To pluck a flower
Is to stop its blooming,
dooming it to wilt.
A plucked flower
Is beautiful
in its dying,
so let me instead
build you a living garden
under spring showers.
Let the skies do the crying,
while we sustain our garden
with love undying.
Season’s Fleeting [Poem]
Oh, tinsel tailor,
with your shop
full of hybrid silver
and paper snow.
Why plant trees
of plastic
with steel roots
that never grow
and top them
with stars
that never
see the sky?
Why?
Is the truth
not as beautiful
as the lie?
At DVerse this week, the prompt is to write a quadrille around the word Tinsel.
Photo by Алсу Вершинина on Unsplash
Love, Actually [Poem]
Distance is not only
a physical reality
but a feeling.
A thousand miles
can feel like no more
than the width of a paper
when hearts
are aligned.
The air in my chest
that breathes truth – all of it –
is yours
and I hope the air in yours
is mine
no matter how far we wander
or what distances
we must overcome.
Murder She …. [Short Story]
Click! What is your name?
I think that I’ve forgotten.
Tap! Tap! Fingertips whisper.
Bloody, bloody fingers.
Can you tell me why you did it?
At DVerse, the prompt today is to write a poem in the wayra form, incorporating onomatopoeia. I have amended this and written a short story in the wayra form.
Photo by The Dark Queen on Unsplash
A Fair Evening [Poem]
The dark chocolate echoing of dusk
resounds
against the Ferris Wheel
overlooking the fairgrounds
That bittersweet evening
Is on my lips
And the errant air
Tastes like apple-crisps
Though cotton-candy conversation parched,
as if by design
Your hands are water
And your lips wine
Photo by Stanislav Ferrao on Unsplash
At DVerse today, the prompt is to write a Quadrille poem consisting of 44 words exactly (not including the title) in response to the challenge. The word today is ‘Fair’ and it must be used in some form within your poem.
The Old Swing-Set [Poem]
That old swing-set
was young when I was young,
its shoulders fresh painted
and its swings not yet deep rust-set.
We made fast friends,
that old swing-set and I,
though he sometimes threw me from his shoulders
knocking my knees and dusting my hands
That swing-set’s hands are splintered
and I visit my old friend with calloused hands
to find his swings gone and his paint chipped
from when I was away those many, many winters.
I climb his side with a book in hand,
as I once did when I was younger,
and I read all afternoon with my old friend
in the shadow of the boy I was – now a man.
At DVerse, the prompt today is to write a poem recalling some specific thing or things from the past OR more generally about what evokes a memory or memories in you.
Photo by Tobias Kebernik on Unsplash
The King’s Last Stand [Short Story]
The king lay in bed with a fever. He had been this way ever since three days before, when the peasants had waged an uprising in the town outside the castle’s walls.
He could hear them dancing and singing through his window. It made him sick. How dare they take his kindness for granted?
A servant entered the room: “My lord, the people are asking you to forsake the throne. What will you do?”
The king curled up under his blankets: “I will do no such thing! Woe is me! I am bombarded yet I stand here still! I will not give up my kingdom. It is my right to rule!”
The servant slid a long dagger from the sleeve of his robe: “I have enjoyed serving you, my lord. I am sorry to hear you feel that way.”
At DVerse today, the prompt is to write a piece of flash fiction or other prose of up to or exactly 144 words, including the given line: I am bombarded yet I stand.
Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash
To Live Forever [Short Story]
If she had a name once, she had long since forgotten it. Two years ago, she signed away her identity to join human trials to solve the troublesome issue of death. They had not told her that to solve death they had to induce it many times because the scientific method demanded that their results be replicable.
The first time they killed her was not so bad. The second and third times were harder. By the fourth time, she was tired of coming back. Still, the experiments continued.
Every night her mirror reflected a faceless shadow. After two years, the experiments were declared a success. She was, beyond a reasonable doubt, the first immortal.
She traveled the world with company representatives to tout their success and sat in the front row as the scientist who had killed her 731 times accepted a Nobel Peace Prize for his work. As he took the stage, she began to cry and a reporter later wrote that she was crying with joy.
The faceless shadow from her mirror walked up and stood beside her as she cried. It leaned down and whispered to her in her own voice a language of death that only she knew. It told her it would never leave her side, as long as she lived.
For the rest of her life, and she is still alive somewhere, her death remained incarnate, cursed to live, wandering a pace or two behind her wherever she went and whispering in her ear the truths she did not want to hear.
Photo by Blake Carpenter on Unsplash
Lover Amid Ashes [Poem]
Like cigar ash
my memories of you long linger,
tight packed in my heart
and in my head.
When my lungs make room
for new memories,
the ash burns as warm
as your smile,
smelling of cedar
and butter,
tasting of
the soft-sweetest spices.
Photo by Lucas Filipe on Unsplash
The prompt on DVerse this evening is to write an ash quadrille – 44 words, including the word ash.
Seamus O'Shaughnessy, Jr. 