Mission
Never liked real or imagined
spotlights
except from the catbird seat.
The Spotlight movie—
religion’s villainous clergy
and journalism’s reporter heroes.
Look both ways to find the sorry ass truth.
Mind the gaps but tell all to make a better world.
The 2015 movie trailer, if you’ve not seen it.
Today is Friday Fictioneers’ photo prompt release day, posted two days prior to Friday the thirteenth, an inauspicious Gregorian calendar arrangement in the superstitious minds of many.
Central to Mistress Rochelle’s well-chosen pic from the artistic eye of our friend to the north, Dale Rogerson, is a red rose. “O my Luve’s like a red, red rose/That’s newly sprung in” May; is partly from the famous Robert Burns poem.
What can one do with the flower of love on the most traditional day of western bad luck? My go is below Dale’s photo. My gratitude to both wonderful, bonnie lasses for giving direction to this week’s micro-fiction collection.
Genre: Padded Journalism
Title: Guns and Roses
Word Count: 100
The blonde was his beauty. He was her beloved beast. They struck out for freedom armed with guns and motivated by love.
“We’ll never blend in, Casey. You’re too tall.”
“Vicky, look! It’s them laws. Let’s die like Bonnie and Clyde. We’ll be famous.”
“But dead as hell. Drive fast, Babe. If they get close, they’ll flip us.”
There was a loud bump. Casey’s driving skills failed to keep them from the grassy Indiana ditch.
Her last words were, “I love you, Babe. See you in hell. They could have at least waited until Friday.”
A gunshot, then cops everywhere.
Look both ways when on the run in the Alabama sun.
Mind the gaps and ditches.
Keep in mind that at six-foot-nine, you’re not that hard to find.
Na’ama Yehuda’s lovely flower garden picture posted by the incomparable Rochelle, mistress of pools of water and writers was both inspirational and challenging. A rose by any other name is a tulip, even on Friday Fictioneers, right?
Genre: Murderous Fiction
Title: I never promised you a rose tulip garden
Words: 100
We were so much in love, hotly in lust, blindly infatuated—the perfect couple. I decided I could trust him with my biggest secrets. We just clicked.
“Hey Babe, I need to tell you one more thing.”
“Oh, Sweetheart, you can tell me anything. Without trust, there’s no us.”
“I worked as a hooker when I lived in Reno.”
“Okay, Love…that’s over now.”
“I also shot a man there just to watch him die.
“You did what? You’re a murderer? We need to get that mess cleaned up.”
“I’ll be packing tonight. Don’t worry about me leaving. I’m already gone.”
Look both ways to see that no one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, we can only be who we are. Mind those gaps so you don’t forget that your truth may be none of my business.
***
My story was musically inspired by: (I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden by Lynn Anderson, Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash, and Already Gone (also maybe the line, And there’s some rumors going round, someone’s underground from Witchy Woman) by Eagles (sic).
Ominous luminosity
Nearby outside, a dark
electricity filled night
jarred us with
thunderous raging lightning.
Saint Elmo’s fire
danced and filled our cockpit
with ominous luminosity
from Palpatine,
to our fearless distress.
Look both ways for distress travels any direction.
Mind the gaps as you let the force be with you.
Note: Palpatine (Darth Sidious) was the name of the Emperor in the Star Wars movies.
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.
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.
For my twenty-sixth daily, prompted, voluntary assignment, today I was challenged to write a poem that contains at least one epic simile. These (Homeric) similes extend and develop over multiple lines with decorative elements that emphasize the dramatic nature of the subject. As suggested, I chose to write a complete poem as one long epic simile theme (salted with some metaphor) to carry the poem.
Flying Like Dragons
Like unleashed frightening awesomeness,
like giant thundering flying dragons with
massive wings lifting us skyward, roaring, breathing fire;
my brain blends with this pestilent machine, as if I’m guiding
an iron plague with deafening noise to wreak death,
to pour vengeance down upon their wrongs, a bane
to my enemies, a scourge of fire-for-fire. Flying
at invisible heights, with a sharp stinging tail, breathing
radiation into electrons, as my stealthy flying monster
seeks annihilation of the unjust.
Like a beast, it sees over great distances,
it smells its enemies in total darkness; then skillfully, silently
we approach as offensive defenders with hidden talons;
without emotion or fear, as if by kismet we destroy our prey
with automatic, irreversible, unmerciful curses.
Look both ways to see what is nearby but accept the limits of sensory perception.
Mind the gaps and trust your dragon’s instruments.
For the final Sunday and to begin the last week of National Poetry Month, I’ve been egged on to the sunny task of writing a poem that describes using hard-boiled simile. The prompt suggested similes such as those used in detective stories featuring a tough unsentimental protagonist with a matter-of-fact attitude towards violence. I slipped in some horror genre.
The moon that night reflected light outlining everything and everyone with tarnished silver lines and a grayish tint covering, like the lining of an old vampire’s coffin. Our faces were puffed and molted like poisoned mushrooms on stems growing out of our jackets. The tree we hung him from looked like a dragon’s skull with dead, dried bones — fingers and hands protruding in all directions. It was as bleak and hopeless as a baby’s funeral. The smell was as if standing in an old open crypt exuding the musty odors of long dead flesh. Gravediggers’ shovels made rhythmic sounds cutting earth like piercing chunks of lead striking burned ashes of dead bodies. No one made another sound. Each wondered if we had killed him dead enough, or would he rise again like the devil’s undead corruption? It was our common thought, a fear that united our cause but shadowed our minds like a haunting nightmare’s gloom. We were men, but that night we were like the evil undead lamenting a hopeless mantle of some human hell.
Look both ways when identifying good and evil.
Each defines the other by its absence, yet the absence of one makes the other incomparable.
Mind the gaps when laying blame. Nothing is perfect.
Today’s one-thirtieth of NaPo prompts challenged me to write a poem that uses repetition. I may repeat a sound, word, phrase, image, or any combination. I chose a name. (Note: published one day late because someone forgot to click on publish.)
When Nothing Else Can
Maybe Bukowski was right.
We are strange, we of the people.
Is someone’s world better
when we’re not in it?
Bukowski’s is gone.
Bukowski had a point
about hate’s self-sufficiency,
better to not care at all if love
needs so much help. Gratuitous
masturbation of the psyche
is all about Bukowski.
Bukowski was right when he said,
the world is full of boring, identical,
mindless people. They run from the
rain but revel in tubs of bubbles and water.
Where’s the glory here? said Bukowski.
Bukowski didn’t tell me to find what I love
and let it kill me, but I blame it on Bukowski anyway.
There is a loneliness in this world, wrote Bukowski.
Just drink more beer, more and more beer, now
that’s really Bukowski!
I think Bukowski was right when Hank said that
sissies have hard lives. And most important for me,
Bukowski said, nothing can save you except writing,
and equally important, a poem knows when to stop.
I think what Bukowski said is nuts, but also too true,
so it stops, but this is not the end of this Bukowski bit.
Look both ways when sampling the sweet and the sour.
Mind the gaps for clues of generations.
Throughout history, Anonymous has produced some of the best known and loved poetry, art, crime, and mystery. Also, cadavers (aka, John Doe) and AA members.
I’ve considered publishing my next book (also my first) under the Anonymous nom de plume to benefit from his/her/their great success and notoriety. Sometimes, events in my life made me want to be that person: Anonymous.
Today, Her Royal Craftiness, The Princess of Prevarication, Mistress of History, and Duchess of the Storied Squares, Madame Rochelle Wisoff-Fields has teamed with the formerly unknown, but now revealed, Brenda Cox, photo contributor to tempt us into the gated domain of Friday Fictioneers story telling.
Click the pic for a fantasy ride to Rochelle’s castle to learn how to play by her rules. Can you tell your story in one hundred words or fewer? Try it if you dare.
Genre: Dark Fiction
Title: My New Home
Word Count: 100
***
Vlad was my goth-looking guide into the witness protection program. As we approached the old ramshackle house I asked, “What is that horrible smell?”
“That’s cadaverine. We spray the perimeter with the ptomaine to keep people away. Only harpies and vampire groupies like it. The death odor attracts buzzards but keeps cartel soldiers, nosey lawmen, and reporters away. You’ll get used to it.”
When I opened the gate, I was struck by the sweet odors of hyacinth and incense. I saw the casket and glared at Vlad.
“Appearances. Protecting people like you is dangerous. Living quarters are underground. Welcome home.”
Look both ways.
Be alert doing good or evil.
Mind the gaps for major life changes.
***
I had started a different essay for this post when my wife informed me that our 43-year-old daughter asked this question. “How can these people talk so calmly about nuclear war?” Calmly? I needed to get caught up on the news. Who is calm?
As we discussed our distant past, Yolonda said, “You know, when you would go for a week of nuclear alert, I never thought much about it. It was your job. Nuclear war was simply your job.” She’s right. I was the Radar Navigator (bombardier) on a nuclear armed B-52D either at Carswell Air Force Base (AFB), Texas, or later at Andersen AFB, Guam (and at other “satellite” locations).
At that time, we were in the midst of the “Cold War.” If Russia (or any country) launched a nuclear attack against the United States, my crew would be in the air within minutes, turning north to strike pre-determined targets in the Soviet Union. Basically, WWIII.
I told her, “I know exactly what damage nuclear bombs (or missiles) can do.” For eight years, it was my profession. For one week each month, it was my life: 24/7. The concept of nuclear war was real, possible, conceivable, but even then, somehow unthinkable. We did not believe it would happen because we would retaliate in kind. That was called second strike and we had plans for a third. The strategy was called mutually assure destruction (MAD). It was real. It was then.
Through my elementary and high school years (Cuban Missile Crises), through Viet Nam, and on up until my first day of pre-flighting and “cocking” a loaded B-52, the threat of nuclear war was impressed upon me repeatedly. Doomsday was both a reality and a joke.
Today I read that Vlad P. has threatened the world with nukes if anyone interferes with his war on Ukraine. The no love lost between Russia and Ukraine goes way back, but the point is the threat. He could nuke any nation in the world—and certainly in Europe.
I’ve also read that Russia may use nukes against Ukrainian resistance. These people are fighting for their right to exist. The only thing Ukrainians want from Russia is to be left alone and to live in peace. But Russia does not care. Their excuse? The Ukrainians don’t like them. Dah?
While it would be unprecedented for nukes to be used in such a limited conflict/war, Ukraine lacks the wherewithal to assure Russia’s destruction. We, on the other hand, in conjunction with our allies could provide such assurance. I would like them all, especially Vlad P., to believe we would.
On the lighter side, in 1964 (age 18), I sat in a theater on a Strategic Air Command base, and I watched this movie (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb). Little did I know my future would not be so funny, although I confess, I did my best to make it so.
Look both ways and take a side.
Mind the gaps between the wars and push for peace.
Morality is not a spectator sport.
These four clips from he movie are short.
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