Friday Flash Fiction

As I Watch You Leave..., by Sandra James

24/2/2021

TRAVEL

I want to put my old head
on your shoulders
give you all the answers
crib notes
codes
and guide books for your travels
shield you from danger
wrap you tightly in soft cotton wool
until…my mother’s memory
taps me gently on the shoulder
and asks…
When did you become so wise?
How did you learn?
I had to let you go…

2 Comments

A Dream with the Past, by Marie Johnson-Ladson

23/2/2021

5 Comments

TRAVEL

It seemed like I was outside looking in.
I saw family I hadn’t seen in a while.

They were having fun.
I said, can you all hear me?
They smiled and nodded their heads, as if to say, yes.
I said, can I join you?
They waved their hands, as if to say, no.

I could hear a voice in my head say, not yet, you still have a lot to do.
Enjoy where you are now.

When I awoke, I knew my travel with my loved ones were at peace and grateful to have felt that closeness again.

5 Comments

Fishbones, by Adrian McRobb

21/2/2021

4 Comments

FOOD

I came home late to the apartment, stealing in with a bag of guilty dreams.
Finding you in the bath, overflowing with betrayal, broken glass on white tiles tablets in the sink, smiling teeth from the plughole of its mouth.
Your arm over rim in supplication dripping life in hasty revenge, I held your head to stop you slipping.
But, you slipped anyway, a shadow passing too quickly...

Found your scarf today destroying me again, each blue and yellow inch, an unwelcome jack-in-a-box.
Taking me back a year, and memories I had kept in unlabelled boxes, flooding back in a surging wave of sewage and broken trust.
That regretted hour of forensic notebooks and flashing lights, missing you every day.
A remembered bin, its sarcastic lips firmly closed on the remnants of a last meal, smoked salmon we would never share again...fishbones!

4 Comments

Olympic Bound, by Sue Clayton

21/2/2021

6 Comments

SPORT

She’s lithe of body supple of limb
Strutting the beam
Full of vigour and vim

Astride the bars she soars in flight
Pirouettes and circles
A spectator’s delight

Across the floor she leaps and bounds
Cartwheels and handstands
Her moves astound

In this queen of sports she’s fearless and bold
Striving to be at the top of her game
Hoping one day she’ll win a medal of gold

6 Comments

Convict's Lament, by Mary Wallace

21/2/2021

8 Comments

FOOD, TRAVEL

Just me and Ma, alone and cold
We have to steal to eat
There's not much room for honesty
Not living on the street

A loaf of bread was all I took
Cop nabbed me on his beat
And now I'm here without me Ma
A sailing with the fleet

Van Diemen's Land, Australia
A place of flies and heat
And worst of all, I've left me Ma
For sharks and rogues to cheat.

I see'd her standing on the dock
She'd braved the wind and sleet
And cried as I was lead on board
With chains around me feet

8 Comments

Tabata Traumata (Octameter poem), by Krystyna Fedosejevs

20/2/2021

4 Comments

SPORT

Exercise I must,
for health and good looks.
Fitness centres closed,
my flabby muscles
tone in homemade gym.
Zoom session bustles:
instructor teaches,
everyone hustles.

Tabata online.
Sound not always there,
screen pic issues posed.
I wish to decline
if doctor agreed.
I’d opt to recline,
soak in bath bubbles.
Rid pain and troubles.

4 Comments

Love at First Bite, by Marjan Sierhuis

20/2/2021

6 Comments

FOOD

Red lips quiver and her skin starts to shiver as her teeth bite into the succulent red flesh.

Taste buds tingle senses sing while juices flow down her chinny-chin-chin.

She licks the juice off her fingers and closes her eyes while the moment lingers.

6 Comments

Sporting, by Alex Andy Phuong

20/2/2021

1 Comment

SPORT

Sporting personal style
Sometimes waiting a while
Playing games and having fun
Enjoying days in the sun
Despite dark and gloom
A life is like a room
Of one’s own
As people
Do sports athletically
While playing parts
Theatrically
Within their own narratives
While having the willingness
To do more than simply
Give or take

1 Comment

New Castle – New Food, by Andrew Carter

20/2/2021

3 Comments

FOOD

A man finds little rest in Sydney’s Inner West,
endless traffic passes fast – it’s the hectic eclectic.

Noise relentless, housing prices senseless, suits up pressed
travel a money trail by city light rail – power – electric.

He’s growing older, his pen flows bolder – he needs to be set free, from the sophisticated, superficial, latte-sipping, fake Greenies.

And the mung-bean-eating, feral hippies hugging our native trees, like churchgoers performing eye-service, to be seen.

Trendies walk by with freshly frocked puppies lit like guppies
stepping in sync with upturned nose – “Oh no, doggy’s done a pile.”

Tasteless wasters and cork-sniffin’ wine-spittin’ yuppies;
Ol’ mate smiles wryly, then barks out loud – “Doggy style.”

Distracted by the enemy, he fell short of glory land,
now Newcastle is his home, with a garden growing plenty.

Quietude, nature, and food to move a budding writer’s hand:
a writer’s place with a vege patch and space for fruit trees – serenity.

3 Comments

Shall Love Render Miles Meaningless? by Barney MacFarlane

20/2/2021

3 Comments

To snatch your light once more means I must wait.
Yet waiting strains and chokes my creaking nerve.
While questions sweat the skin, anticipate
That dreaded distance fear alone must serve.

Can love, that seldom grasps embrace, endure
While borders fashion boundaries from our whims?
Your unspoilt smile remains for me the lure
Which drums the blood around my yearning limbs.

Will passing weeks excise me from your heart,
And from the sensual, rampant sense awake?
Or has our lust, osmotic, reached the part
Where love can bear us, soaring, in its wake?

Such distance then may not usurp those powers
To crumble time into mere fleeting hours.

3 Comments

Comfort Food, by Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon

20/2/2021

6 Comments

salted Welsh butter on fresh crispy bread
grandmothers’ plated fruit-pies oozing
apples, rhubarb or ruby redcurrants
sweet custard yellow as fresh sunflowers
salted nuts with pints of chilled lemonade
mushrooms on toast by moonlight at midnight
dry white wine lemon-tart on the palate
hot chocolate warming numb winter fingers
sitting next to log fires lit to roast chestnuts
baked potatoes cooked in bonfires’ ashes
melting ice-cream licked in summer heatwaves
mackerel grilled crisp on beach barbeques
pasta creamy-slick in carbonara sauce
avocado halves cupping vinaigrette
food nourishes memories nourish food
floods life with sharing – nostalgia and joy.

6 Comments

The Andrew Siderius Writing Contest (end of week 1)

20/2/2021

0 Comments

Killing a Lion When It Was Legal, by Neha Varadharajan

19/2/2021

1 Comment

SPORT

There’s a lion! Inches steady,
Gun in my hand, my breath held
Tightly, not making a sound.
I have to kill this one today.

The lion’s swimming behind the bushes. In his
Own little world full of happiness. Cubs
By his side.
No, I have to kill him.

One, two, three, go! A bullet
It hit him. So slowly, yet so quick. I
Watched as he writhed in pain, tears
Falling out of his cubs’ eyes.
Crying, twisting, withering
Humanity quite shaken
Another life taken.

1 Comment

Travelling, by Sandra James

18/2/2021

11 Comments

TRAVEL

On arrival
we accept welcome coffee
catch up on family news
discuss the weather and
recall the dreadful drivers we encountered
speeding
cutting us off
tailgating

I wonder what those
drivers
talk about
when, or if…
they arrive at their destinations

11 Comments

Topsy Turvy Trip, by Peggy Gerber

17/2/2021

8 Comments

TRAVEL

I once took a trip to Crazy Town,
where reality was transformed upside down,
where the black of night consumed my day,
and red horned demons came out to play.
I felt trapped like a caged bird inside my head,
and it took all my courage just to get out of bed.

It’s easy to get lost in Crazy Town,
where insurance determines who will be found,
where help is available to those who have money.
The state of our healthcare is anything but funny!
I fought like a lion, clawing my way back home,
and it took all my courage just to write this poem.

8 Comments

Of Bread, by Ana Marie Dollano

16/2/2021

2 Comments

FOOD

Banana Bread
decadent and promising
nearly amazing
sweeter than bread
not quite bread
simple, unpretentious
shapes our tastes
for sharing and
filling our mind
and body needs but
like bread
more than just bakery.

2 Comments

Dusk and Dawn (The Dinaric Alps), by Miya Yamanouchi

15/2/2021

4 Comments

TRAVEL

Dusk’s silence deafens,
like someone turned off the world with a single switch.

Black pines are endless,
dusted in December snow,
the Alps don all white.

North air, crisp and cool,
carries the scent of newness,
and time infinite.

Glass daggers stretch out from underneath awnings,
like magic wands of dream.

I awake joyful,
welcoming in
just one last pastel coloured day.

Pearl is the dawn sky.
Purples and pinks, greys and whites,
Oh, how God can paint.

4 Comments

Jelly Tots, by Kirsty A. Niven

15/2/2021

0 Comments

FOOD

A gift I didn't foresee –
a tradition long forgotten.
You buried its corpse
under mounds of ash and dust,
shrouded it in spider webs.

An unexpected elation –
a throwback to when I knew no better,
dragging me into the past
where sugar is enough
to convince me of your love,

Where hamster cheeks, saliva filled,
can erase yesterday's hits and words.
As temporary as dissolving stitches,
it all unravelled eventually.
You brought it back too late.

0 Comments

Stocking the Foodbank, by A C Clarke

14/2/2021

0 Comments

FOOD

I’m standing here in the vegetable aisle
bewildered by four types of onion, forced to decide
between baby, new and baking potatoes,
Fir Apple, Maris Piper. No perishable goods

Oranges and lemons glow through their string pouches
like Christmas baubles. Concentrated fruit juice
is in short supply. There are different best befores
on the cartons of grapes. Tinned fruit is a good choice:

avoid sugary syrups. UHT milk only
Shoals of fish jostle the freezers,
shelves and shelves of frozen ready-meals.
Smash is a useful stand-by for those

with limited storage options All these teas -
from peppermint to pomegranate
besides the Assams and Darjeelings. We have
more than enough teabags

0 Comments

Ice Patrol STANAVFORLANT, by Adrian McRobb

14/2/2021

4 Comments

TRAVEL

Frost rimed bows nudge underwater caverns of invisible glass
as our despairing breath huffs into wraithes of souls lost at sea
we lay clothed shivering in sleeping bags listening through the hull
whales sing their songs of hopeless melody warning of yet dreamt nightmares
ice fields which groan like a brittle choir in pain and quiet grave like cold
like a white linen shroud where the ghosts of Titanic lifeboats row in endless agony
Newfoundland Banks envelopes and caresses cold to the bone and eerily chilled
sailing on a steaming pond or gliding through a memory of death
no talking on the quarter deck strange hushed voices in a frozen church
this graveyard of the Atlantic with its rusting harvest of wrecks...

4 Comments

The Traveller, by Andrew Carter

14/2/2021

4 Comments

TRAVEL

He travels selling free stories
about riches – mostly within.
He paints pictures as a side hustle,
with tender loving brush strokes.

Open-minded folk love his stories;
tales too painful to comprehend.
He uses his artwork as a softening touch
to mirror unacceptable truth.

They are amazed at his art -- except for some,
who won’t understand. So, they ridicule him and
abuse him. They make him unwelcome,
wherever he goes. So, he moves.

He carries messages of wisdom and love –
as a gentle word turns away wrath.
He travels under the radar scorning death,
speaking unpalatable truth. And, he moves.

4 Comments

Mental Journeys, by Claire Casha

14/2/2021

2 Comments

TRAVEL

Yearning for travel, it’s on my mind
I pick up a photo scrapbook, spined
Memories of escapades from the daily grind
Country trails with foliage lined
White sand, a lounger on which I’d reclined
Time I wish I could rewind
Churches, museums - figures shrined
People, faces - moments defined
They say travel frees your mind
Michelin-starred restos where I’d wined and dined
Snaps of men for whose love I’d pined
Snaps of men whose love I’d declined
Memories of escapades from the daily grind
But there’s no escape from the prison of my mind

2 Comments

A Good Sport, by Mary Wallace

14/2/2021

11 Comments

SPORT

He sported a beard
Played cricket, tennis. squash
We watched footy together
I thought he was a good sort
He thought I was a good sport

Married
Raised children, grandchildren
Forty years on with nothing in common
Yet sometimes the spark rekindles
And we scream at the umpires on TV

11 Comments

Farmers’ Market (Palindrome poem), by Krystyna Fedosejevs

14/2/2021

5 Comments

FOOD

Loud bong. Thrilling start to market.

Rows, brimming tables. Jars of honey
sunlit canary yellow. Red shimmers in
Saskatoon berry syrup. Carrots stack along
zucchini, spuds. Popping corn crackles.

Fiddler plays country tunes. I can hardly wait!
Wait? Hardly can I. Tunes, country, plays fiddler.

Crackles corn popping. Spuds, zucchini,
along stack carrots. Syrup, berry Saskatoon,
in shimmers red. Yellow canary, sunlit
honey of jars. Tables, brimming rows.

Market to start. Thrilling bong. Loud!

5 Comments

The Vanilla in Me, by Sarah Chong

14/2/2021

1 Comment

FOOD

Vanilla ice cream: the sweet, plain original.
Enjoyed by most, but only chosen by some. A flavor that is shy and easily overthrown by others. A flavor many will grow out of, but will return to when they need a familiar friend or an easy smile.
Vanilla is me and I am vanilla: the friend who is not always noticed but is there to help make things better. The friend who gets along and is easy going. The friend you may not aspire to, but can always return to.
Vanilla: When you feel blue, I am there for you.

1 Comment

<<Previous

As I Watch You Leave..., by Sandra James

A Dream with the Past, by Marie Johnson-Ladson

Fishbones, by Adrian McRobb

Olympic Bound, by Sue Clayton

Convict's Lament, by Mary Wallace

Tabata Traumata (Octameter poem), by Krystyna Fedosejevs

Love at First Bite, by Marjan Sierhuis

Sporting, by Alex Andy Phuong

New Castle – New Food, by Andrew Carter

Shall Love Render Miles Meaningless? by Barney MacFarlane

Comfort Food, by Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon

The Andrew Siderius Writing Contest (end of week 1)

Killing a Lion When It Was Legal, by Neha Varadharajan

Travelling, by Sandra James

Topsy Turvy Trip, by Peggy Gerber

Of Bread, by Ana Marie Dollano

Dusk and Dawn (The Dinaric Alps), by Miya Yamanouchi

Jelly Tots, by Kirsty A. Niven

Stocking the Foodbank, by A C Clarke

Ice Patrol STANAVFORLANT, by Adrian McRobb

The Traveller, by Andrew Carter

Mental Journeys, by Claire Casha

A Good Sport, by Mary Wallace

Farmers’ Market (Palindrome poem), by Krystyna Fedosejevs

The Vanilla in Me, by Sarah Chong

Poetry

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