A Weed on The Curb

  Borrowing the image from VisualVerseAnthology. Fifteen minutes to write 5-50 words based on this image. Contextless, glimpsed through a door-- Who painted this? Child or artist? I stare. A dark-suited woman  pauses nearby,  cell in hand, then pulls the door shut. A sliver of color remains, but James returns from restroom and we go back to the official exhibits,  labeled like pinned butterflies. It's been a long time since we've been to a museum and I miss the smell and the silence and seeing the texture of the art up close, not to mention the curious discoveries in unexpected corners.  -- Chrissa

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #204 . It's too far in the afternoon, I thought but evening ran behind me dragons, demons, and the sleeping world; afraid to turn, to wake me. Power needs its horror stories, its ghosts. It's too far in the afternoon, I thought but evening followed close; a fantasy of goodness, where the gold is always covering bones. Power needs its fairy tales, its witches. It's too far in the afternoon, I thought but evening treads my hem, like an army from the dragon's teeth and all the lies therein. -- Chrissa

  Inspired by Shay's Word Garden Word List #18 .  There were always guns behind the books; like angels in the solar wind behind the scattered blue I've never been curious what the trumpet choir shouts There were always guns behind the books; all the heroines will swoon across their peacock holsters I've never been curious what the violin choir  screams There were always guns behind the books; bad men hide our revolutions in cerulean leather sorrows I've never been curious when the angel choir  breathes There were always guns behind the books. -- Chrissa

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #123 . The world looked like a Cascade commercial after the domes were built; sea glass processed  into our own little alien colonies. Did they tell you we grew here? Came from this, the sea that floats our re-colonies? Everyone  is an alien and a native. We never belonged. The sky whispered louder than the waves. Can you imagine hearing it? Full of worlds just beyond us. Ones better than this. Ones that don't--yet-- hate us, seasick on its slick surface, waiting for the return always promised: We will return from paradise, we will never forget. ___________ CEOberus assures you all his promises are 100% reliable. Also, it's time for his 9:30am scritchies.  -- Chrissa

  Posting for WordCrafters on this lovely Wednesday afternoon. Lucky I'll tell my children I was bitten: Feral leprechauns were rampant in our backyard; they slipped aboard a freighter and ran wild in Houston, where a hotel was named for the one who lost his gold. These acid green lines curling around my ankle, the brass shamrocks on a chain I borrowed from my mother for that one high school trip where everyone assumed math nerds don't: these are mine. Great Aunt Mirabillis sutured wild flowers in her hair; it was never the same afterward, wilder and tangled. She went away with the fairies one summer and left her photo with the wrong side of the family. That side is all fairy, so the leprechauns, of course, come straight for our blood, like mosquitos. I'll tell my children all of this, wrong-side or not, fairy-led or fried chicken polite, false or true: If they only follow my picture home.

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #202 in memory of my grandmother and her dedication to family vacations (and her determination to make sure we behaved The Entire Time).   Remember the pool, the cigarette smell After the highway's Cadillac swell turn bone, turn bone, turn bone split second, split air, sharp thrown turn bone, turn bone, turn bone Paper-hatted glasses, lights' yellow bloat; Recall carbonation's knife at the throat turn bone, turn bone, turn bone split second, split air, sharp thrown turn bone, turn bone, turn bone A wasp on a tissue, a sting to the knuckle Vacations gone in a rueful chuckle turn bone, turn bone, turn bone split second, split air, sharp thrown turn bone, turn bone, turn bone Once again the photo on a dim hotel wall In an album left in the dark of the hall. turn bone, turn bone, turn bone split second, split air, sharp thrown turn bone, turn bone, turn bone

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #201.   Come to the poetry parade! You can see it in the eyes -- the path is falling away. Behind the walker, a world has been crushed back into the primordial: water or fire. And still, the camera remains on the motion toward the viewer.  As if you were solid ground. You see them everywhere, now. Walking away. Turn into the subdivision, which lies quiet under a sky glorious with sun and lilac clouds; even here, someone is walking away. We have watched them so long there are images in our history books and in our televised memory.  the walker comes without expectation without possession, without expression The screen bleeds fire.  You stanch it with laughter. A fiery scab forms  in the back of your mind.  Solid ground, magma into islands. Eventually, you take off your shoes. I keep starting this over: my brain is in overdrive and it's been a little while since I was able to walk through the local park and just breathe. It...