So what did I discover from my 2016 blog resolution to blurt out a quick story or poem once a week?
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maya Angelou
1. It was a great brain zapper! The main idea of Blurting had been to energize my brain as I edited a collection of stories which I’d been working on for quite a while. It worked! Forcing Continue reading
Wesley the robot who, despite initial trepidation, turned out to have been engineered with a warm heart, did not like the green men visiting at night.
They made him squeamish, he said. That stuff inside them – their innards – was not normal. It was purply-red and gloopy instead of being nuts and bolts and tidy soldered pieces.
Jane and Julie both wanted out. They were Continue reading
The brook murmurs
hurried secrets to
the rocks as it rushes
by. Farewell, farewell
it murmurs, I’ll not pass
this way again. Bullfrog
lies spreadeagled among
leaves and blue sky. A twang
from the cattails reminds
me of a certain guitarist
singing of lonesome
roads. The sun beats
down. I’ve put on sun lotion
to be safe. The shadow of
the big tree creeps
closer.
When Barry transmogrified into a blue snail he knew who was to blame: Alice. He was torn between admiration and fury. How amazing that she was able to turn a perfectly normal human being into a blue snail! But how infuriating that she’d chosen to use her special skill on him.
His first thought was to storm over to her place and beg her to change him back into a human but he wasn’t going to give her that satisfaction.
No, he’d Continue reading
Imperturbable: not excitable, calm (Concise Oxford Dictionary)
The adjective imperturbable is the flip side of perturbable, which comes from perturb, which in turn traces back to the Latin word perturbare, meaning “to confuse” or “to disturb.” If something really annoying is going on, like one neighbor is jack-hammering his driveway and another has a dog that’s barking while you’re trying to sleep because you were up all night studying and you really really need a nap, but you stay calm and don’t get upset, you are imperturbable. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/imperturbable
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He dreams the only dream he has, which is to leave, go far from here because far from here he’ll be free. Free to earn a lot of money, free to spend it. That’s what freedom’s all about. He knows that from tv.
He dreams the only dream he has which is her. Fair or dark haired, he’s not sure which. Perhaps a red-head. Whoever she is, he knows her already, her light touch, her laugh, her eyes flecked golden in green, the way she stands right on the edge Continue reading
Philip sat up in his armchair, punched a fist into the air and yelled “People of Mars take up arms and defend your planet.”
Jane turned the page of her glossy magazine and sighed. “Get out of here. It’s Saturday evening and I’m just not in the mood for…”
Philip got to his feet. “Jane?” he said. “J…J… What’s happ…happening? I feel…I feel…” Continue reading
A bird in the hand
must escape
or its goose
will be cooked.
******
He who laughs last
laughs Continue reading
There was once a woman who gathered worries as others gather flowers, beer steins or antique cars.
She lived in a pretty house with a pretty garden full of pretty flowers and scrumptious vegetables. She loved her beets and marrows and dahlias, but most of all she loved her worries. She couldn’t get enough of them.
She’d even borrow worries from friends, beg for their cast-off worries.
Word spread and soon people came from far and wide to give her their worries.
She kept the ones she liked best under her bed, in a rectangular wicker basket. Those worries she didn’t care for she burned on the bonfire on Saturday mornings when the wind was blowing in a southeasterly direction, away from her house.
She only gathered women’s worries. She made this decision reluctantly, but as she told herself, she did know her limits. Anyway, the men were perfectly capable of looking after themselves.
Every morning she sifted through the worries in her basket and decided Continue reading
That you are of two worlds, hurled from lunar atmospheres and solar frequencies, that I know.
That you are bursting with hope and hilarity, seizing in bear hugs all who float by, I know too. Also that you are sneaky, yes you are, leaking lies, striving to impress, beguiling the well-intentioned with intense and immense argumentations, sentences that fall into phrases, phrases into words, words into letters, letters into ugly smudgy blotches of ink.
Think before sinking into that morass, move fast, fly.
Don’t deny the demon – but you, who are of two worlds, must learn to unfurl your mauve boa with esprit, élan and go forth, sew, sow, and delight, claim your birthright, if you can, both birthrights, hobnail boots here, glass slippers there. Ride the wild mare of red night, all blue mane and glinting hooves into the buttery dream of day.
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This is another photo from my recent Barcelona trip: chimneys come alive on the rooftop of Gaudí’s La Predera. When I first saw them, the chimneys turned into guardsmen but in my photo they seem to have become more feminine.
Weekly Photo Challenge: transmogrify
Susi Lovell 