Friday Flash 55 for May 2020

Welcome all to this month's edition of the Friday 55. 

 The rules are unchanged; write a poem, piece of prose poetry or flash fiction on any subject, in exactly 55 words, no more, no less. Paste your link in the comments section, and I will be by to read what you have come up with.

The prompt will be live

from Thursday at midnight to Sunday at 4 PM.

~*~

Here's my 55:

Black Dog


The moon stopped talking

when you came

walking through catastrophes,

black dog that wouldn't mind

at your heel.

You couldn't stay;

I never stayed myself.

They thought they knew our best

but best's a savor
saved

for shot-silk touch

the war of wills

the game without rules;

reserved 

for those who meet breathing

and leave singing.

May 2020

Images: The Dog, 1819,  © Francisco Goya    Public Domain

Self portrait with a Black Dog, 1841,  © Gustave Corbet (manipulated) Public Domain

Blue Norther

Blue Norther

If I saw you now

blue-sudden as a Norther

borrowed cherokee hair gone snowy

wolfhound jaw locked against

the puzzle in your buckshot eyes

would it be as it was, hard with

love and leaving,

full of the boy who wasn't ours,

of jaguar ghosts, bankrupt sacrifice;

an emptying out, a fumbled
 passing on?

~April 2013
reposted January 2020

55 sharply falling degrees, once for the g-man,
and once more for
 earthweal Open Link

Process notes:  BLUE NORTHER:    Refers to a swift-moving cold frontal passage in the southern Great Plains, marked by a dark, blue-black sky with strong wintery winds from the northwest or north and temperatures that may drop 20°F to 30°F in a few minutes. ~weather.com





Image:Storm Front by Vicious Kitten on the now obsolete flick'r  Fair Use

Moonfrost

Moonfrost

There's a place

in butterfly dusk

where moonfrost drifts in sepia crystals, 

where nightbirds' wings fold

so that even flight

cannot beat its way out

of the stillness of giants.

It's the place

where you stand

in the twilight of trees, where the heart 

still stalks the thing

that thinks shadows hide it

but shows in the dark,

bright as a moon that

glows like a cygnet

asleep on a midnight lake.

~March 2018

posted for Kerry's FLASH 

 at real toads

Some mood music...

Image:Crepuscule, 1897, by Heinrich Kuhn

The Tree With All The Body's Roses

The Tree With All The Body's Roses

"She sang beyond the genius of the sea. 

The water never formed to mind or voice,   

Like a body wholly body, fluttering

Its empty sleeves..."

Wallace Stevens, The Idea of Order at Key West 

The world has parrots.

I'm looking for a songbird

in the jade well of deep forest,

a voice to bucket it up.

Behind the plastic house 

I found blue wildflowers,

watched their petals transmogrify

to wings on seeds 

 blowing like the freckles of stardust

mottling the Milky Way,
to daisy-face another autumn day  

in indigo beyond the swirling suns.

All this because a thousand years ago

in banished nights the apprentice read to me

words of a Northern heart washed up

 on a bleach and dazzle of tropic sand;

to me, his caryatid, words for a girl

 he loved I'd never be, that 
magic could not make me,

to sing beyond the genius of the sea.

Yet she brought me here, that girl,
a statue suddenly animate,

to dig and weed the heart's ground
beyond the ocean drench of chemical hope,

past youth itself in its naked greed, til at last a tree

would raise the mind's branch on which

a bird could land and sing

of all the body's roses we

never see.

~October 2017

 for October's Heart-Bits with Magaly 2017:

"The topic is simple: Love Is Love Is Love… and Words. Let’s art our loves with words in them. You can share a story or poem about why you love writing poetry, or telling tales, or singing, or painting, or dancing, or sculpting, or knitting, or bedazzling the skulls of your enemies and friends… write about the art you are happiest to create.
Your posts must contain at least one magical element and some sort of love(dark love, sweet love, ridiculous love, terrifying love, insane love, gentle love…)..."

(I hope the  young love and transmogrifying magic here is enough, even if it didn't exactly work as planned by the magician's apprentice. )

Rosa 'Pat Austen' ©joyannjones 2013
Clouds in Finland, by Konrad Kryzyzanowski  Fair Use

Friday 55 September 29 2017

Welcome, fellow travelers, to this weekly journey of 55 verbal steps which can lead to any destination. Times seem only to get crazier and more disjointed around us, so perhaps walking this path through the wilderness with the muse can bring some comfort, or at least a means to express how we feel, or maybe just the knowledge we're not alone. The rules are simple--this is a writing prompt which asks you to put your thoughts in 55 words of poetry or prose, no more no less. Leave a link to the result in the comments section, and I will be by to see what has been born. The keynote here is having some no-strings fun, but of course you may be as serious or unserious as you like. (The history of the what and why behind this meme and the G-man who began it (and to whom I tip my inadequate witchy hat) can be found here.) As always, comment moderation is on to keep the  trolls and suchlike under their bridges.

So let's get the show on the road:

Amethyst Circle 

I remember your hands

building the rain that is wrapped in morning

soft as grey feathers

not yet reshaped with the chill

that changes its nature,

not yet hard white knives

that open the veins

of fall's leavings

to rime and shrivel,

but alive, wild and strong

as the pushing seed

that cracks the stone.

~September 2017

Postscript: The title says 'Friday" but of course the 55 always stays up through the weekend to accommodate anyone dropping by.

Images: Fairy Circle, 1895, by  Carlton Alfred Grant, Public domain  (Manipulated)

Silver Maple Seedling in Chimney Bricks, ©joyannjones 2013

Friday 55 September 15 2017

Greetings, fellow travelers, and welcome to this Friday journey  which follows gleefully in the footsteps of those who blazed the trail in this unique short form for celebrating words--55 of them, to be exact--and the writers who work with them. Should you choose to join me, you pick the mood, you pick the style--light, dark, free verse, formed poetry, prose fiction or non-fiction, or any combination thereof, so long as the end result is 55 words, no more, no less. Post a link to your 55 in the comments, and I will most gladly visit to see what you have wrought and, of course, provide wishes for a kickass weekend.


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

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