Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

conspirito seas
our dance is the faena
your quarried bull tides

purchase time in arcs
as we leap then dive inside
your body's blue heart.
(or your corporal heart)

The paint had darkened.
From the stern flaked the florid
letters of a name

I hadn’t taken
time to learn. Intructress-like,
down mossed steps she came.

“Down the swamped staircase,
into the silt,” she murmured
a strange melody:

“Come kiss my fair face,
taste souls I have spilt.” Lissome,
she moved toward me.

Bubbles fizzed about
my head as I adjusted
the regulator,

my heart beating fast.
Instinct said I’d breathe no more,
should I await her.

M wrote: "The paint had darkened.
From the stern flaked the florid
letters of a name

I hadn’t taken
time to learn. Intructress-like,
down mossed steps she came.

“Down the swamped staircase,
into the silt,”..."

I really like this poem, M!

Thank you, Nicky!

Stunning, M! I really like that one.

Thank you, Ryan! I just sort of got started, then kept adding to it.

It works really well, I like the story aspect. It reminds me of snippets from a black and white movie.

As if from long rolls
of silent film, quavering
on a threadbare screen,

in through the portholes
came eerily wavering
shafts of brownish green,

a strange dream’s stage lights
showing the curve of her hips--
but woman or fish?

Those cupid’s bow lips!
She studied me with big eyes,
like Lillian Gish.

her eyes glinted in
the lights, reminding me of
a rose-colored past.

(Good continuation, Leslie!)


The lampblack tendrils
of the past, strands of her hair,
with a slimy sheen,

swayed near the shadowed,
mossed-green mast of her dim lair--
a lovelorn undine!

Saturday's sure tale (tail)
'mong surf birds and surgeon fish
her foothold until

He would bring her back
wrapped in horse's footcloth
stammering his Love.

This will be a challenge to follow. Very nice, Cat!

Hammer in his glove,
he knocks down her door and laughs.
Her nightmare made real.

she watched in horror,
her dashing knight turned into
a pink-eyed monster

(sorry!)

I'm not sure if I've used this one before or not, but I think it fits.


I was never free
Each action judged and controlled
Afraid to break out

I wake in terror
Of course the monsters are real
Sleep will not return

Wrestle your monster
or hide in a gold bronze jar,
Lalapalooza.

Excellent everyone!

The mosh pit monster
Pitched herself into the ring
And began to sing
A song of read red roses
Stubbed toes and broken noses.

Writhing, squealing with
delight, she wrestled monsters
until late at night.

A tempered tempo
Shaking with anger; bruising
Her slight, pale elbows.

A spike in the pulse
Red hair spilling over a
Broken microphone

Bloody lips, no teeth
To gnash over this open
Interpretation

Of what it means to
Lift above the gaping mouths
Your wrists, uncorked veins

Spilling passion down
Convulsing throats tasting all
The honeyed glory

Alabaster shins
I destroyed them both beneath
An angry sun god



(Alternatively:
The exit of poolside youths
Took too long for my pale legs.
Feel the burn! Damn kids.)

The “alabaster shins” haiku is one of my new favorites. Great writing!

As midday ripples
the green-yellow-taupe forest
of beach umbrellas,

splintered pilings jut
skewed from slow undulations
of scattered diamonds.

Her red-nailed fingers,
smelling of suntan lotion,
turn a dog-eared page.

Coral tinted shades
Overlook a flounder's pace
Trailing a mermaid

Thanks, M and Alex. :)

Tailing the mermaid
The old salty dick floundered
Lost in her coral,
A labyrinthine red shade
A shadow lost in her heart.

dark are the chambers
haunting this shadowed vessel;
an absence of light

A blackened abscess
Tended to in the darkness
A dream's requiem

The painter's tendril
Tied him to where light is not,
Her breath, outside time.

Studio Trellis.
Usually honeysuckly
fingers grieve the light-

The ferrule broken
on the brush, she dry paints leaves
of monstrous wild vines,

old moss-bearded oaks,
the swamp shore’s hush, the rusting
No Trespassing signs.

A mob of pink moss
in the quagmire of lost
Mobile, AL

Lovely, M!

Again this is part of a bigger poem:

Empty and alone,
Spiraling out of control,
Lost and powerless,

I hated my life,
All I had done and the things
That were done to me.

It seemed the abuse
I’d for so long suffered had
Broken me at last.

The only spirit
I had left was that within
The nearest bottle.

(Thank you, Guy!)


The Wurlitzer turned
old forty-fives, choruses
of diamond-gouged grooves,

of faithless loves, drink-
sodden lives, the way the girl
mixing cocktails moves.

From peat-smoky green
a Dewar’s undine appeared
in the dim lounge light,

with love-haunted sighs
and long-lashed eyes that beckoned
far into the night.

M that's just lovely, I love those barely perceptible rhymes - they seem effortless, another one of your poems that demanded to be spoken aloud!

[How to follow that?]

Her chestnut brown locks
tossed in the windless night, as
she blinked back the tears

the portrait she once
loved, now washed away to the
shore of wasted years

There's stars in the trees
Tied down so effortlessly
To bloom in the spring
To turn in the breeze
Among the birds and the bees
Bright, shining and green

Great continuation, Leslie! And nice, Rachel.


Taut in verdant hues
The leaves lit by the fall sun
Teach of ease and grace.

(Thank you, Nicky! Leslie, Rachel, and Guy, these are excellent!)


Beyond a gatepost’s
silver halide long shadow
sprawls a rutted waste.

Morning comes too soon
Yet my hunger never sleeps
I will eat the sun

(Courtesy of my roomiebestie over breakfast.)

Backlit by sunrise,
her split ends move as though pushed
by faint solar winds.

The harsh light of the
sun shone through the lines on her
palms, revealing lies.

A transparent girl
Goes opaque in the fog lights
Obscuring her truth

Black walnut and cream,
her skin, her brown tangled hair,
in beams of search lights.

She looks hungrily,
From within a grove of walnuts,
For her fast respite.

An inveterate
foosball nut, he was a slim,
seven-foot-tall nut.

reconstitute zeal
the gate keeper of a leaf-
the curtain's chief chief.

The land snail has not
astragal virtues like you
but you are a sun.