Friday Fictioneers for December 30th, 2022

During the year twenty-twenty-two, the lovely and wonderful Rochelle has tempted and challenged all comers with photographic inspiration. Every week, she boosted me to the writing of a one-hundred-word story. This is my fifty-second story this year: 5,200 words that might have been a brief short story, but each is a micro fictional attempt to swing fanatically for the fences.

This year’s finale provides us with one of Rochelle’s personal pictures from which we are to connect the dots and write a complete story with fewer words than compose the average parrot’s vocabulary: no more than 100.

Join the fun by clicking on the photo for a quick taxi ride over to Rochelle’s blog. There you can find all you need to know to play along. Post your story with the others on the inlinkz app.

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Genre: Musical Fiction
Title: Anticipation
Word count: 100

I was enjoying the view, sitting in the Little Lemon Coffee Shop, a bistro (ish) phenom in our city library, when I heard three electronic beeps.

The doors opened. Someone said her name. I saw her floating toward me with that hypnotizing, toothy, Cheshire cat smile.

I lifted my sax and played my feelings. We were in heaven. I felt privileged in the presence of musical royalty.

Then I heard three more beeps, and she sang, “Double shot Americano and cinnamon croissant, for Mister Bill.”

I thought, Death is calling me but I’m not leaving this dream before she does.


Look both ways for the music of a lifetime.
Mind the gaps and cap the lies.
We all have our story to tell.

Carly Simon lost both sisters, Jo and Lucy, to cancer in the same week this past October. Click on them to read more 100-word marvels.

 

Four magnificent minutes of beautiful music.

Friday Fictioneers for September 9th, 2022

What day is it boys and girls and other less binary-specific people? It’s not Howdy Doody time with Buffalo Bob. It is Wednesday’s Friday Fictioneers time hosted by the magical and majestic Mistress Rochelle, who by now we all know so well.

By slipping us a Lisa Fox pontoon boat photo taken in front of Preacher (formerly Buffalo) Bob’s Church of What’s Happenin’ Now, we are to be blessedly inspired to contrive a little lily-white, fib-ological story in all its radiant glory.

If you want the whole homily about telling your own fewer than 101 words heavenly-inspired story, clicking on Li’s pic should do the trick.

PROMPT © LIsa Fox

Genre: Magical Get Realism
Title: The Bigger Boat
Word Count: 100

Wanda said, “The kids are grown and gone. Let’s buy a boat and sail around the world.”

Alfie said, “Great idea, Honeypot. Preacher is selling his.”

At the church Brother Bob says, “Praise God. Wanda and Alfie. We ain’t seen y’all in a coon’s age.”

“We are empty nesters who wanna buy your boat and sail around the world. Wanda’s idea.”

Y’all’s boaters?

We ain’t, Preach. We aim to learn, quit our jobs, sell the house, and go for it.

Well dang, Alf! You’re gonna need a bigger boat. I’ll pray for y’all.

Thanks, Preacher. A bigger boat you say?


Look both ways, find what you love, and let it kill you.
Mind the gaps and check the weather.
The sharks are always biting.

Click HERE to link up with a parcel of other inspired stories, good to go until next Wednesday when we will discover another fine photo with which to proceed.

This story is not truly 100% fiction, but the line about the bigger boat I bogarted from the Jaws movie.

And the humorous nature of my Li-inspired lie was partly set to sail by a scene from Caddyshack.

 

Dale mentioned the Styx song “Come Sail Away” in THIS recent travel post, so I was tempted to use it. But I steal enough stuff.

 

Note: While I double check every link, I cannot determine if youtubes work outside of the USA. But it’s all about the micro-fiction. The links are ancillary.

Poetry: Mind Reading


Should you want to read my mind,
and I yours? Do our thoughts matter?

And what of dreams?
Are they in our minds, barely clear,
unseen reverie of thoughts, only real when we sleep?

If you could read my mind, could I then read yours?
Would we share thoughts, and each be of two minds?
I’m often with two minds while claiming one—
more conflicted than confused. Do you see through eyes
that are like windows to a witness,
seeing my thoughts,
or are they mixed with yours in me?

If I could read your mind, would a new universe
be revealed to me? One with background and rationale
to justify your thoughts. Would I understand you better?
Or is it true that you and I are what we do?

If you read my mind, do you see my thoughts
through the lens of yours? If not, are my words and actions
filtered through your mind and thoughts? Is that truth?
Are you able to separate you and understand me alone,
entirely without you, your life, your experience, your own thoughts?

“I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try”

“But that was just a dream
Try, cry, fly, try
That was just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream, dream” *

Forget my mind. It’s crazy anyway.
Read my heart. Listen for my soul.
Judge me by what I do. Ultimately, that is who I am.
I am not a poet. I’m your poet. And you’re mine.


Look both ways. Believe the real, the truth. We are what we do.
Mind the gaps and the pullbacks, the maybes are filled with deceit.

(* Lyrics from Losing My Religion, R.E.M.)

NaPoWriMo: 30 poems in 30 days (day 18)

Day 18 prompt: write a poem that is an ode to life’s small pleasures. I did a semi-sonnet of 14, ten-syllable lines.


Ode to My Pillow

You hold my head up with a pleasing touch
you ask nothing, I take you for granted
dressing you only encased, on a whim
I hold you, or tuck you between my legs,
or force you to support me from behind.
I turn, and show you my boring back side,
throwing you to the floor, replacing you
when you get old and dirty and baggy.
I bend and stuff you, your silence supports.
You hold my tears, each a precious diamond.
In nightmares or pleasant dreams, when I call,
I wake for no reason, I find you there
for me. You bolster my brain, hide my mind.
I sleep with you, and you ask for nothing.


Look both ways to fluff a pillow.
Mind the gaps under your head.

NaPoWriMo: 30 poems in 30 days (day 12)


Day 12 prompt: write a poem in the form of a triolet, which is fixed and straightforward: the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines; the second line is repeated in the final line; and only the first two end-words are used to complete the tight rhyme scheme.

Thus, the poet writes only five original lines, giving the triolet a deceptively simple appearance: ABaAabAB, where capital letters indicate repeated lines. According to Lewis Turco in his classic, The Book of Forms, every line of a triolet is the same metrical length.


this is your nightmare I keep on dreaming
at my best doing that terrible war
don’t lie to me when I wake you screaming
this is your nightmare I keep on dreaming
the death of love for hate’s dreamy feeling
oh, nothing like this have I seen before
this is your nightmare I keep on dreaming
at my best doing that terrible war


Look both ways in war and dreams.
Mind the gaps for traps and schemes.

NaPoWriMo: 30 poems in 30 days (day 4)

Day 4 Prompt: write a poem based on an image from a dream.


Falling

I dream. Real life things.
Clears the mind is what they say,
acting out, kicking or yelling.

I remember falling,
although
I’ve never fallen like that,
frightened.
Trying to swim
in the air, in my bed.
Crazy, right? But seems so real.

The fall ends
with an awakening,
a tension,
heavy breathing, until then
It’s like Aerosmith
singing, telling me to sing,
screaming in my ear
dream on…
Dream On…
DREAM ON!

Uncontrolled. Letting go,
all of it,
the stress, the tests
normal life washed
from my mind as fear falls
into a new day
of happiness and blissful life.
Dream on, dream on,
and sing with me. Before
he takes you away.


Look both ways.
Sleeping and dreaming, both part of living.
Mind the gaps with me, sing with me. Dream on, with me.

Poetry: Awaken Fighting Dogs

No dog
in the fight?
No skin in the game?

Is it win or lose tonight,
or is it all the same?

Why fret so?
We should not be
in such a stew
of sleepless nights
with what we know
when worries bubble
in brainless brew.

Why lose sleep
over what if thoughts?
Solutions to problems—
none that matter.

Dreams fill empty gaps
where a mind creates mystery;
a dramatic telling
of the heart’s striving,
yet somehow
still surviving.

A reality set apart,
within each dream
suffering its own malady.

Look both ways with sleepless obsession into endless obscure what ifs.
Sleep in the gaps of neurotic tension.

Poetry: Mr. Bill’s Dream Logic (NaPoWriMo) Day Twenty-one

My poem challenge today was to write a poem that incorporates wild, surreal images. I was to use writing that doesn’t make formal sense, but engages all the senses and involves dream logic.

Well-known strangers speak
without talking, to us much younger
than before when it was me,
but not I; colors of unseen
monochrome images of unlimited
limitations. Chases by odorless fears
of panic unharmed—yelling out into
this empty reality of unfolding challenges
without beginnings or ways to an end.
Movement without effort, watching
as space and time pass unchallenged
by a pointlessness of futile efforts.
Yell out! Why? The dogs.

A colorless kaleidoscope of
meaningful meaningless images,
sounds unheard, spoken with
windless breaths. Fear seeing
through closed eyes, hearing with
deaf ears, brown hair on bald men,
run, kick, yell, stop, breathing.
Fight back!
Awaken,
let go. Rewind. Dream On!
Dream real.

© Bill Reynolds 4/21/2019

Is this a dream within a dream?
Look both ways for unseen meaningless threats, gapless gorges, and mindful mindlessness.

 

Wednesday’s Poem

Who do I think I am?

Poetic Dream

Dream and dream and dream,
Is this life my dream within a dream?
My fantasy and my horror?
Is my pleasure only what is seen?

Pity she who cannot dream and feel
sorry for he who cannot visit
the dark night of pleasured dreams.
True pleasure and true fear in the mist.

Dreams wrapped in dreams
nightmares filled with fear and panic,
Pleasure unrestricted by rules
and commitments of fact.

I stand before my mind
searching for the dream of life,
Wanting in and wanting out
to dream and to dream and to dream about.

 

© Bill Reynolds 7/25/2018

 

Dream and look both ways, into the night in the light of the day. Mind gaps of dusk and dawn.

A War of Two Lives

Battle on, both day and night.

Do I sleep a better day, when
Fitful dreams fill my nights?
With me losing to all the fights,
Why so many battles then?

Waken me now from this pit.
Within this darkness is my dream
Inside I scream for fear and fit
Of all my horrors not yet seen.

Sleep brings me help, a welcome rest.
Dream from this life of daily test.
Rest I shall, to pass two trials,
One for day, the other at night.

Wake or sleep, I live to fight.

(Bill Reynolds, 2/25/2018)

Dream On (– Aerosmith — )

Look two ways, both day and night.
Mind the gaps, cuz there’s the fright.