Friday, April 30, 2010

Friday Flash Fiction 55

-
….And All the While I’m Thinking:

Pedals
turn, turn,
while
muscles
burn, burn.

Wheels
pace, pace,
while
hearts
race, race.

Lungs
moan, moan,
while
pistoning
bones, bones.

Smiles
quirk, quirk,
while
lips
thirst, thirst.

Hands
ache, ache,
while
vistas
satiate, satiate.

Words
Pant, pant,
while
thoughts
rant, rant.

Eyes
meet, meet,
while
bodies
fleet, fleet.
-
-
This is a poem in 55 exactly 55 words, a challenge from G-Man .  If you want to meet the challenge, post a short story or poem, and let G-Man know HERE !

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

time out of mind

-
Slam the car door, leave the house behind.

Leave the job full of injured limbs.
Double and triple check
the odometer gauge and the second hands.

Push a safe pace through the fog,
to breach the clear coastal sky,
to bona fide, heart-pounding evidence:
I breathe, I have arrived.

I’ll hike a new trail, void of ravens,
under heavens, immensely blue.
Time out, silent with herons:
my sanctified time with the truth.

The glorious green and the changing wind
brought anew, the smell of the sea.
But I’ll give them away, to you this time,
today, it’s too much for me.

For when angels ride the skies
to uplift and give you peace,
they’ll show you heaven on earth,
and pull you out of your shoes in pieces.

I’m falling down, just looking around.
I must be out of my mind.
Every step feels like I’m rushing in,
and I do fear what I’ll find.

I need a time-out, just for the day,
but it’s never out of my mind:
time’s too short for all I want,
and I don’t know what I’ll find.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

filling the void

-
Non-Newtonian fluids – Colloid Relationships


If you rush it does it harden and dig in it’s feet? Resist change? Block the flow? Or is it only solid if you hit it?
If you slowly stick your finger in it, does it yield? Does is surround and encompass and suspend you within its substance?
Filling the void, is that ultimately all we do?
I choose to fill my void with non-newtonian fluid.



(Ketchup, like Ooze, is a non-Newtonian fluid. Physicists say that the best way to get ketchup to flow is to turn the bottle over and be patient. Smacking the bottom of the bottle actually slows the ketchup down! Look up non-newtonian fluid, and use it for a writing prompt, I dare ya!)

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Prelude to a nap

-
Take the keys to the car
the battery’s dead
turn off the oven
the element’s out
drop the key to the clock
pull the plug on the rock
roll onto the couch
stop and blink.


This is a Sunday 160 flash fiction poem.  In 160 characters, spaces included if you are up for the challenge, post on Sunday, and let Monkey Man know HERE and tell one other person.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

rapture



Lupine, lilac or

lavender: delirious

as sunlight kissed lips.
-
-

Thursday, April 22, 2010

55 Flash Fiction Friday, Tears


Rhythms as raindrops
flash, stab and disappear.
Smiles and tears surge over
flooding waterfalls.
How much can a body hold,
or drink too deeply?
Is the aching audible
above the water’s rush?
How far away before drought begins
and flood ends?
Hearts ache with drought or flood.
The blues will flash and stab
and disappear.


Dedicated to the daughters loosing their mothers, Mickie, Nickel, Chris.  April is the cruelest month.....
-
Photo: H.G. Giese 2010

Happy earth


Kiwi mounded hills



Poppy confettied berries


Whipped clouds a la mode

photo JT Giese Shell Creek Road 2010

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Kite Raptor
























To my query whether to:
capture a rapture?,
Mark of the blog
Walking Man said:
“Feel it then let it go
and find a new one”. 
This is a step:
-
Kite Raptor
He works with the fierce winds
the ones we curse on our course
like an arrow overhead
bisecting the highway
attacking a tack against the wind
he crosses the byway.

Stop shivering and sheltering
from the wind whipping through.
Stand in the rage.
Face the fracturing force.

With grounded legs
staked, arms spread
eagle for the ride
grapple and belay
the massive cumulus
passing over us.
-

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Sunday 160

How many ways

is fire kindled

a smile spoken

do hands hold

can time expand

might space shrink

in between ordinary

before fatigue succumbs

should a rapture be captured?
-
-


Let Monkey man know if you write a sunday post in 160 characters, spaces included.
Photo by JT Giese, 2010, Shaver Lake, Ca

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Space

-
Space

Sets a pace,
To stop the pacing and racing.
It’s a gift
Of time,
Honored entirely as mine.
Intervals
Are for pausing,
Not effecting and causing.
Pattern
in rhythm,
is music, and not random.
Space
Defines the place
Where time becomes a line.
Listening
To the now,
Not the when, or the how.
Silence
Miles apart,
Calms and slows the heart.
Nothingness
Isn’t loss,
For it has no cost.
Encompass
The Celestial All,
Matter is finitely small.
Alone
Without the other,
Rarefies our time together.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Not a 55 Flash Fiction

-
I held her lightly
-
I brushed off the cobwebs
Aired out the closets
Opened the windows and doors.

I hugged my child
Put out his fires
And recounted his Nana’s love.

I held her lightly
listening for her 2nd voice
In the heart of my thoughts.

Although last in the line, I lead
an ‘Orleans-style procession
slowly strumming the Unbroken Circle.

In a blue glazed pot
Hand-Spun and stroked with love
Under a deeply etched sign

I set her down lightly.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Conscious of you


-
The day rolls out,
Empty but full,
Of unmeasured tasks,
Which never are through.

Every ring of the phone
An old sorrow-filled voice
Another full story,
An offer of grace.

Awakens a consciousness:
Conscious of needing you,
Needing you whole,
And needing you strong.

So I love all in all.
And I’m present at best.
Until I’m alone,
Without all the rest.

With my own consciousness:
Conscious of needing you,
Needing you whole,
And needing you strong.

The unbidden the sorrow,
The bodily pain,
What life had become,
And couldn’t sustain.

What I come back to
Is where you came from,
And how much you loved us,
Each and every one.

Home to my consciousness
Conscious of being you
My making you whole
And feeling strong.
-
-
for my mother, who died 4-11-2008, and for my brother and his wife during this week's vigil with her mother Mabel....who is close.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Sunday 160 Cuesta Ridge


-
Cardio
Pulsed

Uncharted
Course

Lifetime too
Brief

Embrace your
Belief

Mountain to
Shore

Account for
more

2400
feet

Palette
Peaked














What can you say in 160 characters? (spaces included) Go see Monkey Man HERE

and tell someone else to take the challenge!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Friday 55 Georgia O'Keefe

-
Georgia O’Keefe
painted flowers.

As a teenager,
I saw:
mists of salmon pearls
blushing
to scarlet,
around powdered
grey petals
pulling out
lapis irises.

Concentric layers
of receding facets,
opening outward
and tunneling inward.

Shadows draping,
light spacing
the forms embracing:
motion,
vibration,
repeated
impressions.

Now, I so often recognize
Georgia O’Keefe
painted more than flowers.

This is a poem in 55 words.  If you want to participate on Fridays, post your short story or poem in exactly 55 words, and let G-Man know, HERE
-
What is it about flowers in Spring, or on significant days, or for a funeral, or for gifts between lovers?  We know the effects of chocolate historically and biochemically.  So.... does anyone know why flowers are so intoxicating, .....really?
...
“Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time - and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.
If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small. So I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.
...Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower - and I don't."
-Georgia O'Keeffe quotes.

-California Lupin, photo by JT Giese, 2010

Home-cation #2

-
Sometimes life slows down,
enough to become contemplative,
savory, infatuated with the moment. 
For many of us, this is not
a reality-based world.


So the secret life of poetry
is like a door I open and close,
into a maelstrom, or an opiate-den,
or a moment frozen in time
far from normalcy.
-

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

A home-cation

-
centered triangle
downward dog, cat, master stretch
lions with the lamb
-

Sunday, April 4, 2010

writers write

Congratulations to my friend at Enchanted Oak, Chris, for getting published in the local Tribune paper.
She's having a rough time right now, and needs and deserves this tribute.  Please read her work and send her your prayers if you haven't already.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Friday Flash Fiction 55


Will a candle in the darkness
illuminate and set me free?

The light of half-truth is painless.
But a half-yin is merely yang-less.

Once you shared a secret with me,
I showed you my dark side
hidden from family.

Read all the pages
of the chapter I left unturned:

yin and yang,
illuminated or burned.