Writers’ collaboration birthed through Medium
Yvonne is surrounded by her grandkids on her seventieth birthday. Her house teems with the large family — three sons, their wives, two kids each. The walls reverberate with merriness. Yvonne is grateful, she has received a lot in life. Yet, as dusk turns to night, and the dinner plates are cleared up, she looks out the window pensively. Despite being surrounded by her loved ones, she’s lonely. And guilty for feeling that way. What else could she possibly want? She’s had more than her fair share of life’s joys. Hasn’t she?
Ophelia is ecstatic about her upcoming wedding day…
As poetry we rise from the ashes
Fiction Friday
I stand at the window, indecision slowing me down just enough to admire the view outside. There’s a darling little lake, and I can identify three different species of birds on it right now. Don’t ask me to name them though.
I know I must make my decision soon. I owe it to my realtor, who’s been showing me places for over 3 months now. She’s so patient with me.
This place she’s brought me to today seems to be ideal. Idyllic, even. Still, something nags at the harder-to-reach parts of my subconscious, making me pause.
I turn around, breaking…
The color says it all
It used to be red, Derek. The color projected on the back walls of my eyes, every day I thought of you since last May. Blood red. Not only because you didn’t spill a single drop that day. No, your contribution was more gaseous in nature. As you proceeded to vampire suck one life out of planet earth.
9 minutes is all it took you, Derek. Skilled, expert you. Man made killing machine, you. Hired to protect, someone might think, someone too naïve for the ways of this world. No, you set them right soon enough, didn’t you?
And now…
National Poetry Month, Day 7
I dance best when I dance in the moonlight
Silvery bright tinsel polishing the tops of my arms
And I sway, hypnotized by the beat of the distant drummer
Unseen by intruding eyes, unheard by eavesdropping ears
My feet skip lightly on dewy nectar, soil fresh carpets of grass
The warmth of night pulsating my shimmering specter
Caramel saxophone drizzles the penumbra of moon indulgent
As I paint the atmosphere with primordial tales infinite
A comet’s tail of epic love emblazoned on the night’s smoky canvas
Before dawn comes, shall I complete my ritual Retreat once more behind masked eyes…
The Poetry of Flow
Thank you so much Karen, for including our newly launched blog For Lemon here on your newsletter. This is a birthchild of Medium, and has its godparents in people like you, Karen. Thanks so much for the mention and the thoughtfully selected extracts. Your support means the world to Amy Marley, Suzanne V. Tanner and myself!!
Fiction Friday
The loud bang and crumbling noises woke me up to a mortal fear. I was disoriented, thinking I was back home, caught in another earthquake. As my eyes adjusted to the dim shapes of cargo in the near darkness, I remembered where I was.
I was a stowaway on the Ever Given, a cargo ship traveling from China to Europe. I was told it was the length of several football fields, but to my eyes that had never seen a football field, it just seemed never ending. Stacked with cargo containers of every color I had ever seen, it seemed…
Prompt: the weight of ink
You don’t think much of it, that first day back from the hospital. You pat yourself on the back as you look in the mirror. A cross between familiar and jaunty, you think with a smile. Faunty, even. You don’t feel the weight of the medicines buoying you upright. No, right then you don’t.
As the days go by the blood behind your skin spills as in a thunder addled biblical sky. Purple, indigo, violet, blue. The twenty-one stitches you endured lace your naïve right temple. Not to mention the emotional reverberations that finally begin to show their wounded little…
Paroma Sen
“Do not go gentle into that good night, but rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
