It's Not Art Unless It Has the Potential To Be a Disaster

Photo by Christopher Jobson for Colossal

The gallery’s ready

The artist is in

The crowd stands waiting

For it to begin

The doors are open

The Chardonnay flowing

Critics’ heads nodding

With insiders’ knowing

Wallets are bursting

With checkbooks and cash

While patrons muse anxiously

“Genius or trash?”

The gasp is collective

Rejection? Disdain?

“It’s perfectly awful-

He’s done it again!”

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash 55 Plus

Trespass

image by Banksy

I finally got you out of my life

Now stop trespassing in my mind!

You trample through my thoughts

like some pesky kid

who cuts through the neighbor's yard

back and forth from school every day

No matter how many times

I chase you away

You always come back

and always with

that stupid smirk!

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash 55 Plus

Burn

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. Dante Alighieri

Black woman dared
climb above white men
Silenced hatred
Led away
in handcuffs
Black churches
burn to ashes
Barely make the news
Black men
black boys
shot by white police
again
We shake our heads
Baltimore burns
with anger
and hopelessness
We turn off the TV
Hell is on the way
It's coming for us.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash 55 Plus

Men

Men who act like children

We see them every day

Perpetual adolescents

Shout and tease and play

Complain about their bossy wives

Always on their tail

But when they get arrested

Who comes to pay the bail?

Men behaving like children

Serve only to annoy

Women want a grown ass man

Not a little boy!

submitted for Magpie Tales, Mag 273
and for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash 55 Plus

Kite

source

I am a kite

My bones are weightless

I wear my flesh

like stretched silk

No blood runs

through my veins

Just insert a string

in the empty circle 

of my navel

I will fly

like a ghost

And you, fearless one,

will hear

the howl of the March wind

as it names my pain.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash 55 Plus and
The Sunday Whirl, Wordle 201

The Boys

My boys, Soni and Puck

Furry bundles of cuddles, so easy to please

The smallest things make them happy

Tails wagging with glee for throwing their toys

They turn this cynical girl sappy

My dogs

Snuggly, warm, wonderful, sweet bed hogs!

My boys

I'd give them anything because

they give love with abandon and ease

My gifts with four paws!

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash 55 Plus, Robert Herrick Stanza

To Portland

photo source

She knew she had to break away

from small town ways and small town minds

For sanity, she could not stay

Her spirit had been too confined

The left coast called to her again

And she would answer it at last

To thoughts of what she might have been--

A middle finger to the past!

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash 55 Plus

Untitled

We linger at a crossroads
where snow buries the crocus
and the muddy rose struggles
to think of blooming
Thorny nights
of suicidal fervor
The owls bury their heads
under soft feathers
and hope for sleep
You are but a thread
in my fabric of worry
The birds keep quiet
when the sun finally shines.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash

Children of Decay

Overnight they emerge

Ghostly grey presence

belying the morning shine

Flat headed phantoms

balanced on thin, stringy stems

Children of decay

birthed of death

No fairy picnics under these

skeletal umbrellas

Prodders of rot

Auguries of degeneration

spreading earthy perfume

among the sweet flowers

They stand

ashen tombstones

marking time

Reminders of mortality

always reminding.

submitted (late again) for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash Fiction 55

The Lighthouse

photo by Margaret Bednar

The lighthouse keeper

climbs the stairs for the last time

Each step creaks-

bone and stair-

to the top and down again

The light

blinks its shine in the night sky

over a black and silent sea

"I am here"

"I am here"

it calls out to the emptiness

like the last firefly of summer.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Artistic Interpretations, Life On an Island and
Flash Fiction 55

Reflections on My Daughter Graduating

She sat among them-the mothers she had known for years. She had seen them at school events, awards ceremonies, field trips, parties since her daughter had started school, over twelve years ago now.  She glanced over their faces, as familiar to her as her own, and smiled as she thought, “Damn, I hate these bitches.” 

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Flash  Fiction 55

Penny Royalty

photo by Elena Kalis

 
She drowns under

the weight of mistakes,

consequences

Whispers a prayer to Selene,

Mover of tides

Keeper of rhythms

Prostrates herself

before her Queen

She knew the pain of lovers

She prays

to awaken

from nightmarish dreams

Please release

the threads

thin, but binding

Endymion sleeps

She sinks,

a penny in a wishing well.

Lyrics | Fleetwood Mac lyrics - Sisters Of The Moon lyrics


submitted for The Mag, Mag 182 and
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Out of Standard w/Izy, Blue Moon Special and
dVerse Poets Pub, Meeting the Bar, It's Getting Tight In Here

White Mice

photo courtesy of Rosie Hardy

...and then they led her back to her cell. Her eyes burned; her skin itched. Yellow pus oozed out of a hastily sewn incision on her abdomen. As they locked the door behind her and crawled off, she thought she heard them say, "Don't worry. Their brains are so tiny, they can't feel any pain."

submitted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry

The City

image courtesy of Scott Wyden

For him there was no prom

He walked across the stage at graduation

There were a few claps

And a few more snickers

He packed his bag, hugged his mom

And left

He had no delusions

That he would be better loved

In the city

But at least there

He could find

Places to hide

submitted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry

and a belated Friday Flash 55

ISO

image courtesy of Lauren Randolph

ISO

Girl with red shoes and green balloon

Saw you steal it from birthday party as you walked by fence

You also stole my heart

Please meet me for stale birthday cake

Friday, 8 p.m.

Same location

To return heart

Or give me yours in exchange

It only seems fair

Reply: Boy with white sneakers

The above is my first attempt at a Flash 55. 

submitted for One Shot Wednesday, Week 41 at One Stop Poetry