Category: Prose Poetry

I’m Rooting for the Ghost — #writephoto

After Michael saw the ghost he understood. What he understood he would not say. True knowledge should not be made so literal that any monkey could understand it.

Anne sympathized with him but she thought his deranged prefrontal whatchamacallit generated the ghost. Otherwise why was he locked up with her?

Michael told her she could escape with him through the skylight of the cell. Anne said she would consider it. That was the only reason Michael told the ghost to wait.

Text: Linked to Sue Vincent’s #writephoto .
It is now also Story 100 in Christopher Fielden’s 81 Words, a project attempting to “set a Guinness World Record for the most contributing authors published in an anthology”. They have 102 stories so far and need 898 more as of 8:38 AM CST today.

Photo: Sue Vincent provided the photo for the prompt.

Sue Vincent's #writephoto icon

The Opening — #writephoto Sight

Even a thick, stone wall can have an opening letting light through like a window with a rock-hard frame. Outside our window two cars stopped. The front car was undamaged. The front bumper of the rear car, however, hung almost to the ground which made the accident look worse than it was.

Standing on the grass a sixteen-year-old girl watched an older woman, the driver of the front car, examine the damages. Her brother stood by her side ready to act if there was anything he needed to do, but there wasn’t much he could do.

A third car arrived. A second woman stepped out and the two adults talked. The second woman gave the first her insurance information and then she walked to her daughter. One could sense the daughter’s tears hiding behind her eyes and deepening frown. I imagine she wanted to know what was so wrong with her that she could have unintentionally and unexpectedly damaged her family.

Her mother’s arms opened and wrapped themselves around her daughter. Now we all have these openings, if we want to use them, but sometimes, perhaps because the fairy tales we tell ourselves aren’t real, we do not think we do. Anyway, without demanding an explanation, the mother emptied the tears hiding in her daughter’s heart through the opening of her own.

Linked to Sue Vincent’s #writephoto Sight.  She provided the photo for the prompt.

Sue Vincent's #writephoto icon
Sue Vincent’s #writephoto icon

Birds

Birds line up near the water’s edge to watch the sunrise on the beach. So do a few people although not in such nice lines. Workers collect garbage from trash containers. Others drive tractors smoothing the sand roughed from yesterday’s play. Unintentionally they make raked Japanese Zen gardens, but without the stones. They are so perfect they need delicate footsteps. So much order also wants to be beautiful.

BIRDS OBSERVE THE SUN
ROUGH WAVES SOOTH THE WINTER SHORE
WALK THROUGH FRESH RAKED SAND

Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday.   Victoria C. Slotto is hosting with the theme Wabi-Sabi, the art of imperfection.
Photos: “Sunrise Watching” above and the collage “Bird Tracks on the Beach” below both by the author.  These are linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “Birds and Bees”.
Come join us with your photos and haibun!

Bird Tracks on the Beach

The Wind — #writephoto

When harsh winds blow some whine, “How the wicked wind oppresses me!” Others wonder how they could make money off that wind by grinding grain or generating electricity. One turns it into poetry. The other turns a profit.

The Little People dwelt in the windmill. Like everyone they loved good stories. The Big People owned the mill. They tolerated the Little People because they bravely fought the Hungry Mice who wanted the grain as much as they did. “Get your own grain!” the Little People shouted. As a reward the Big People let the Little People have enough for their needs and internet connections.

Everything trended nicely, but the problem with trends is people forget once something goes one way long enough that it could go the other way. So most everyone confidently predicted everything would stay the same and every time it stayed the same their predictions came true. True, there were some who feared the end was always near, but that’s how their minds trended and they were usually wrong.

One day Wicked Wind joined Raging Fire and burnt whatever was dry including the windmill. The Big People were no longer big. They looked little and the Little People had no home. Even the mice were unhappy.

Illnesses popped up out of nowhere. The mice were blamed. The homeless Little People were blamed. The formerly Big People were blamed. The poetry and stories went dark and conflict trended.

The mice, who could not access the windmill, quickly recovered. Meanwhile the wind stirred the People mixing the big with the small as their generations sailed through birth and death until they rewrote their stories and survived.

Linked to Sue Vincent’s #writephoto Sails.
Photo provided by Sue Vincent.

Sue Vincent's #writephoto icon

While looking back at Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason, I think this post fits Day Six about the “violent wind”.

Faces

I put the flower in a cup of water so it will not wilt. The cat puts her face in it as well. She wonders what that flower is doing here. The flower isn’t doing anything. It would have preferred to remain where it had been attached to its true source of nourishment and understanding, its roots. They miss each other.

Birds sit on a railing watching me approach. They aren’t struggling to survive. Survival is not that hard. They are not afraid I will pick one of them and put it in a cup of water so it will not wilt. I have no crumbs for them. They don’t mind.

SUMMER FLOWERS CUT
KIKI DRINKS BLOSSOM WATER
BIRDS WATCH AS I WALK.

Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Toni is hosting on any topic.  Come join us to write a haibun.
Photos: “Kiki Hiding Her Face” and “Birds on Boardwalk”, below, both by the author. These are linked to K’lee and Dale‘s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “faces”. My cat Kiki’s face is hidden.  The birds don’t mind showing their faces anywhere.

Birds on Boardwalk

Coconut Oil, Bad Guys and the Rising Sun

I don’t think the brain wants coffee as much as coconut oil. I put a large tablespoon of it in my coffee each morning. I know that sounds gross, but milk is just as gross, if you pause briefly to think about it, and don’t get me started on what coffee shops do with whipped cream. I prefer coffee strong and black in a real mug, but the brain doesn’t only need coffee to see straight.

Truly true stories don’t have bad guys. There aren’t as many out there anyway who want to feast on us like we feast on whatever we can. It’s not that there aren’t bad guys, people who, even with the gates open, even with there being no gates, even with there being no outside, feel unworthy to enter paradise. It’s more like we need some coconut oil in our coffee to see them better.

I take for granted that the Sun will rise in the morning. Is that because the Sun or the Earth loves us? We don’t like to think so, but what we like to think doesn’t matter when it comes to reality. Besides, we will abandon them before they abandon us. If I were the Sun, or the Earth, I would love to indiscriminately scatter crumbs to whomever was out there, good or bad, like an offering.

Some people drink coffee out of the skin of an avocado–or so I’ve heard. That drink must be hard to hold. All they’re lacking to make a really bad mess is whipped cream.

Linked to Jill Lyman’s Day Two post in the series 28 Days of Unreason based on reading Jim Harrison’s Songs of Unreason. The theme is about the Sun forgetting to rise.
Photo: “Rising Sun” by the author

Message — #writephoto Messenger

If my imaginary friend had more brains I’d trust her advice, but when Alice tells me something I have to examine it from all angles, especially those angles I forget to check. It might be the best advice I’ll get today, but I really should be getting it tomorrow–or yesterday.

I once told her that a neuroscientist would likely think she was some configuration of neurons acting up in my head. She observed, “They don’t know jack. Do you really think I’m a figment of your imagination?” She expected an answer, and silence wouldn’t do, so I tried dodging the question by saying, “I don’t even know what my imagination is!” She didn’t think I had one either.

“What do you think that crow means in the sky?” Alice gazed at some bird.

“What crow?”

“The one in front of your face. And you think I’m in your imagination? You’re too dumb for me to fit in there.”

Then I think I saw what she was referring to: “That bird?”

“You better get your phone out before it’s too late–Ah!! Too bad. It’s too late. It’s gone.”

That saved me from getting out my phone.

“So what do you think it meant?” Her questions are not speculations for someone sitting in a parallel universe or falling through a black hole or bobbing back and forth in some time wormhole to contemplate. She demands real answers in the real world.

“Well, you know, it could mean anything.”

“Come on, brainless! Black crow, blue sky, flying by. What’s the message?”

“Do you know?” I might as well ask the one with brains.

“Nope.”

Linked to Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt — Messenger #writephoto.
Photo provided by Sue Vincent for the prompt.

Sue Vincent's #writephoto icon

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