Brewing nostalgia – tanka
the pot on the stove
bubbles up aromas from
childhood. Warm, soothing
comforting, like Mother’s touch
like a loyal puppy lick
~~~
Monthly Archives: October 2015
Sensuous Sundays – Eddies of memories
Eddies of memories – tanka
fleeting sandal scent
like a rogue wind whirlpools leaves
stirs up memories
chasing the light on your skin
all the way into shadows
~~~
It rains inside me
(100 word flash fiction)
It had been raining that day when you ran from my arms and down the driveway to the waiting school bus. So eager you had been to show off your new raincoat, you had not even turned back to wave goodbye.
Every year, I bought new clothes for you just a little bit bigger. Added one more candle to your birthday cake. Redecorated your room, changed the posters. I hope you like Jennifer Lawrence.
They said you’re dead. But they didn’t find your body, did they?
Today, there are 21 candles. Who could be at the door in this downpour?
~~~
It is spring here and we are tired of the rain, wanting only fine, sunny days, but Rochelle has to post a rainy night photo just so that we don’t forget to feel grateful for the rain 🙂 The weekly party just started over at Friday Fictioneers with this photo prompt –
Sensuous Sundays – Kiwifruit
Kiwifruit – haiku
mini bursts of
sunshine turn into honey
did I hear a bee?
~~~
(image source – internet)
Suspended
(100-word flash fiction)
The chair topples on the first kick. As if on cue, she steps outside herself.
She is amazed at how the body is wired for survival, as she watches the legs, puppet-like, kick into thin air. Chest straining, by habit, trying to suck in air, so abundant outside. Face crimsoning as blood rushes to her brain. Bells going on inside, screaming ‘Mayhem!’ ‘Mayhem!’
She loses all sense of time. And that dreary greyness that had festered inside her like a light-sucking ghost. She crackles with an aliveness her body had never felt. Unimaginable lightness fills her being.
The door opens.
~~~
Rochelle has posted a lovely image for this week’s Friday Fictioneers prompt.
Photo © Ted Strutz
The gift
On dVerse Poets, it’s Abhra’s birthday and he asks, what gift we would like to give him. Or the world. As I was reading his post, quite by happy chance, I heard the tui call …
The gift – tanka
into the cup of
the evening the tui
drops its golden song
my beggar heart rejoices
the moon rises in delight
~~~
What do I call you?
We were young and grieving when we met.
Pain had sat on our smiles like wounded birds, afraid to fly. And shone from our eyes, like rough-cut diamonds. It must have emanated from our being, white-hot and searing, drawing us together like moths to a flame. Like little girls, we had giggled, eating candy floss, as though we could pluck joy out of the cool, night air with sticky fingers. Maybe we laughed because we wanted to cry. Maybe we realised that pain can be transmuted into joy. Our hearts cut open and the pain billowing out with our out-breaths allowing joy to flow in with our in-breaths.
That night, at the fair
Joy was sweet, light candy floss
You woke up smiling
I dare not think what I would be if you had not come into my life. It’s like imagining a rainbow with colours missing. Or music with holes in it, the heart searching, in vain, for the missing parts. Or spring without butterflies, afternoons heavy with torpor. I am grateful for the pain that brought you to me, bound us together and then set us free.
What do I call you?
for some things there are no words
just joyful silence
~~~
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Bjorn and Hamish have set the challenge for Haibun Monday – to write a Haibun inspired by Khalil Gibran’s words. The edict is to write only one haiku, but I am a rule-breaker, and also, the second one just prostrated itself on the page. What to do? I couldn’t kill it. Sorry, Bjorn.
What do I say about Gibran? The heart swells up with joy just thinking about his words. The lyricism, the melody, the grace, the soulfulness and of course, the simple truth in them. I am eternally grateful to the person who introduced me to Gibran.
Sensuous Sundays – Fresh sheets
Fresh sheets – haiku
lying on sheets, crisp
with sunlight, redolent of
sky and fragrant winds
~~~
Minnie Mouse
(100-word flash fiction)
“Matt, come here!” His father’s shout shatters his glorious dream, in which a spaceship had landed beside his house, extended a long, metal arm into his pesky sister’s window, extracted her and shimmered out of view.
His mother’s staring at something on the table. Above the shaving foam over half his face, his father’s frown is ominous.
The object on the table whirrs, beeps and glows incandescent blue.
His brother, Mark, bursts into the room. “I can’t find Minnie anywhere. She’s gone missing.”
“Wowser!” His grin is wicked. “It wasn’t a dream. They took Minnie and left a mouse instead.”
~~~
Come Friday, (or almost) it’s time to write a piece of flash fiction for the eclectic group Friday Fictioneers hosted by the lovely Rochelle.
Photo Copyright: Marie Gail Stratford
For the rest of the FF stories –
Just Joyfulness 