As always, comment moderation is on to weed out bots, ego-freaks, dilettantes and trolls.
So, without further ado, my 55 for this week:
The Apple of My Eye
The jade moon canted slant,
fruit flew through the air;
I wore only black
with white-painted lips.
I danced in your
shadow
or on your sharp teeth,
tongued into oblivion;
an unseated eye
in a caramel apple,
wobbled in chaos
by a sticky-fingered brat
back when love played
at Surrealism
at Surrealism
and twirled its Dali mustache.
~September 2017
For background on this meme, and the man who created it, Galen Hayes, go here.
Note: For me this meme will always be about getting together with friends and having fun, but I want to emphasize that there are no strings, nothing obligatory, no rounds to make except those
you feel up for--use your 55 to connect if you so desire, or simply as a vehicle
to provide that nudge when you're stuck, the challenge to be
concise, a fillip of honed idea to take you into the weekend. There's nothing wrong with reaching out to support others (except when it strangles the desire to participate at all) but many many
sites exist for that, so here it is purely optional.
Image: The Eye, 1945, © Salvador Dali
Here's my burnt offering for this week, Joy. Thanks for the hospitality.
ReplyDeletehttp://excursionsanddiversions-sking.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-gathering.html
And thanks to you for playing, Steve. May thy weekend wield a sturdy foot on fate's stern. ;_)
DeleteI will never be able to see eyeballs (especially flying eyeballs) without thinking of Poe... And Poe is creepiest happiness. Then, I go down your poem and find a half-mad love delighting in the dark and (because this is obviously happening in universe that perfect for me) also dancing "on sharp teeth".
ReplyDeleteLove everything about this. But, you probably already knew that. :-)
And here is my bit, "This Lingering Maybe": http://magalyguerrero.com/this-lingering-maybe/
Thanks so much Magaly. I am so happy that you chose to write one of your deliciously dark fictions for this--I think it's much more challenging to write a 55 word tale than a 55 word poem--well, at least for me, since I am crap at fiction. Have a very very kickass weekend, dear friend.
DeleteI, too, feel that fiction is a tad more challenging when we only have 55 words. Poetry lets us get away with not sharing a lot, with making everything mysterious and ambiguous and delicious... In fiction, we kind of have to show (or, at least, point towards) the delicious.
DeleteI hope your weekend is glorious. Mine seems to be starting well, since I only had to stay at the hospital for a day. WoooHooo!
Yay on the brevity at the doctor house! I really admire those who like you and Shay also, tho she does it rarely now, can go from the wildest poetry to the best of narrative prose--I have no such skill, so I just plod away with my ambiguous and mysterious self. ;_)
DeleteWhat is a fillip? You always use words I don't understand. ;-)
ReplyDeleteIntriguing, here's mine:
http://fireblossom-wordgarden.blogspot.com/2017/09/ever-lady-shameful-confession.html
Ha! As you well know, my wordsmith, a fillip is " noun 5.an act or instance of filliping; a smart tap or stroke. 6.anything that tends to rouse, excite, or revive; a stimulus.." I am off to check out yours.
DeleteFruit, black, and b(r)at have my mind thinking of cute little batties wrapped in taco blankies, which I'm guessing isn't what you were after? Your closing effect is something only you could manage--to convey a time, an attitude, and an evolution of emotion and hard-won wisdom (which never seems to be nearly as much fun as some of the mistakes that brought it about) in just 55 words.
ReplyDeleteLaughin. I do see how fruit bats could feel at home here, tho. And yeah, wisdom is seldom worth the things we give up for it. Thanks for your comment, and even more, for your contribution of wise silliness.
DeleteJoy,
ReplyDeleteIn "Apple..." the last few lines bring completely to ground the fantastical imagery that before bore up the surrealism of desire, expectation and whatever might pass for fulfillment. I truly like the exorbitant contrasts.
SK
Thanks, Steve. Your poem was a very great pleasure to me, as well.
DeleteWonderful, Joy. I love your homage to the G-man, whom I did not know but have heard so many wonderful things about.
ReplyDeleteThank you Sherry--feel free to join in any time. Knowing the G-man is not a prerequisite. :_)
DeleteJoy if only poetry could be hung on museum walls...
ReplyDeleteI danced in your shadow
or on your sharp teeth,
As long as we are still dancing we know we haven't been devoured.
So if this is the new legacy home for G-man I may have to sharpen my wit and lose some of my tendency toward verbosity and give the 55 a go again.
Thanks, and I hope you will, Mark. I am doing this for my own satisfaction, mostly, because writing has become very difficult for me, but I would love the company, and especially from those who remember Galen. I will be here every Friday.
DeleteOddly enough That same reflection on how writing has become more difficult is seen all up and down my side bar blogroll. We, or many of us, seem to be pencils worn down to not much more than a nib. Slowly though I am finding my anger, my direction, and my use of the Oxford comma. With that I am mining graphite as the eye slowly opens again.
DeleteBe Well friend, safe journey.
And you. Have to agree, too--in times of chaos and utter raging bullshit, nothing calms and filters the whirlwind to tangible form like the Oxford comma.
DeleteI really do love a poem that is really a portal into the mind - both that of the writer and reader.
ReplyDeleteSo good to see you, Kerry. Thanks.
DeleteHere's a little something in 56 words (Oops)
ReplyDeleteNightscape
Night came early
and wrapped me tightly
in his brown arms
each breath he drew
was slow
slow
and he exhaled me
away from here
so I slept in a foreign place
amid cactus and stone
forehead pressed to the burnt umber
of his chest
rising
rising and falling
swathed in a blanket thick as blood.
Thanks, Hedge.
This is full of mood and mystery, like the night itself and the dreams in which we traverse it. As I've often found using this and other short forms, the brevity provides a kick of its own, a certain intensity--here you've used both that and repetition to paint the spectrum of your idea. SO glad you were able to contribute! And 55--56--who's counting? ;_)
DeleteIt's Kerry, yay! Love the mystery and strangeness this evokes.
DeletePassing through...
DeleteLove this Kerry -- I don't know if this is true for you, but finding words to write again after silence is like learning a new language in which the sparing basic are all we have to work with. Flint-strikes like this will light the fire. A strange and dark bed here, passage through & with the night.
DeleteNight is the best of lovers--mysterious, set on his ways, unstoppable... I love this, Kerry, especially the idea of being "exhaled". What a feeling!
DeleteI agree with B--after silence, the voice changes, I wouldn't say whispers, but finds a simpler tongue. If you are meant to be that ear that passes it on, I don't think you ever go as deaf as you think, however silent it seems around you at times. Thank you for speaking here, Kerry.
Deletegood to see you, Kerry. and you, Hedge. if I had something, I'd add it, but ... well, ya know. ~
DeleteThank you for the encouragement, friends. I am writing but not posting, so I appreciate the forum.
Delete@Kerry-Glad to hear you are writing, and I totally understand the not posting--I do both but am not (often) linking. It's clarifying and peaceful, I think. You know you are always welcome here, as reader, writer, or whatever.
Delete@M-glad you came by, good to know you are out there and that our words can rattle around in your head til your own words come.You, too, are always welcome(as I'm sure you know.)
i had 3 aborted attempts at a 55 for this one. when I can't drive 55 (cue bad Sammy) then i know it's an empty rattle.
Deleteyour next pen is fantastic. i'm glad for your writing ~
Thanks, M--and better luck next time.
DeleteThere's something quaint and boxed about this surrealist poem, a way of looking that passed from fashionable sight long ago: If Blake is right and "as the Eye is formed, such are its Powers" then whatever we were crazy about (or what made us crazy) in the formational years of youth & love & etc become bedrock in the ordering. (I'll always have a drunken lyric Roethke swingin' in my lines). The dreamlike blacklit askance of this stages an old ritual reenactment -- the hymeneal dance with the Paramour, perhaps -- an old, trusty, dusty tune found afresh here. Sorry I haven't gotten around, crazy week.
ReplyDeleteNo apologies needed, B--I'd say the climatic upheaval probably is at least as difficult as the climacteric one. ;_) Yes, what we were then is always part of who we are now, and how we can dance when we remember it. Thanks so much, and for your prompt: in the midst of chaos, order.
DeleteWell, it's not Friday anymore... not sure if you still count this as fashionably late, but here goes: https://othermary.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/mid-night/
ReplyDeleteHope you have a kickass weekend, rather than the weekend kicking your ass!
Joy, I love your dancing in shadows and on teeth... a most surreal feel to this. And thanks again for doing this.
ReplyDeleteYou're so welcome, Mary--though I am loving doing it, so it's not exactly a horrible chore. ;_) Thank you for playing--it gladdens my heart.
DeleteJoy, I like your sticky apple fingers....please accept my sugary mess a bit late. But technically, Sunday is still the weekend, right? Thanks, Angie.
ReplyDeletehttps://angieinspired.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/how-was-it/
That was quite the sock to the breadbasket, especially in only 55 words, angie. Thanks so much for joining us in this workshop of brevity.
DeleteIf it can't be said in 55, it can't be said.
Delete