Friday 55 June 8 2018

Welcome to the Friday word emporium, 55ers. Here we try to put aside the conventions of the blogosphere and look to our own craft, in a place I like to think of as a comfortable room full of non-judgemental kindred spirits, an atmosphere I always felt when this meme was overseen by its generous originator, Galen Hayes. The rules remain the same, no rules except the word count, 55 of them, no more, no less, prose, poetry, satire, lyric, narrative lament...whatever you can wrap your pen around.

Link your effort in the comments below between Friday and Saturday at midnight, and I will be by to read.

Without further ado, let's start the 55 rolling:

Resonance

Sampling

the aquifer of her 

semi-conductive sorrows

my clone begins

to hate me.

Who 

could blame her

blistered

with alien faults,

given not life

but a monotone's bastard

resonance,

no cry, no song's sigh

to cipher our carrion end.

The soul she cannot twin

fears her. Eternity shines 

liquid before me;

forever she's held

homeless.

 ~June 2018

Images: Polar Light, 1926, ©Rene Magritte   Fair Use

Title unknown, ©Dmitry Brodetsky, via internet. Fair Use.

Clocking Out

Clocking Out

2:07 pm in the 1932

over the flattest bridge

in the arrondissement, flyblown

with grey men in black hats,

where I hadn't been born

just to die but

many

many who had

were getting ready

after a glass of Pernod, of absinthe,

after another gasper.

I punched in

for the

salvage, for the

love-making bedded

in mustard-gas linen

with souls of dead boys precison-worked

behind lively eyes, 

(mais pas les généraux, 

or insects in black hats.) My

sequins bright as

the flash

of rat's eyes in trenches,
feathers to fly
my velvet cloche helm v.
the midnight sword wind
off the Somme, the sweep,
the stench. It
was only a dance
beneath the clock
of statues, of bones, a few seconds
excused
from hundred-year plagues

sent by that god who gives nothing
a  defense--jamais de la vie!--
not even the bee

except for
the sting that kills it.

~June 2018

for Kerry's camera

Another one without much editing--thanks to Kerry for the photographic nudge.



Image: Clock of the Académie Française, Paris
Andre Kertesz (1932)

Friday 55 June 1 2018

Welcome dear 55ers to another month and another Flash Fiction Friday, which almost didn't happen as I have had recurring connectivity issues in my antiquated DSL. If I am mysteriously absent, it will be due to circumstances beyond my control.

This meme is dedicated to its originator Galen Hayes, remembered with respect and affection for his ability to see the dark laughter under the surface of this life.The blogosphere has changed dramatically since his heyday just a few short years ago, but this meme hasn't--it's still no rules except 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less.


So, enough introduction--link your 55 in the comments below between Friday and Saturday at midnight, and let's kick this weekend's ass.

My 55 :

Losing My Grip

Each week the days are

a mangled non-sequitur, a hand's

fingers frankenstein-pieceworked:

Monday a fat woman's thumb

barely able to oppose,

Tuesday's delicate index
blush-nail-manicured,
astonished by work,

Wednesday
my own
upthrust twig,

Thursday's scarab-claw digit

a pharoanic relict,

Friday a child's pudgy pinkie
short as summer.

How can this hand

grasp
 anything
at all?

~May 2018

And because I am tired of unadulterated gloom, some Frankenfurterian musical accompaniment:

Images: Illustration © Eko, in The New Republic 

Still,  from Frankenstein (silent movie) 1910    Fair Use

Friday 55 May 25 2018

Welcome to another careen of words, carousel of craft, caravan of form and fuss--the G-man's meme, originated by a host remembered for bringing laughter and support, the flash fiction 55. As usual, there are no rules except the word count, 55 of them, no more, no less, poetry or prose, satire, lyric, or narrative, whatever brings a gloss to your ink. Link your effort in the comments below between Friday and Saturday at midnight, and I will be by to see what you have come up with. Please bear with me as I will be off in chaos country much of the time.

My 55 this week....

Absence and Dismay

By nightlight

your face withdrawn

paler than pillows

than appleblossom

warmed open

blurring for the bee

stilled in the comb.

Here, darkening

red spit of annihilation,

black ash of the curse,

 joker's smile

on mimewhite skin,

thin snow of an off-year

over the stubborn skull

and a nightbird to

sing to us

whatever is left.

~May 2018

Images: Detail, Apple Tree In Blossom, Gustave Caillebotte, 1885, Public Domain
Night, c. 1953 ©Marc Chagall, Fair Use

Down Below

Down Below

A long run last night

under the Silver Eye

Blood on my hide

but not my own.

Here I lie

where the Red Eye

cannot come, where nothing comes

but Death and the turquoise tide.

Here no sound

of song or voice, no hand, alone;

coppery tongue, asleep on bones

and no one comes.

The longhouse winks

its Yellow Eyes, cruel firelight

alive inside, so many smells

a sound like bells

I cannot make

but feel its form

like dust in my throat,

conceived but unborn.

They screamed to see me,

long tongues to greet me slipped

their sharpened iron; I broke them

then, the rafters dripped---

why shouldn't they die?

Soon someone will come.

~April 2015

a monster-waiting-for-his-hero poem, reposted for
Brendan's Hero on the Road

(originally written for National Poetry Month 2015 with Magaly Guerrero

I Hear Fictional Poets:

Create a poem written from the point of view of a fictional character.)

This poem is written in the voice of Grendel,  the 'shadow-walker,'  monster from Beowulf, 

".. an Old English epic poem..[and].. possibly the oldest surviving long poem in Old English..It was written in England some time between the 8th and the early 11th century^..."  "... Beowulf leaves [his kingdom in Sweden or Norway] to destroy Grendel, who has several times killed those asleep in the mead-hall of [the king of the Danes] after having been disturbed by the noise of the drunken revelers. After a long battle, Beowulf mortally wounds Grendel, and Grendel dies in his marsh-den..."~wikipedia

 

A favorite tale of mine, retold and filmed many many times.This is my favorite indie movie version.  

Beowulf and Grendel

Images:Untitled, by Zdislav Beksinski     Fair use

Primitive Man Seated In Shadow, by Odilon Redon    Public domain