Blog Archives - Friday Flash Fiction

The Slippers of Lord Byron, by Guy Fletcher

18/10/2019

There exists today slippers
once owned by Byron with faded
soles born in exotic Morocco.
His boatman recalled them worn
at a house in sun-kissed Kapsalis,
this poet and lover of great renown
but no enemy weapon struck him down

for though he led an army to aid the Greeks
in their eternal fight against the Turks
fell to a fever, the leeches
unaware of the famous blood they sucked.
I picture Byron with now priceless slippers
despite a club-foot an imposing sight
staring at the stars of an Aegean night.

Perhaps, by Sandra James

18/10/2019

If you could do
anything you wanted to
what would it be?
See the world
climb a mountain
write a book
say you’re sorry
make amends
give a gift
If you could be
anything you wanted to
what would it be?
An adventurer
a listener
happier
more understanding
fitter
braver
Perhaps it’s not too late?

Serenade Me, by Ana Marie Dollano

18/10/2019

Serenade me one more time
for the moment of promise is here.
I hope for a rainbow when the sun shines
after the rain disappears.

For your words are as sweet and juicy as the fruit,
like music playing softly, is your gaze,
melodious is the rustle that lingers, haunting
as thoughts keep me anticipating.

I shall keep to our noontime tryst
neath our tree whose trunk is mighty,
steadfast against any storm and enduring as time,
its broad canopy, encompassing, as an evergreen symphony.

Here To Help, by Gip Plaster

18/10/2019

Ada’s reusable grocery bag of scavenged, half-rotten fruit scraped the ground as she dragged herself along the sidewalk. Only 61, she was withered and looked 154.

“Can I help with that?” her neighbor Cara asked as they separately approached their apartment building.

“Put it at my door,” Ada said.

“Absolutely,” Cara said, trying to be positive this time.

A minute later, Ada dropped herself into the big chair on her porch. Then she hurled an overripe grapefruit at Cara.

“You know your kind has never been welcome here,” Ada said as she also lobbed a moldy orange at the mailman.

Agincourt, by Adrian Mcrobb

13/10/2019

They sat cross legged
The engines of the army
Fletching feathers and willow
Daring others follow
Tarring bodkins in grain
Stopped in mud
Mallet crush helmets
Guarding flanks
New men-at-arms
Two finger salute
To who dares
Leaving the poetry bare?

World Weary, by Ian Fletcher

11/10/2019

Though just sixty
his hair is white
bleached by stress
alcohol and failure.
Lugging emotional
baggage from events
long forgotten by all
but he, his memories
and life’s narratives
spool endlessly round
and round in his mind.
Thus laden he steers
a lonely course through
an unforgiving world
not sailing but sinking.

One Song, by Guy Fletcher

11/10/2019

It was an old Georgian song
and we must have murdered the words
but I left my body on Earth
experiencing a state of unbeing
more powefrul than narcotics or alcohol.
Alas, such feelings are doomed not to last long
but though it was just one beautiful song

it was enough to restore hope.
The choir is a sanctuary
from the dreck and fear of the world
and it was so fine to be there
at this particular moment in time,
then I stepped into real life once again
with dirty city streets and driving rain.

Six Very Short Poems, by Bruce Levine

4/10/2019

Empty Days

Hunger strikes with claws
Burning holes beneath the skin
As tantalizing mem’ries arise
And lightning lasts forever

Hammer-head Sharks

Forty-six minutes
Turbulent times awaken nothing
Hammer-head sharks strike without reason

Obtuse

Floating over the horizon
Candle lanterns glow in synchronicity
Caverns of emptiness awaken sympathy
Flights of fancy bring joy

Wall Street

Frogs line the avenues as Dragons breath fire
And leprechauns taunt the greedy
Playing nine-pin or bocce ball
Outnumbered by Wall Street moguls

Mozart

Succulent servings of seaweed
Over a bed of rice noodles
While Mozart plays on the radio

Beards

Five o’clock shadow
Mist on petals of flowering plants
Dragon-fly wings in green soup
Tomatoes filled with tuna fish

Winter, by Adrian McRobb

4/10/2019

Silver trees
frost rimed
frozen in time

Transience, by Guy Fletcher

4/10/2019

Over the homely hills of the Wenallt
a rainbow illuminates the crisp air,
shade retreats as if a beaten army
as the land rests for just a while
from monotonous autumn rains
but this is what makes our country so green,
I pause in the field to admire the scene

yet know the transience of beauty:
life has special moments
so you can escape the mundane.
The sun shines on golden leaves
and raindrops upon them glitter like stars
but then dark clouds come, the gods shed more tears,
like a spirit the rainbow disappears.

The Holy Ghost of Lincoln, by Sankar Chatterjee

4/10/2019

Our strongman can’t tell a lie:
“I'm the most presidential
Except for possibly Abe Lincoln.”
Caught in the treason of peddling self-interest,
He now threatens fellow citizens
Promising “A Civil War like fracture.”

*

Honest Abe turns over inside his grave
He touches the wound
From the bullet he took
Almost eight scores year ago.
The price he’d paid
Uniting the nation from fragmentation.

Winter, by Adrian McRobb

4/10/2019

Silver trees
frost rimed
frozen in time...

Sorrow, by Adrian McRobb

4/10/2019

A terrible weapon of darkest night
with edge that refuses to reflect light
forged in a mountain by demon made
has pierced more hearts than a human blade

The wound it gives will never heal
with an expert twist of poisoned steel
no shield can deflect its mighty blow
harvesting souls like a deadly hoe

Sheathed in misery and tears of grief
it drips with sadness there's no relief
wielded on high it keens in air
another victim is driven to despair