From the Universe, I call down a pox upon them.
Dirae with Furiae shall tear their poisonous skin
to feed comrade vultures sitting in shadows of guilt.
Curators of dire curses upon innocents, dealers of death cards,
may shepherds of fools find woeful futures haunted
by those who paid the greatest price to dance with fantasy and lies.
Look both ways seeking answers, but beware
gaps of darkness are where truth is hard and lies come easy.
A Paradox of Love
How can it be?
They were once lovers intent on solving the riddle of forever.
Time was the mere scent of one, aroused the other
and they clung together like peach and stone.
How can it be as time passed, such love was lost?
How did what was become unthinkable?
When did the passion of love serve up malevolence?
What paradox now leaves two enigmatic lovers
with a secret neither knows?
Look both ways on the road of love.
The past is not the future. The present is not forever.
Mind the gaps for the riddle of discontent.
I Lied to Me
His first words,
“What will you get?”
With such words our brother
accounted for decades of silence.
“He can’t help it,”
I’d tell myself.
“It’s not his fault.
He was raised like that,”
I told myself.
“Forgive him.
He’s your big brother.
He should be your hero,”
I still tell myself—
Not some pitiful old man
Who’ll never understand why,
I told myself, again.
Our sister’s bequest
was that he suffer
as he caused her, but I couldn’t
let her love lapse, I told myself.
Look both ways with family and friends.
Mind the gaps, but learn to live without them.
Demonstrative was what Mom said,
but no one ever called me histrionic.
A sober adult, some said automaton,
a stoic robot.
One who cared,
but cared not to show it.
I wonder now though
about this thing with Carlin.
I’m unsure if I’m that good,
or that bad.
Look both ways into emotions and dispassionate objectivity.
Mind the ever-present gaps for stumbling blocks.
My Sentient Life
I was her father.
She said I was her automaton, so I cried.
“Be strong for us” they told me,
so I cried alone.
She said I was a sensitive man,
an oxymoron to her mind,
so I smiled and nodded to her husband.
I over E, that’s me, they say it’s the best way.
Be sensitive but calm, brave but tender,
Love and be kind, but take no shit.
See, feel, hear it all,
Mindfulness is marvelous.
Be everything to everyone.
No wonder I’m confused.
Look both ways and be the ball, feel the wind,
smell the roses, touch her heart.
Mind the gaps and protect from harm.
Kill only when necessary.
Many thanks to Rochelle @ Rochelle Wisoff-Fields-Addicted to Purple for pointing me to another photo-inspired Friday Fictioneers. The weekly challenge she presents is to write a story based on the photo prompt, provided today by Ted Strutz.
My task is to write a complete story in 100 words or less.
Title: One Last Time
Genre: Fiction (Southern Gothic)
Word count: 100
***
Abject fear hit me when I saw his house, familiar feelings founded on my childhood nightmares with an abusive father and an enabling mother.
I love South Carolina’s low country but have few good memories, a good place with fine people. But not him.
I walked the three steps to front door. A gunshot stunned me. I ducked, looked around, then carefully opened the door.
He put the WWII .45 on the table and said, “Safety’s broke. I ain’t goin’ to no death house.”
“Well, Dad, you cannot live here. And you damn sure ain’t livin’ with me. Now pack!”
***
Look both ways for the life you’ve lived.
Mind the gap like a bad dream.
Thanks to Merril (from New Jersey) for hosting this dVerse bar challenge: Prosery Monday: A Time, to which I am responding on Tuesday. Merril says to write prose of less then 145 words in response to this line from the poem “A Time” by Allison Adelle Hodge Coke.
“when it is over said and done
it was a time
and there was never enough of it.”
Genre: flash memoir
Word count: 143
Title: L’esprit de l’escalier
***
Last Fall, I wrote a poem about watching my father drink coffee and smoke when I was a young child. Our father-son relationship improved slightly later in life.
I’d received good reaction to the piece, so I considered its potential for submission. I requested further feedback from a critique group (mostly fiction writers). I was aware of the potential risks, but I wanted to know their thoughts.
One person asked, “I did not understand the last few lines where you said, ‘I figured it out. He did too. In the end, it was just the end.’ Can you explain what you meant?”
Stumped for a good answer, I copped-out with, “He died”—a true but poor response on my part.
Now I could simply say, “When it is over, said, and done, it was a time. And there was never enough of it.”
***
Look both ways for answers.
Mind the gaps in the poetry of others,
it’s where we may find answers.
Die to Live
Time’s shadow condemns fools
to imprudent neglectful ignorance,
to deep suffering, lost love,
mindless hearts of stone
—pitiful loneliness.
On my knees I cried out.
I was my enemy.
Her hands rose; lightning shocked
me dead. I awoke, jostled to new life.
Look both ways.
Watch yourself and check six.
No fool minds the gap.
Be not the fool.
***
Thanks to Mish and the folks at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, for Open Link Night #270 (click for link). This poem messes with where my head’s been lately.
***
Combatant
It could have been me.
A nod, a blink, an okay
and the next forty-five
years …
had I not been killed, maimed
or driven insane
(as many of us were)
… would not have been anything
like what I look back to today,
fifty-six long years hence,
with contrition, feeling the loss;
Personal, hidden, illogical
survivor syndrome. I can’t
make sense of it. The feeling
of a warrior who wasn’t.
Life choices often made
thoughtlessly, in a blink.
I could be dead. Change the past?
Not on your life or mine.
***
Look both ways at guilt for life: fortune or folly.
Mind the gaps in the mindless wars with reality.
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.
