Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

Rolfe liked his nights dark,
his fields fallow, his ale deep,
his women shallow.

Sigh and awaken
from an oak shade’s dappled green,
from soon-distant sounds,

from petals shaken
by gusts from a gardenia
on the sloping grounds.

Lo!
Of course a sentence can be deemed less mystical because it is unbroken. But language in all guises is fully magic and wonder.

How about this six word wander?
And like all who use should that wonder will be left in potentia.

Rachel wrote: “I wandered the woods
Ripped the knees, tore all the seams . . .”

This is beautiful! (I’m just now catching up on these.)

Paula Tohline wrote: "Another American Sentence:

There comes a time when all of us should offer up our souls to wonder."

That's lovely Paula - it feels like it should be a famous quote!

As they said goodbye
the trees around cried petals
peppering their path

Very nice, CJ!

(Nice, Alex!)


Frank knew she’d find him
again, in some old file, when she
brushed long, graying strands.

Thanks M!

She humored him but
sighed at the quip: "You be pass-
ive but I'll be Frank."

The woman, Frank knew,
who wore a satisfied smirk
was Eve Madora,

whose face he’d last seen,
her mink stole, in a tavern
outside Mariole.

His mink fedora,
on the eve he last he saw her,
stole off with her stole.

He could envision
her in mink, who in gloves stood
tiredly at the sink.

On dream wings she flies,
past clouds and 'bows. Full, the sink;
empty, her pillbox.

Her hair up, she wears
a viola’s long shadows
of unmarked crossroads,

of barns’ rusting roofs,
a piano’s broken chords
of barbed-wire fences.

Stunning!

Thank you, Ryan! You set the bar pretty high.

This one of yours was going through my head the other day while I was mowing. It’s one of my favorites.

A martini swim,
while good for the skin, can leave
your Dorian gray.

Much better, I think,
to limit your drink and learn
a Lydian A...

I'm flattered! (Or perhaps you were just thirsty...)

Where Vulture cries join
with dead mens' groans, yellow bricks
crack; she walks alone.

In rusty cage, by
soggy loam, a parched chap thirsts
for a ticket home.

(Beautiful, Ryan! How to follow that?)


From the roiling smoke
of the marsh lords’ wars, where thought
and hope malingered,

“In slime and darkness,
die on all fours!” she beckoned,
fair, lilac fingered.

(Thank you, and WOW!)

Over starlit moors
and shadowed fens, her siren's
song gaily lilted,

"Come hither, brave men
and slumber within." Beneath
her, lilac wilted.

Great stuff... miss you guys! not sure I can come up with anything at the moment.

Hey, Jim! Hope you're well ;)

I enjoy moments like these. To read as people paint beautiful images and worlds with words. Awesome.

What a compliment! Thank you, C.J.

*Bows* Welcome. :)

Ghostly firelight plays
on walls where ale-bulged barrels,
where pewter flagons,

stacked in Valhalla’s
eternal halls, are guarded
by green-scaled dragons.

Beyond the reach of
dragon-flight, maids of Odin
in autumn mists cry

for fair Honah-Lee,
slipped from sight, to vaults only
Valkyries dare fly.

(Whatever this internal-rhyme form is, you’ve mastered it, Ryan. These are excellent!)

Thanks, M. Just trying to keep pace.

Locked safely away,
Her glorious soul shall stay,
Until judgement day.

Save yourselves I plead,
for Heaven is forever,
the world is all greed.

Beautiful return to form, Mandy. Welcome back!

Very nice, Mandy!

Thanks guys.

Dazed in the Fall by
a bright butterfly, I wrapped
a cocoon around.

Azure wings, flightless,
yearning for sky, by Winter
fell lifeless to ground.

(Beautiful, Ryan!)

(Thanks, M. I love the constraints of this form.)

Blue eyes dazed by the
shimmer above; frail hands reached
for a quilt of love.

That's very nice, Leslie.

Good morning, Leslie. Beautiful haiku! Ryan, the form has that effect on me, too (as you’ve probably deduced). Early this morning, after awakening from a bizarre dream, I came up with the mess below.

To solve the puzzle
with which tiny scales adorn
a butterfly’s wings!

A professor’s wife,
she knew the old tales, and wore
the talked of earrings.

Her white-gabled house
on an elmed hillside surveyed
the slumbering town.

From smooth, pale shoulders
blue straps would slide as she shed
her satin nightgown.

Her waist invited
my calloused hands. Fine fingered,
hers sought to hold me

those sprawled nights her lips
had lingered on mine, when such
dark things she’d told me.

What a dream! That's so good, M. You've captured the dreamlike quality in the images and description. Your rhyme is perfect. I'm not quite sure how the first stanza actually relates to the rest but I like it a lot and it makes a very interesting beginning.

Thank you, Ryan! The dream (what I remember of it) was about a secret society of intellectuals who were all dead but for one woman, who had been married to one of them and who had fallen into the clutches of a con artist who was stealing what remained of her fortune.

Sheesh! Your dreams are as complex and intricate as your poems.

On the rare occasions I even remember my dreams it is usually something basic - running, flying, lying in the sun - you could write a trilogy and sell movie and tv series rights just off the snippet you've described!

Thank you, Ryan!

Beautiful and evocative poem, M!

Her soft lips left mine
Adrift in thoughts left unsaid,
My tongue lost and mute.

Thank you, Guy! In the early hours, when things are bleary and things dreamed in the night still seem half real, images come right up for me, but the well dries up as the day wears on.

Born deaf, blind and dumb,
Would not have left me as numb,
As losing your love.

Adrift in deep space,
an astronaut lost; no wind
to feather stilled sails.

Oblivious world
uncaring turns, in silence
as oxygen fails.

Beautiful, Ryan :)

a cloud of red dust
concealed the pebbles and sticks
along the path of hope.

(Thanks, Leslie. That's my best attempt at describing lost love...beautiful continuation by you).