Women

Friday Fictioneers for September 30th, 2022

For our October’s eve challenge, Mistress Rochell has worked her magic of Friday Fictioneer redux by reviving a past portraiture of her own. It’s a busy time of year for our illustrious maven.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, commenced at sundown this past Sunday, marking a time of the high holy days. Soon to follow will be Yom Kippur, then Sukkot.

Click on the picture of Rochelle’s lamps to be magically whisked to her blog page where her cauldron formula for fewer than 100-word stories can be realized.

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Genre: Semi-speculative Fiction
Title: Lamps of Enlightenment
Word Count: 100

***

“Whale oil lamps? Your witch’s coven meets here tonight?”

It’s our October bridge meeting. Don’t call us witches. We play cards.

“Tarot cards.”

Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor—a scientist. Rochelle will explain magic and witches in the Bible.

“She’s Jewish. They don’t believe in witchcraft.”

She’ll explain. The Witch of Endor is in ‘Samuel’ when Saul calls her. I want you gone.

“No worries. I don’t play bridge. They scare me.”

Before you go, please fetch my broom and large cauldron from the attic?

“Sure thing. Double, double, toil and trouble; lamps to burn and a cauldron to bubble.”

***

Look both ways when learning about friends.
Mind all the gaps lest someone put a spell on you.

Click the coven to be spell-cast into other lamp oriented fine fictional stories.

Poetry: Enigmatic Paradigm

Bukowski said
he dedicated much of his life
to avoiding people.
Humanity, he said.
Yet he wrote about people.
So, I assume he failed,
or he lied.

An allegedly unwilling celebrity
bemoaning attention,
lambasting unlively banality,
complaining constantly
about women. His ladies.
Many men, too.

I understand the blessing
of being alone.
I like many fine souls, yet I confess
to not always being kind
(yet not exactly cruel) to
undeserving deplorables.

Hank asks; is he ugly,
unkind (sometimes),
misanthropic, or misogynist?
Some thought so. Maybe he was.
I really don’t know.

Crackpot, with no hope of love?
Bitter and unfair?
Did he put glass in our sandbox?
Was he without morals or mercy?
(Maybe he was.)

Is he my phantom’s mask?
or am I his? Or yours?
What is truth? What love?

I neither know nor care
what most others thought
of Charles Bukowski.
He’s long dead. But
I read and re-read his poetry and prose.
I must have some reason.
Do I want to know my reason?
Do I care?
Or, is this one of those things?
His paradigm, or mine?

Look both ways when considering and discerning humanity.
Mind the gaps. Every day is judgment day.