalizing story.

Click on the PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda to see what Rochelle is up to today.

 

Genre: Erotic Spec-Fic
Title: Leave the Light On
Word Count: 100

***

Drunk at midnight. The doorbell. Instant love.

She said, “I saw your light. Would you like to donate blood? Invite me in. Vodka Collins, please.”

“Yes. Come in. I’ll get your drink.”

Her phone. “Party at David’s. Sunrise. I’m getting bloody marys now. Maybe a sperm bank donation too. Cute guy, but older.”

I handed her the Collins. “I thought y’all bit us on the neck.”

“Too messy. We’re high tech now. Like Red Cross. Instant disease tests and all. Join our frequent donor, blood-bag club.”

“Really? No more biting?”

“Nope. But I give a hell of a hickey.”

***

Look both ways for erotic vampires.
Mind the gaps and floss daily.

***

Click on your “Interview With The Vampire” soul mate to sky on over to the squares and read more exciting stories. It’s fun. Trust me.

Thursday’s Rune: There is no…

New Day Travel Ban

It can be a bit pejorative
to say about a person
that she or he wakes up
in a new world every day.

Not woke
like in social awareness,
but more like unaware
of reality and conditions where
lessons learned are lost or useless.

But don’t we all want that?
Who wants it the same old way?
That was cynical Groundhog Day.
Let’s go and see

what today’s new world has
to offer, to challenge, to feel,
and to be. Not because
someday we won’t, but

let’s jump into every day
like it’s something new
giving us one more
breath, another love, another chance to…

Let’s look both ways as we wake to different days.
Mind the gaps for a trip or two,
just don’t fall for whatever normal is supposed to be.

Thursday’s Rune: My Friendly Reminder

I used to ponder the meaning
when an attractive young lady
(she could be 50 or 60 nowadays)
would cast a trusting smile
my way and say,
‘you remind me of my father.’

Was she calling me old (true ‘nuf),
a difficult, somewhat deaf defender
(also true), or childhood disciplinarian?
A boomer, for Christ’s sake.

Perhaps it’s my ego,
maybe just plain self-guilt,
conceivably a DSM diagnoses.
I don’t know. Anyways.

I’ve finally realized
she could pay me
no greater compliment,
no higher honor, than to say,

in whatever loving way,
(or not)
she thought of him. When
she looked into my eyes,

she saw him. The first man
she ever loved.

Look both ways to understand.
Try to see yourself as another sees you.
Mind the gaps for confusion and clear understanding.

***

Gloss: DSM refers to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric Association.