| Friday Flash Fiction |
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As the first buds of Spring
peep from the dark brown earth, children awaken from their wintry hibernation like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, and race to the emerald green fields to play football. The sound of laughter rings in the new season. Gone Forever
Among the Stars His Spirit travels While Flesh is Mortal Left behind The dove song soothes
and the northerlies cradle your wet youthful grave yet etched in our subconscious is your deep rippling laughter I watch your vapid moralising, your primate posturing,
See how you savour your outrage, cherish your resentment. I observe your judgement rise like steam from your scorching black and white morality, Your conviction seething with righteous fury and indignation. I want to remove this white-hot certainty from you, So in your mind I insert the thought; What if there is no right nor wrong, no good or evil, Just the movement of atoms, colliding randomly, In foetal cells and spiral galaxies, Making art, painting the universe, With a palette of infinite shades of grey? What this world’s awful war needs is a real Referee
To throw penalty flags on this wars killing sprees And tell some team’s owners they can’t use rogue thug teams That kill the other teams and their fans too That pillage and destroy other’s stadiums here And even attack their own fans who see that’s wrong as well They should insist teams fielded would command some respect That don’t spend all their energy to pillage, smash and wreck But this world is now watching their evil display And pray there’ll be some real Referees That will now end this war today Just for a short while
the man wearing a black cap allows a broad smile but it does not last and euphoria retreats, he thinks of the past These days I always tend to nap,
head nodding beneath my battered football cap. Long gone are the days when I used to coach a team, but I still see my lads kicking goals when I dream… The stadium’s cheering back in days of yore, ball’s found the net, the crowd yells out score. We’re down two to one, but don’t give up yet, follow the game plan and find the back of the net. The game restarts furious and fast, it’s the second half and forty-five minutes fly past. A roar from the fans, our star player’s tripped, takes a fall, penalty kick, takes his aim, it’s two all. Wins and losses celebrated both at home and away, Not premier league, but champion minors back in the day. We’ve grown old and grey now the lads and I, but our memories of playing football will never die. When you waved with your hand curled
I remembered the first time You held my hand. Exhausted, hurting from giving birth I lay with you on my chest and you curled Your hand against my heart. I gently put my finger in your clasp And you held me forever. There’s an amazing poem loose in my head
If I can just get her down on paper It will knock your socks into Tuesday next week Woodpeckers will stop pecking to cheer Babies will sleep through the night SUVs will be carbon neutral Football fans will spend hours praising their favorite ref's best calls If I can only coax her out: Come get some vitamin D! See the laser beams of sunshine, my poem! Black, red, gold, brown, blue Any ink will do Come out, Come out! I want to show you the world But most of all I just want to read you. Everyone says that referee is the greatest!
He gives so much time to the boys playing football! They don’t know he has no time for me, his son a boy not good at sports. My divorced friend hated football
but together we took our kids to the big game she sat in the stands, head buried in a War & Peace sized romantic tome oblivious to cheering, and booing around us At the end of play I ran with the kids onto the field met players, collected autographs while she finished her book sighing as she closed the covers on the handsome hero Who won? she asked, when we returned Pity she never noticed the hunky referee who gazed up from the sidelines smitten An invisible pest came to life in a dark cave in Asia.
It moved silently through the universe, attacking humanity. Billions infected, millions perished, countless children orphaned. Initially defeated, the global scientists working day and night Found ways to bring the pest to its knees. It has been a long two years but our humanity prevailed. In the spring of 2022, the world began to shine again. But, the devil had a new plan up his sleeves. Cloaking in the form of a ruthless human dictator, He set out to conquer his tiny neighbor. Rockets and bombs raining down on Mariupol, Lviv, and Kyiv, While pandemic-fatigued humanity remained motionless. Now Andrew, the impartial umpire we want you to blow you whistle, Announcing “Enough is enough; this mayhem now must be over.” Folks scream rude names
They yell at me Tell me, “Go home!” Say I can’t see When doing my job No camaraderie Not a female dog’s son Football umpire, I be! Don sports a broad smile
Boasting his $100,000 teeth Dollars amassed Mediating star football players And their wives He is unflappable Dresses like a ref Talks the lingo: “Unsportsmanlike conduct” “Offsides” “Illegal procedure” And his favorite “Too many players on the field” That’s where his fees skyrocket Through the stadium roof Figuratively speaking What happens on life’s journey
To all those fellow travelers Who pass away, to those near And dear who have disappeared? They seem unreachable to us Trapped as we are behind The bars of this earthly prison Seeing only darkness beyond. Yet, sometimes we are blessed When they appear to the mind’s eye In a vision from their heyday And they are smiling as if to say “Remember me this way.” WINNER, SIDERIUS MEMORIAL PRIZE He's waving
His eyes seek me out as I stand concealed in the crowd My leaving would destroy him My freedom would bring him pain My guilt calls for a decision Can I live without passion Trade feverish illicit encounters for this love which feels more friendship Is there a hierarchy of love I see devotion in those searching eyes I cannot cause his pain I step from the shadows and I wave All my strength can’t build a fortress
my arms can’t shield you through this battle but I’ll protect you with my love through scoffs and taunts until 3pm. I am a father’s heartbreak at every schoolyard coaching my child through cruel untruths 'I'm too fat, too slow, too different.' I am every father who has counselled since dawn exhausted and broken from pleas of 'Please Dad, I don’t want to go back' but I do as every father must exude encouragement through the bars You are strong, boy, you got this then slide my smile until 3pm when the process starts all over again. He blows his whistle
the crowd yells their approval A smile crinkles eyes Joy is warm and yellow.
Joy is small and unassuming, but given the right conditions, joy can swell in your heart. Joy is found in the smell of soil, in watching moon-clouds, in the mournful cry of the curlew, or a corvid cawcophony, in the wind waves crossing a sea of flowering grass, in an old, forgotten photo of good friend's smile. Joy is a master of camouflage. You have to look out for her. But she's always there, quietly waiting to be noticed. For she is Nature and Nature is everywhere. It doesn’t matter
whether it's popular, or if it gives pressure I'm proud of every truth I've supported in my life No matter how uncomfortable it felt I just kept growing I love what I'm doing and you're beside me in all ‘Twas a match for sports hall of fame.
Made possible by one hitter Able to trick every pitcher. His points added up perfectly. The number of runs for home plate. Batting no one could understate. Game ended, interviews followed. He went on signing autographs For all holding his photographs. Someone was struck by what she saw. How skillfully he swung his bat, With good form; all muscle, no fat. She admired him with all her heart. If only he’d be her lover Instead of her famous father. The man in stripes has made the call.
Fearlessly, he picks up the ball and marches back to its previous place. Fifteen yards with a serious face. Some boo, some cheer, Some head to the food court to get more beer. Another weekend in the NFL, for some it’s happy, For some, it’s hell. It all depends on which team does well. But standing tall above it all Is the man in stripes who makes the call. Have you received an
impartial decision from an impartial referee? Hit back at the zebra's short-sightedness - as you could be owed THOUSANDS! Home is at the end of many pleasant stories,
a promise of contented days and hope. Through battle-tested nations and forgotten allegories, a truth beyond a sentimental trope. Home can be a fragile and a momentary thing, subject to the wills of man and fate-- something worth protecting whether liberal or right-wing, a dream so quickly compromised by hate. Home is both eternal and ephemeral, it’s clear. When soldiers come and batter down the door, we pray for those who lose their homes in conflicts far and near, for home is what unites us all, I’m sure. |
PoetryThis is the section where fiction prose becomes something else. We still expect the poems to be short, though – sonnets, perhaps, or around that length at the very most. 
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November 2023
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