Happiness

Friday Fictioneers for February 24th, 2023

Our own Kansas City, major league Girl, pronounced Rochelle, who is in a league of her own, has sent us up to the nosebleed section of Royals stadium for inspiration. It’s her pic, but it’s still football (not baseball) season, for which KC will be smiling and thanking Lubbock, Texas, for sending them the likes of Patrick M. (Superbowl Champs) for many moons. May the Royals be so blessed.

This game is all about telling a complete story in fewer than 101 words (more and you strike out). Click on the stadium pic to hit a home run over at Rochelle’s blog to get her pitch. There you can be umpired on the balls and strikes of Friday Fictioneers. Let the baseball metaphors fly!

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Genre: Baseball History
Title: First Base
Word Count: 100

***

Billy and I bummed on cheap wooden bleachers watching the Rangers. Seven bucks covered everything, including Cowtown to Arlington gas and parking.

“Dad, that lady behind me is blowing on me.”

It was hot. I looked back. A lovely young lady was fanning his neck. She smiled. I mouthed thank you.

He punched his glove, but it would take a homer to get us a ball.

“She’s trying to keep you cool. Some day you’ll appreciate such attention.”

He asked, “Do you think she likes baseball?” I looked again. She winked.

“Yep. She and your mother are both big fans.”

Look both ways when life seems like a dreary competition.
Mind the gaps. At those heights, let the ball come to you.

 

Click on Charlie Sheen checking his package (autographed) to get tossed over to inlinkz where you may read more wonderous stories inspired by Rochelle.

Monday’s Rune: dVerse Music Quadrille

Lynda Lee Lyberg caught me at the dVerse bar today thinking of a poem about the mavens of music from the days of my time. While I must bow to the discipline of a mere 44 words, I will eventually make a much longer tribute to the quad of this week’s Quadrille. For today—this:

To Carly, Carole, Joni, and Linda

Music, Ladies! Making music was your life.
It’s been seventy years more
since you made your way writing, singing,
and playing for your sake and ours.

With Anticipation I’ll let Tapestry tell me
When Will I Be Loved since I see
Both Sides Now.

Look both ways and try, try, try to see all sides.
Mind the gaps when the beautiful ladies sing.
It’s where the love is.

Note: Maybe some young ‘uns don’t know that Carly Simon, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Linda Ronstadt were literal folk and rock stars for more than sixty years.

Click here to read more 44-word poems with music.

 

Friday Fictioneers for February 3rd, 2023

We’re iced-in over (down) here in Texas, which means it is our bi-annual week of winter.

While Rochelle is recovering from strokin’ too hard, she has rattled our senses with an Alicia Jamtaas photo taken on a lovely romantic day. Our gig now is to write fewer than 101 words telling the stories that our muses whisper to us as we look at Alicia’s pic.

If your muse is tugging at your mind and makin’ you wanna play, click Ms. Jamtaas pic to dance on over to Rochelle’s blog page where you’ll get to read all about it.

PHOTO PROMPT © Alicia Jamtaas

Genre: Dream-dancing Fiction
Title: There She Was
Word Count: 100

***

It was a hot one. I was minding my business, walkin’ down the street, snappin’ my fingers, shufflin’ my feet, feelin’ the beat.

I saw her sitting there. My heart stopped. We waved. It was love. Music played. We danced. We started callin’ out round the world. Everybody was dancing in the street.

If this is a dream, may I never awaken. I called to her, “Baby, let’s make it real.”

We did with all the music playing, we were all singin’ and dancin’ and hot , hot, hot. She yelled, “Carlos, I love you. “I said, “my name’s Bill.”

***

Look both ways but love may be sitting up above on yonder windowsill.
Mind the gaps but (flash mob) dance when you can.

Click on the salsa dancers to flash on over to the inlinkz page for more hot stories.

AND, A little Smooth guitar from the great Carlos Santana to better tell the whole story.

Monday’s Rune: Just for me

Humble Sigh

She said, “I write
just for me,
not for any reader.”
All for her own pleasure.
So she said.
So she thought.

But, oh, oh, oh,
the smile she had
and the glint in her eye
over the magazine
that published her story.

Tell me that again my friend,
that part about the writer
without ego or desire
to please or to be pleased.

Look both ways and take the pat on the back.
Mind the gaps for feeling denied.

Monday’s Rune: The final week

Why so Happy?

As Hanukkah ends
Kwanzaa begins, and it is boxing day in Canada.
Because yesterday over two billion enlightened
of the eight billion humans alive
decide a religious thing and dispute
coffee cups and well wishes,
which must be specifically selfish.

It’s also the climaxing week of
collegiate football bowls
so schools can decide who to fire
or to obscenely overpay with locked down
contracts having nothing to do
with anything educational (or successful)
except that we are better than you—
more near neurotic selfishness. Yay,
we’re number one (so what?).

But it is serious business
for calendars. The end of another
elliptical orbital trip around the
minor star we call Sun,
and another 365 days bite the dust.

In the meantime, libraries close,
school music programs falter
or are cancelled to reduce cost,
and art blows in the wind.
Happy holidays. Congratulations,
it’s a wonderful life, Mister Potter.

Look both ways except this week.
For twenty-twenty-two, it’s over.
Mind the gaps for “what have we done?”

Now that is art.

Sammi’s Weekender #289 (engrave)

Click for Sammi’s blog and more 23-word magic.

A Lone Memory

Her face
an engraved
memory,
the cold winter night,
her aroma,
her taste,
her soft skin,
he felt
sixteen,
still in love,
again.

Look both ways, but today’s memories were conceived long ago.
Mind the gaps to be filled with feelings of love and pleasure.

A Lone Memory

Monday’s Rune: Halloween

The Last October Night

Last night, as I sat with my extended family, a mixture of baby boomers, Gen X’s, and Millennials, we spoke of haunting experiences: fear intentionally endured for fun. Few of us said we wanted to repeat those ‘fun’ occasions. They were things that fell into the it seemed like a good idea at the time category, but now we wished we hadn’t risked them.

We have learned that Halloween can be fun and scary without doing long term psychological damage. What adrenalin rush is worth the walk into nightmarish darkness? I recall the fun: the costumes, the parties, the doors to knock on, the treats, the stories, and the songs we made up and sang. We were having fun. But when scared, boy did we run!

I recall winning a Halloween party costume contest as an adult. I was not in the best costume. Was I given an honor for courage? Was humor involved? Did my green legs catch the judges’ eyes? No one fears a giant tomato.

What I like about Halloween is that I owe no one anything for it. It has a strange history and a life of its own with unique childish traditions. It is when it is, on the last day of October, followed immediately by November. Halloween has as many bizarre religious undertones as it does silly religious rejections.

With nods to the goths and the goolies, to the vampires and fried eggs, to the ubiquitous hobos and fun folks in clever, challenging outfits, I like Halloween and I know I’m in good, scary, company.

Look both ways on those dark October nights.
Mind the gaps where memories of youth dance and sing because it is time for all of that.

 

But this Halloween tragedy was way over the top.

Sammi’s Weekender #283 (dunk)

Click on the dunk graphic to discover other 78-word writings that include the word dunk.

 

Popularity

Sweatpants and fifteen-dollar
Wally-world slip-ons do the job
when I’m home alone and happy.

A child, I believed them
when they said I’d
run faster and jump higher

In them Keds,
for a tenth of what they pay
for fly higher and faster

Nike Dunks, which tell me
things and give me thoughts
they don’t want to hear or know.

Now you must love me. Ima woke.
I spent a week’s pay for
these kicks. Now kiss them.

I look both ways and wonder, am I the person I think I am?
Or am I a slave to popular marketing?
Mind the gaps before falling into a mentality where popularity trumps all things practical.

Friday Fictioneers for October 21st, 2022

This week our magical Mistress Rochelle pulled a mare’s nest from order to muddle my muse and trigger my call to organization.

Texans might say I’ve been feeling puny (ill) for a few days, so I was uninspired until today (Friday – imagine that).

It’s all Rochelle this week as she scattered a photo of her own randomly into the blogosphere. If you think you’d like to push a stormy story of fewer than 101 words, find your way to join the free-for-all by clicking on her photo and seeking order at her purple patterned blog page. Click >here< to read other chaotic stories.

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Genre: Therapeutic Fiction
Title: Bollix Minds
Word Count: 100

***

 

Why did you bring me here?

I wanted you to see this metaphor for your mind.

Ridiculous. I’m neat. I hang-up clothes, organize socks, and straighten art. My OCD would organize this fast.

Bill, you were arrested for tampering with a murder investigation. The judge ordered counseling as part of your plea deal.

I simply organized and cleaned up blood. The detectives got upset.

This chaos is how you see the world. Do you understand?

Not true. I do have leads on jobs.

Tell me more.

Stores want me to follow customers around and straighten things up after they pass.

***

Look both ways for all sorts of metaphors.
Mind the gaps and try to understand, things will never be perfect.

This musical bit (If the youtube will not play for you, try this imbedded link.) brought a chuckle to my mind and almost a bit of relating to the song.

Sammi’s Weekender #273 (alcazar)

A 76-word, first-word, acrostic poem, using alcazar, meaning a Spanish fortress, palace, or castle.
I did not use the prompt word as a theme.

Click this graphic to read more writings of alcazar,

Wind, Rain, and Life

All I ask are a few good poems and stories and to have

Lived and loved my seventy-six years as me. My

Children and my children’s children brought me to heavenly happiness

As rain brought new life later claimed by the dry range and the breezes of soft

Zephyrus gently passing us by, like time-forgotten memories

Around our lives with now-shortened horizons pointing to sunsets

Restoring my faith in the discovered purposes of life and humanity.

Look both ways to protect your citadel from plunder and attack.
Mind the gaps of your castle walls which may be vulnerable to the darkness of passing time.