Friday Flash Fiction - Poetry

Malvina, by Christa Loughrey

22/9/2023

Arrived a little late, but I felt this deserved immediate publication. I can't ever recall any previous submission by one of our authors about another – Editor.

From the kaleidoscope of hidden tragedies-
Personal losses unseen, unshared, unknown-
She pulls the threads, and spins them into stories.

Drops of blood flow out from mind to pen,
Stained by the gamut of human emotions;
She gathers them up, shares them with the world.

Her careful capture of the human cost
Shatters our complacence; piercing shards
Shred through our blinkers, demand that we should see.

I skim the latest Friday submissions,
And sigh with relief to see her name is there.
She is still alive. Still serving her people

As best she can.

That Kind of Woman, by Mimi Grouse

22/9/2023

(Photo: (Great Karoo, Cape Province, South Africa, 1983 – by the author)

There is a road in the hinterland,
Running straight, like a grey riband,
Where I lost my soul one day, at noon,
By the hands of a wicked man.
'No-one can hear you scream,' he sneered,
'And none will believe what you say.
What kind of woman hitches a ride
In a place where the caracal prey?'
The heat arose from the swelt'ring tar
And shone like a stream in the sun
While around me stretched scorched wilderness
And I knew there was nowhere to run.
So I poked him with my Bowie knife -
His shrieks scratched the sky as he fell -
And, as night moved in with its scavengers,
I strode down that road through Hell.

Selina’s Whip, by Sterling Warner

22/9/2023

Quixotic dreams disturb restful slumber
I cling to Michelle Pfeiffer’s ebon jersey
as we tumble into mustard green fields.

Rolling in trampled stalks, her murmurs
transform from playful purrs to caterwauls
and hisses, feline meows to full red lip kisses.

Both our bodies liquefy like Dali’s melting clocks,
leaving me in delirium ecstasy unable to grasp
my consort clad in a Batman Returns t-shirt.

The DC dreamtime favorite endlessly morphs
sporting multiple lives, teasing mutual curiosity
as she pours her body into Selina Kyle's catsuit.

Mesmerized, I’m hooked and imagine sensuous claws
itching my back, stimulating nerves like a cat-o’-nine-tails
gratifying signals to an emotionally starved brain.

Little Miss High Heels, by Ana Marie Dollano

22/9/2023

She walked with style and grace in haste
first time in heels, the streets she graced,
pulled-up her chin fretting to not stumble,
even when her ankles begin to grumble.
Though griping she reached her destination, dazed.

Twmpath Castle, Rhiwbina, by Guy Fletcher

22/9/2023

High up on the hills above Cardiff
lies an unprepossessing mound.
It is hard to imagine this
was once an 11th century castle
transforming into a medieval fort
so I stroll by a place of mystery
in the very footsteps of history.

The only living creatures there today
are butterflies, insects and birds,
too many brambles to reach the summit
as branches hiss as if the spirits
of long departed soldiers and more recent souls
who have climbed up this verdant hill before
but now do not walk the earth anymore.

Abandoned and Forgotten, by Ivan Ristic

22/9/2023

All those comic books
left behind in grandma's attic
and photo albums
sprinkled with heavy dust...
Open them
and you will find yourself
again in the old toy box
which is called Nostalgia.

But you are
so much younger now,
abandoned,
helpless,
broken,
forgotten,
with the bitter taste
in your mouth.

St. John's Gardens, by Guy Fletcher

15/9/2023

She retreats to St. John's Gardens,
an oasis in the heart of Cardiff,
finches twitter and scavenge
along with the ubiquitous seagulls.
Ancient St. John's Church
peers from behind verdant trees
and on this quiet September Monday morning
only an old fellow resides on a bench
perhaps lost in days gone by
as rainbow flowers gently wave
from picturesque flower beds.
She also sinks into the pages of the past
sitting here with a lover long before
who's vanished from her life...for evermore.

Awakening, by Ivan Ristic

15/9/2023

Wake me up
and take me outside
to gaze at the sunset,
to walk on the nylon leaves,
asphalt grass
and broken glass.

Inject into my brain a lethal dose
of digital detox
to clear my mind,
before I go back to sleep,
before I start counting electric sheep.

September 12th, 2023

12/9/2023

Rainbow over Helvellyn, by Guy Fletcher

8/9/2023

Trudge, trudge, trudge:
every mile seems like a thousand
on the indifferent mountain.
I long for a hot cup of tea,
the rain like a waterfall
soaking me through into my very soul
for this is torture not a gentle stroll

and I fear falling from a precarious path
sensing the ghosts of those who've perished here
but suddenly the rain ceases
and then appears a stupendous sight:
the sun paints gold onto Striding Edge
as dark clouds break apart like sea ice
and a rainbow forms...as if paradise.

Dead Poet Without Society, by Mimi Grouse

8/9/2023

They found the poet's bones
Long after he'd stopped writing.
He died at home, alone,
Beside his notebooks
Full of lines
Like the scars across his skull
Later deciphered as a curse
From humankind.

The 1832 Rebellion in Paris, by John O’Keefe

8/9/2023

Better known as Les Miserables.

Not much happened today,
the golden boys of wage slavers
rose up against their entrenched elders,
wanted their cut of the unfair cut earlier.

Alas, one of us was among the fallen:
Gavroche, urchin of the back streets,
slated to be our future leader.

Shelter, by Robert P. Bishop

1/9/2023

Dark sky pressing down
wind-whipped rain lashing windows
warm fire, glass of wine
comfortable chair, good book.
Death can wait. I’m not ready.

I Sing the Body Electric Surveillance, by Cheryl Dahlstrand

1/9/2023

The official government website read:

AI preschool for the first five years of life or easy installation by chip

Your choice!

Prefrontal Cortex shaping via repeated and sustained internet exposure

Vocabulary acquisition, social skill development, problem solving

Response to guided stimuli in adolescence: established prompts already in place

Incorporation via neural network: I am my mother and father

Dendritic pathway synchrony for groups like “families”

Our bioelectric selves: all physical functions generated by designative electrochemical signals

Regeneration

Comprehension

Participation

Conformity

No more health issues! No more school! No more antisocial behaviors!

Absolutely free!

Who would ever oppose this lifetime opportunity?

The Game of Creation, by Ivan Ristic

25/8/2023

What a great time to be alive
In the valley of death,
Where the factory chimneys pierce the sky
High above the toxic clouds.
There is the town of yesterday's glory
And today's misery and shame.
Because there we learn again
The things we all already forgot:
How to heal our inner child,
How to worship the Game of Creation,
How to fight, win and survive...
Or run like hell.

Reminder, by John O’Keefe

25/8/2023

Nosebleed and cartilage build the private road,
the designer bread is baked with salts of sweat,
the hull of the super-yacht is bent by callused hands,
ninety-nine goes to the one percent.

Ibsen, by John O’Keefe

28/7/2023

The gray hurricane runs
the colors out of the rainbow;
confused is the mind
and empty is the soul now.

Writer's Block Haiku, by C. J. H. Dickens

28/7/2023

Writers who can’t think
Of anything to write about
Write haikus instead.

Waiting Game, by Robert P. Bishop

28/7/2023

There’s nothing to do
while death is on holiday
except be patient

Betrayal, by Gary Mark Belenke

28/7/2023

I have known you since you were a baby
We were inseparable
We ran and jumped and played and worked
We did everything together
We felt the greatest joy and the lowest despair
Then you betrayed me
At first it was little things I could forgive you for those
Wasn’t that enough for you
I feel different - slower, achy, breathless, fuzzy
When I gaze in the mirror
I don’t recognize you anymore
I don’t see me
I see my grandfather Looking back at me
And like him
We will soon be someone’s memory

Elegy for Sinead O'Connor, by Guy Fletcher

28/7/2023

Sinéad O'Connor's death came as a shock to many. Rather than repeat it, the video can be viewed at Stephen Goodlad's flash contribution.

It came as a shock to learn
about the demise of Sinead O'Connor,
a wonderful singer cursed by tragedy
with her son dying at seventeen
and Sinead suffering from demons in the mind.
Oh, she was far far too young to depart,
a rebel with a cause with a pure heart.

Yet it's the iconic video of her singing
"Nothing Compares 2 U"
that really touches my soul
as she sheds tears with the saddest eyes.
What a voice, tinged with melancholia,
an Irish legend with so much passion
whose music will never go out of fashion.

The Statue of Edward Elgar, by Guy Fletcher

21/7/2023

Editor's Choice

"The trees are singing my music or am I singing theirs?"

On the edge of the Green
at historic Hereford Cathedral
stands a statue of Edward Elgar
holding on to his bicycle
with a notebook and pen in his hand
and as I stare with admiration I find
I'm playing the Enigma Variations in my mind.

He peers whimsically at the cathedral,
how it must have inspired his work
for he lived in this city for years.
As the verdant branches whisper
I have my photograph taken next to the great man
and then relax in the summer breeze
imagining Elgar...listening to the trees.

And this is wonderful, if by some chance you've never heard it...

Night Groove (Remembering the El Rancho Drive-in), by Sterling Warner

21/7/2023

Plucking love’s irrational urges
like guitar strings, romance
indistinguishable from passion
mixed on dance floors, soda fountains,
Mercury make-out cars, and seedy
drive-ins where we paraded our innocence
amid a blacklisting world gone mad
with fluoridation, police action generals
sharpening viper-like teeth on television
broadcasts, conspiracy theories—and the onslaught
of electrical gadgets to replace simple tasks
with plug-in promises; I look fondly on those
nights making calls to friends, confirming
movie plots, arriving home with stories
to tell parents—omitting spoilers—resting up
for next week’s convertible theatre tour de force.

Light and Shadows, by Jeremy Leariwala

21/7/2023

Where it concerns light and fins;
The closest sources, always,
Will cast the darkest shadows!

But in the long last, the sun wins.
For no matter the distance, anyways;
What is & is to be, nature endows!

Sentinel, by Robert P. Bishop

21/7/2023

Bedraggled scarecrow
amidst the ripening corn,
frightened by the birds