Evil

Friday Fictioneers for February 10th, 2023

The Mistress of Friday Fictioneer micro-fiction (and non-fiction), Rochelle, has floated us a Roger Bulot picture with a bench, a bridge, a fence, a river, and a cityscape to inspire us to write our best story in fewer than 101 words. I shoot for a hundred. Some do less. Never more.

Take the risk and click on Roger’s pic to be shipped over to Rochelle’s blog where it all begins.

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

Genre: Historical Fiction
Title: Green River Gary
Word Count: 100

***

Gary Ridgway, a middle-aged man, sat on the bench next to her. He asked her name.

“I’m Jane Sue, wanna party? Twenty-five and you get it all.”

He pulled out a Bible and started reading aloud. She rolled her eyes.

Gary said, “Let’s go to Cody’s Camp near the river. We can moonlight dance.”

Jane said, “Dancing’s extra. Time’s money. Let’s go.”

They got in his truck and drove off.

Her real name wasn’t Jane. To this day she is known as one of several Jane Doe’s. Gary sits out his life plea deal. Did he ever reach 100 murders?

***

Look both ways and look again and again.
Mind the gaps, it’s a dangerous world out there.

Note: Gary Leon Ridgway is The Green River Killer. He confessed to the murders of more than 70 women, and it may have been over 90. He is still alive (age 73 now), in prison in Walla Walla, Washington.

Click on the photo of the killer to float over to inlinkz and more thrilling stories.

 

There is more than one Green River, as the CCR band can testify.

Sammi’s Weekender #285 (thalassic)

Click this graphic to read more from Sammi’s page.

I found thalassic in Robin Devoe’s Dictionary of the Strange, Curious, & Lovely. I wrote an acrostic insult poem with more rare words from the same book. It’s Monday. I started this Saturday morning. I’m tardy.

***

Tin gods abound worldwide. Practiced prevaricators
Hemipygicly half-assed witlessness,
Adonized avatars in their own lost and low minds,
Lardaceous lickpennies of limicolous living with
Acherontic soulless evil demonic spirits, those
Snollygosters comfortable within any snobocracy,
Slubberdegullions of the lowest order or less,
Imbruted by nature without redemption.
Cacodemons with sycophants.

***

Look both ways when searching for right.
Mind the gaps for the tin gods because they disguise well.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub Poetics: The good and the evil

This poem was rendered to meet today’s dVerse challenge offered by Paeansunplugged from Delhi. We are to write about the good and evil in mere mortals, the good in evil and/or the evil in good. For me, at no time is that enigma more profound than in times of war and battle.

Conundrum War

One story I’ve never told,

a confession…

if evil were evil enough,
if good were good enough,
I would simply tap a secret reservoir of courage…
but courage, too, has finite quantities,
yet it offers hope and grace to the repetitive coward.

I can’t fix my mistakes.
Once people are dead, I can’t make them undead…
killing and dying are not my special province.

Am I too good for this war?
Too smart, too compassionate, too everything?
I’m above it. It’s a mistake, maybe.

Look both ways at good and evil or take Hamlet’s advice and think it so.
Mind the gaps between and within our perceptions of what is better and what is truth.

 

Click the soldier for more good and evil poems.

Friday Fictioneers for March 18th, 2022

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.

Prompt photo by Brenda Cox. One click away from the Rochelle’s purple world.

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.

***

The vampire mansion is a hotlink to inlinkz and more mico-fiction stories.

Sammi’s Weekender #241 (din)

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog.

shameful silence

early morning sounds
soft, in silent darkness
distracted by clichéd neon din
imprisoned without art,
terrified by evil’s truth.

Look both ways to see and to say.
Mind the gaps of paranoia while seeking better days.

Inspired by S&G’s hymn to resistance, The Sound of Silence.

Sammi’s Weekender #187 (niggle)

Click to go to Sammi’s Blog

Expostulated Love

“I love that man,” was what she said to me,
and “I hate that other one,” her follow-on, bait-switch statement,
that morsel of red herring to mislead my unwanted retort
to her bleating caterwaul. I knew this kvetch ranked
behind turd infected punji sticks in heart and soul.

Niggle not. Poetry is sycophantic art when inoffensive kindness
and socially sensitive ethics are euphemisms for hidden truth.

Look both ways, if he can tell it like it is, I’m also justified.
Mind gaps for expiration of truth.

Sammi’s Weekender (Dire)

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.

NaPoWriMo: 30 poems in 30 days (day 6)

Day 6 prompt: write a poem from the point of view of one person, animal, or thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous, bizarre triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. After spending too much time searching the five-hundred-year-old hallucination on wood, I decided on one of two snakes from the left panel.

Blame Game

They could have blamed the moon,
or that unicorn, which never existed,
but no. Let’s go low, they said.

Talking creepy crawlers, snakes,
and fruit peddling serpents make
splendid scapegoats. Why not a goat?

We can’t talk, bark, purr, or bleat.
She points to me, he believes her,
and all hell (right panel pun) happens.

Pin it on snakes, they said. Scary,
but defenseless. Look at panel two’s
big party of naked fruit eaters.

We got the rap for all of that. Sinners
should blame monkeys. At least they
look and act like you people.

And what’s with the guy
growing flowers out his arse?
Who does that that? Not us.

So, what do you get? Panel three.
From a diluted old man
with bad acid in his enema.

Time now to get over it.
Past post-medieval art is fine,
slithering snakes are silent.

Look both ways, or with triptychs, three ways.
Mind the gaps, it’s where the story’s told and the pictures fold.

Click for link.

Poetry: Forgave You – Not

I opened the door and walked into a crowded room.
People, most I did not know, were sitting around,
all seats taken. I had a right to be, and should have been,
invited to the meeting, but since I’m a half-breed — excluded.

Everyone stopped talking and stared at me. I knew I was
the unwanted black sheep in a room of wolves and vultures,
there only to devour carrion and pick the bones of the dead.
Something in my nature delighted in their obvious discomfort.

They declared the meeting over and said I should have
been there. I did not ask the location of my invitation.
I thought, y’all low life vulture mother fuckers,
but I said, “No problem. Things will somehow work out.”

Oh, the sweet feeling of justice and the touch of revenge,
oh, the fine fit of the suit called, we’re even.
Did they think I would not know or gain?
I almost felt guilty for twisting the knife,
but guiltlessly I prompted their pain.
Putting things right feels real nice.

Look both ways in rooms empty or full.
Mind the gaps. That’s where the evil hides.

Poetry: Silence is no Coward

“I am strong, but I am tired, Stephen, tired of always having to be the strong one, of always having to do the right thing.” Brenda Joyce, An Impossible Attraction

I’m not always much of anything.
I’ve been an old white man for a long time,
a branded stereotype with good teeth
and a bad attitude,

apparently not supposed to ask for
some things, cuz I am old and white.

It’s okay. Perhaps they’re fucking right.
Equality is in, unless you happen to be
old…
white…
and have what’s left of an old hard on.

Others were (and still are) treated like shit
by white guys. Nazis were, are, white,
male; no fucking idea how old fits.

Some old men are idiots, non-millennial
impotent bastards who hate everyone,
and everything, especially women.
Stereotyped, hairless shit heads
with nothing to do
but make mankind worse.

It’s a tough world, but we can try
to make it better each day.
To make it last.

©Bill Reynolds, 6/13/2019

Look and listen both ways for real equality. At least, don’t be unkind.
Mind the gaps like lifelines with stories to tell.