Friday Flash 55 for June 2020

Welcome all. 

I know this is a difficult, even overwhelming time for many of us, 

especially when it comes to writing. I offer the 55 as an aid to composition, as a celebration of times gone by, and for my own spur to write, and I have no expectations of anyone but myself, so if you wish to participate, that is great, but if words do not come, not even 55, I understand that as well.

The rules are as always: 

write a poem, prose poem or piece of flash fiction on any subject in exactly 55 words, no more, no less. Post the link to your entry in the comments, and I will be by to read and comment on what you have written.

Having a kickass weekend is not obligatory, but always advised.

The prompt will be live from midnight Thursday til Sunday at 4:00 PM.

~*~

My 55:

War Of A Thousand Battles

Here's the war

of a thousand battles,

a hundred years,

war of roses

and dust.

Fight to standstill

ten dozen champions;

sometimes a win

if winning is

fighting again, 

sometimes a loss;

but always on guard in

the bloody brawl

til old soldiers

throw down the gun

and wait for

the last wave to come.

June 2020

Images: Head of an Old Peasant, 1874, by Ivan Kramskoy      Fair Use

The Night Guard, by Odd Nerdrum             Fair Use

Love Letter

Love Letter

[From/To Self]

An hour choking at the compassionate basin

coughing up the vinegar of your indifference,

pen an ungainly stick insect that jolts and poses

on the leaf, leaving behind its pinprick holes

and black tar droppings.

Your saloonful of buffalo girls are

making a mud-wallow of your business--

broken bottles, shots at midnight, the clumsy winding

and unpicking of the bandage, the childish rush

to clean the wound,

needle threaded with a flame

to poke white hot into your swelling

bringing only tainted blood and no relief.

There's no hero dawdling home upon

a handy wine dark wave, no velveteen nurse

to blot the nightsweat from the page,

no diagnostician or connoisseur of blight

to assure you fatality is a condition

that with proper care and rest

may show improvement.

There's only one who loved you once

and whom you've since

taught better, and no one here at all

to read a letter
never mailed.

~January 2015, rev. February 2015

Process note: I have added the subtitle (from/to self) above to clarify the intent and the point of view, ie, the 'you' here is the writer.  I have reached the point where I am through with rewriting and editing this for now, and the poem still apparently doesn't make itself clear. Apologies, and at some point may revisit to do a better job.

posted for     real toads

Kerry's Challenge: Is Love a Tender Thing?

Kerry O'Connor (Skylover) asks us to ponder some of the more obscure corners of this thing called love. Or even " to write to the theme: Love Thy Enemy or Love is The Enemy or Love, Despite Your Enemy." This is a poem about love and the inner enemy.

Image: A Lady Writing, 1665,  by Johannes Vermeer

Public domain via wikiart.org

Mimosa Afterburn

Mimosa Afterburn

After thought after hope

after pink and blue divide,

after the rain, after the slide,

twilight remains

light washed from the sky,

a grey tide dyed. Curled

in leaf and branch,

unbutterflied,

alone,  heads bent,

mimosas finely drawn,

pulled as purse strings,

gather dawn; autumn

bagged in a crumpled
Escher sketch.

Mimosas, like the old

already feel the cold;

chilled closed as yellow

bedsheets

in a house about to fold.

There used to be a paper made

for typing when I was young,

crinkled, nubbled, stiff,

translucent, easily torn; now that's

my skin, not parchment

made from sheep, 

but the overworked

soft detritus

of trees.

~October 2013

posted for     real toads

Weekend Mini-Challenge: Denise Levertov

 Kerry O'Connor has given us the poetry of Denise Levertov, born in October, to work with today. This is not particulalrly written in her style, as I'm fairly sure she seldom if ever used rhyme, but comes from the mood she left me after reading several of her poems, linked above.

Photo: mimosa yellow,  © joyannjones 2013

The Rest

The Rest

There's been too much burn,

greasy gossip

on minty tongues,

steel-bar troths

of drifting down.

You bent, picked me up.

No one does that;

not since I sat bawling

over falling

 blocks

(and then 

only to shake me 

till I stopped)

Carried eyelid to eye

like this

somehow a person

might finally believe

the rest.

~August 2013

 

55 wooden alphabet blocks for      the g-man

Image: Eyelid to Eye, © joyannjones 2013