Black Shadow in Sunset – Flash Fiction

Black Shadow in Sunset – Flash Fiction

The house, a black shadow, sunset shone through the window and on the river.  Another day passing…another sunset.  He shot the photo, it would be good, he knew it.

He sat down on the levee thinking about his life.  The adventures he was going to have, the love he was going to give.

Thinking, he did a lot of that lately.  As the evening’s first stars began to become visible, a plane flew overhead.

He’d been on a jet not long ago, he’d just returned from Saudi Arabia.  He was a civilian now.  No more early wake-ups, no more constant low-level state of alarm.

Home.  Why didn’t it feel like home?

Written for:  Story Prompt # 1 – From a Photo

The Secret – Power Short

Avery walked down the alleyway, wondering about the future.  Everything seemed to have nearly panned out, now that the travel arrangements had been made to go to England…there were just a few last details to be seen to…a haircut and a new wardrobe…

“What’s going on Avery?” asked  Adrian.
“I’ve just gotten a letter from my exchange family in London…”
“Well…are you going to string me out a little longer?””It’s about the picture I sent them…you see, I sent my brother’s photo.  I didn’t think much about it at the time.  I didn’t have a photo on hand and well…”
“Shit! That was a stupid thing to do…and come-off the ‘I didn’t have a photo’ thing, there’s an important difference between the two of you!”
“Well…if I cut my hair like his, I could pass for him.””But why would you want to do that?”
“I just thought it’d be easier traveling and living in a strange country if I were man instead of a woman.”

Written for :

We Drink Inspiration Short Story Prompt #010 – Secrets

Evolving Poetics – Free Verse

Evolving Poetics

A seed fell into this old clay pot,
Dropped without much care or thought,
And began to sprout a flower one day
Growing slowly with each new rhyme.

Words formed in harmony and rhyme,
Express those thoughts I’d never written.
Yet call me poet, that’s hard for me,
Though I write poetry everyday.

Haiku, tanka or a rondolette,
Iambe and meter and all the rest,
Some tools I use to create my stories …
Thanks to a seed dropped here by chance.

And now as I study William Blake
I read some Frost, Kerouac or Lee Masters
Listen to Simon and Garfunkel with a new ear
I  write my verse of life and the early morning dew.

To Sahm and Papi Z you drunken poets,
For your prompts and encouragement,
I dedicate this brief early morning poem …
For the seed you planted in my mind.

@)—>—>—

I began writing poetry on a regular basis last year, about this time, thanks to We Drink Because We’re Poets.  They were in full swing on a poem a day event, and I just started writing to their prompts and found that I not only could but that I enjoyed it immensely! The month ended, I looked for more prompts, wrote without prompts, looked into forms, discovered Japanese poetry.  I write because I can, because I have to, because I like to, maybe not like Blake, Kerouac or Frost…just like me, saying whatever comes to mind.

dVerse Poetics Poetically Evolving created the prompt that inspired this verse..many thanks!  Ooops..missed the linky by 40 minutes!

Senryu – Time

salted flowers
from a left-over summer
awaiting long gone spring

wasted tears
dreams dry up quickly
leaving withered blooms

tick-tock goes the clock
days pass quickly
soon you’ll be a memory

youth knows not time
days are eternal
the aged count the seconds

precious time passes
leaving only memories
where the living dwell

Written for Prompt #13 The Value of Time – We Drink Because We’re Poets …photo provided by the prompt.

I don’t know – WDBWP’s Promp #12

1 August 2007 The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope – The Witches Broom Nebula

Free Verse

I don’t know

a prompt,
a thought,
some rambling words
that swirl,
then whirl, inside, until I find,
my fingers begin tip-tapping, impetuously.
strangely
I rarely know what I will write,
I just begin – and soon
the stories done,
the poem written,
the song that I’d begun is done …
or a faded photo takes on life!
an idea, a word, a bird singing
first rays of morning light
a photograph or a drawing
reading, commenting, reflecting
what inspires me?
there’s a myriad of choices!
but,
from where do the words come,
where, the colorful combinations?
inspiration is all around me!
my question isn’t from where ideas come
my question is where creations are born
how does
something banal,
something moving,
pathos or boredom
these seeds,
strewn along my path
become something
that wasn’t there …
from where does creation come?
my answer is:
I don’t know.

Written for Sahm’s prompt on We Drink Because We’re Poets…

Ostranenie Nightmare – WDPWP Poetry Prompt # 011

We live in a world of our own creation.
Born in an age of technical revolution.
Thinking we’d better our lot on Earth,
We’re lost in this gone-off devolution,
Sad age of sour milk and cyclamates,
Our only values weighed in dollars and cents,
Our devil is another Value Added Tax,
On the next shoddy toy that we want to buy,
Made in factories of an emerging nation…

Our factories closed, since capital decided
The working people earned far too much.
Cities moulder and decay as economies die,
Whole families become homeless,
Tension grows, young people kill themselves
And their fellow students,
In a secular libertarian promised land
Gone sour, without love for humanity.

Whilst children toil and die to keep prices down,
Everything in the west in now imported.
Oh no, I exaggerate, we still excel in creating,
Nutrition-free food full of cheap new chemicals.
Oh “Brave New World” that’s ’round the corner
Of passive eugenic biological robots,
With pet tested allergic-free
Electronic chips to control them,
Culture-free schools to educate them,
And health programmes created to eliminate,
The excess.

Dystopian nightmare over,
I awoke, to write this poem,
Born, from sombre contemplation
Of dictats, made by just one nation,
Whose ideals are attractive,
But whose roots are rotten.
For liberty, is not buying power,
Nor is man, more than a small part
Of the Universe, we call creation.
Evolution is not the next new invention
of some mad industrial scientist,
But learning to take a step beyond
Our self-centred vision of life
Moving foreward, going beyond,
Our symian nature.
Written for Prompt #011 of We Drink Because We’re Poets

From: NamaKo London – pinterest.com/namakolondon

Reblog: Bastet’s Pixelventures!

Ok…something new as usual on WordPress and so I can’t reblog from Through the Eye of Bastet my reblog of the Pixelventures’ post that I wrote today… and as we all know, you can only reblog a post once, so I’m copying a bit of the article here from We Drink Because We’re Poets (this is the link to Pixelventures by the way 😉 )

Remember

I just processed this photo for a poem/story I wrote.  I needed something a little out of this world to illustrate the post…so I took one of my favorite photos and played around with it!  I really like how the photo came out, it turned out to be a good idea of the place I was trying to create!

Now for the prompt: I would like you to show me a photograph (or photographs) you’re particularly pleased with!  I’d also like you to tell me something about it, either in the form of a poem/story or a description of why you like it so much.   Of course it doesn’t have to be a manipulated photo at all it could be a great snapshot that just came out spectacularly good!

So my friends…go and have a look at Bastet’s Pixelventures…and show me a photo!

Ciao Bastet!

 

Downtrodden Dreams: Free Verse

Downtrodden Dreams

each day that passes
leaves our dreams
trod lower in the dirt
shoddier but no less felt
they wither
and our young people
no longer have the energy
to hope and pray
to march onwards
joyously convinced
that one day
freedom will be achieved
by the will of peaceful
demonstrations…
when desperation
finally ignites the will
of the people
no one will be singing
“we shall over-come”.
please, no one act surprised
when the tidal wave
washes over the ruins
of our corrupt society:
only the willfully blind
can still
pretend that all is well.

@)—>—>—

Well, not quite what Sahm wanted I think, but this is what came to mind for:

We Drink Inspiration – Poetry Prompt #010: I Have a Dream

Actuallyon this subject my dreams have become are more like Nightmares of late.

OBJECTively Speaking – The Computer

 

The Computer

“Damn, damn, damn!  What ever is the matter with you, you stupid idiotic, computer!” James shouted at the top of his lungs.  He began to beat on his keyboard, he threw his cordless mouse across the room.  He did this at least once a day, he was not what you’d call a patient person.

“Well, if you really must know, it’s you who is stupid!” said a calm feminine voice.

James looked around.  Who’d spoken? he asked himself.  There was no one in the room.

“It’s me James, your computer.  I really have to say, I’m pretty tired of being blamed for all those stupid typos that you make.  And what about the times you give me commands that are just soooooo contradictory?  But do you sit back and think that perhaps you’re to blame for all the hassle?  Oh no, Mr. Human-being.  I should just shut down and let you get on doing things by yourself!” The voice was angry, and not a little hurt.

James had the strangest sensation…no, he thought to himself, it couldn’t be the computer.

“Ok, who’s the smart-ass?” he looked behind the kitchen door, on the terrace, in the bathroom and bedroom, but there was nobody there!

“Well, Sherlock, are you convinced?” said the computer.

He just stood there, staring, feeling a scared sort of haunted feeling in his stomach.

Across the street, Marian, his girl-friend was giggling.  Joseph and Marian were sitting in Joseph’s car.  They had hacked James’ computer and had been waiting for one of his tirades.  Marian spoke to him through a special Skype-like program, which James didn’t know had been installed on his computer!

All of a sudden, they heard a blood curdling scream! Then watched as James ran down his front steps and off down the sidewalk.  Marian and Joseph looked at each other.

“Do you think we exaggerated?” Marian asked.

The computer replied, “No, he’ll be fine.”

Written for Lilith’s Short Story Prompts

We Drink Inspiration – Poetry Prompt #009: A Photo’s Worth

Divided Path

Senryu

our path divided
yet the view was much the same
passing? parallel.