Author: R.

The border

When you live on a ranch near the border, you get a lot of unexpected visitors.
They will try to take things.
Some of leave enough out to help them to get down the road without breaking in to take more.
We open our doors every night and hold a dinner for everyone coming here.
Plenty of bunk beds in the barn.
The next morning, after the poison’s done its work, we bury the bodies out back.
The sheriff comes by now and then.
All he wants is his share of the money we find.
It pays for more poison.

Weekly Challenge #1021 – Poetry

The next topic is Pencil case

LISA

The Dog Walk

Afternoon. The light fails fast. The poetry of the season doesn’t escape me as a golden glow hugs the park: it’s a feast for the senses. Russet leaves rustle underfoot. Mustard and claret cling on in trees above.
I forage with an urgency through damp, decaying debris in a thousand shades of brown. I find a perfect red mushroom straight from a fairytale but on I search to avoid a fine.
My foot, with full body weight wins the treasure hunt. It oozes either side of my deep treaded boot and smells like I should’ve found it a lot quicker.

LIZZIE

She wrote poetry.
He said it was garbage.
She tried again and again.
He laughed.
She cried.
He mocked her.
She wanted to stay, but couldn’t. She wanted to leave, but couldn’t.
He torched her poetry.
She wrote some more.
His rage became impossible. He destroyed her clothes and her books.
She grabbed her purse, her poetry notebook and her umbrella. She didn’t know why she took the umbrella with her. She just did. It was hers and it reminded her that when you look at an umbrella from underneath, you can see the sky and feel that you’re flying.

RICHARD

Poetic
I’ve never been one for poetry. Give me prose any day. I don’t need flowery language or complicated structure, just give me facts in plain, straightforward terms.
It’s not that I don’t like poetry. I appreciate it, and there are times it’s perfect for my mood or the occasion, but I don’t go out of my way to find it.
The same goes for writing.
I suck at poems.
I never have the time,
And they never really rhyme.
Well, how about that?
I’m writing on the train right now, so I guess you could say that’s poetry, in motion.

SERENDIPIDY

‘Roses are red, Violets are blue
With a shot to the head
I’m going to kill you’
I told you I wasn’t the artistic one in the family.
If I’d asked my sister to pen a poetic prelude to your last moments, she’d have done a much better job of it.
It would have been full of drama, pathos and emotion; you’d have wept at how she’d captured the moment in all its horrific beauty.
But, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, and my less than brilliant grasp of rhyme and meter.
So…
‘Roses are red:
And now, you’re dead!’

NORVAL JOE

Billbert watched the old man spin up into the sky and disappear. He shook his head. “Poetry in motion.”

Bobbi squeezed Patrick’s arm. “What is wrong with your head? You were going to kill those women.”

Patrick shrugged away. “What does it matter to you?”

Tears formed in the tall girl’s eyes. “It matters because you’re my brother and I love you. And I don’t want you to go to jail.”

Patrick looked like he had been hit on the head by a brick. “You love me?” he asked. “Even after everything I did to you, you still love me?”

TOM

reads us stories out of I Ching
She was poetry in motion you can let go. An angel from the angel band. A shadow in a wasted land. A Specter rising up in the sand. Sweet Lorain. You know you should run, cuz your feet know better. The mark on the ground is big red letter. Sweet Lorain. The spell that she cast will be your end. To bottomless pits she will send. Sweet Lorain. Now you know it’s a shame and a pity you were raised up in the city and you never learned nothing ’bout country ways. You’re the not first you’re not last. Sweet Lorain

TURA

Poetry
———
In 1892, young Matilda Dunnett travelled by steamship from New York to Liverpool. During the voyage, she and a young man called James Hurt struck up an acquaintance, and discreetly became lovers.

At some point James wrote her a declaration of love on a ship’s biscuit, its durability promising his faithfulness. It is not known what became of the affair, but Matilda’s grand-daughter found it among her belongings after she died.

The biscuit is preserved at the National Maritime Museum in London. The caption reads:

“This ship’s biscuit

(inscribed with a love note)

shows signs of damage by larvae.”

Poetry!
———

Z

Jerry was posted to a far colony. Faster than light travel, made travel fast, but the infrequency of ships along the routes made communication less than instantaneous. A Data block would collect important information, and it would be delivered along the route. Sometimes a ship would be lost and news of the loss would take a while to arrive before another data block could be sent. Jerry sent poetry back to his fiancé, trying to entice her to get aboard the next ship. Eventually, she agreed. It wasn’t until the next circuit that Jerry learned her ship had vanished.

Elaine’s walk of shame

Every time Elaine drank herself into a blackout and woke up in some strange guy’s bed, she swore she wouldn’t do it again.
Bagging up the guy’s body, washing the place up, putting him in his own car’s trunk.
Over and over and over.
One day, she’d slip up and leave evidence.
A hair, being seen together on a camera.
Dropping the car off at the chop shop.
“Nice BMW,” said the owner, looking in the trunk. “We’ll take the disposal out of your finder fee.”
That night, Elaine went out to celebrate.
And a guy sent her a drink.

Smut shows

Early Hollywood was pretty racy.
Lots of violence and nudity in movies.
So, the Catholic Leagues would produce lists of movies with ratings of each.
Some were safe, that their parishioners shouldn’t see.
Others weren’t safe.
And then some they said if you saw them, you’d go straight to Hell.
Sure enough, people used the lists.
They skipped the safe movies and went to the naughty nasty smut shows.
When the Hayes Production Code arrived, nudity and violence were curtailed and censored everywhere.
And the churches stop publishing the lists.
But people still went to Hell for their earlier transgressions.

My first pizza

My first pizza was Barnaby’s thin crust in Northbrook.
Their sign had a brown potion bottle, but I always thought of it as a bowling pin.
We also went to the original Uno’s for deep dish.
Greasy thick dough pies.
Same with Godfather’s. Gross.
When we moved, a local joint called Rufini’s got me back to thin crust.
Until Little Caesar’s and their Detroit casseroles turned me off.
Abortion-soaked spongy toast.
And I choked down Sbarro’s only because they were free.
These days, it’s wood-fired brick oven.
And a crust so thin, I can cut my wrists with it.

Skipping English

Why didn’t I make perfect grades in school?
The work was boring.
And my parents thought I wasn’t emotionally capable of handling skipping grades.
Except that I wasn’t emotionally capable of dealing with being bored, either.
Check my juvenile rap sheet.
Eventually, I got a scholarship to a private school.
And did college-level physics and math there.
So, academically, I was ready for college. Except they required four years of English.
Yet, when I graduated, a Junior was allowed to attend summer School English to replace a year.
I tried to ram the headmaster’s car.
(Also on the rap sheet.)

Swindle

When I was little, my parents compiled a baby book.
It had photographs and report cards and vaccination records.
And some Bank of Israel bonds from a rich uncle that would mature when it was time for college.
Both were for ten dollars.
Two pizzas on a weekend. Gee, thanks.
But the page with the gift list mentioned three bonds, not two.
So, I dug around the closet and found the third one.
It was for a hundred thousand dollars.
My parents had tried to swindle it.
So, I swindled it back
And it paid for a lot of pizza.

Free lunches

I worked at a place that offered free lunches, free snacks, a free gym, and free power charging for electric cars.
Oh, and free cheap cell phones.
They didn’t pay great, but with these perks, they added enough to the compensation to make it worth staying.
When the pandemic hit, they didn’t offer a lunch stipend, sent out three small boxes of snacks over two years, and that’s it.
People who asked about the perks were made to feel like shit by management, so they left.
They tossed their free cheap cell phones into the gym.
And went to lunch.

Weekly Challenge #1020 – Gift

The next topic is Poetry

LISA

Christmas
Christmas was always the same at Mums. Everyone stayed over except Auntie Lizzie because she had to get back for her dog. She gave the best gifts but apologised saying she hadn’t got out to buy anything this year so, it was a shock when she handed me a present. It was a pricey looking necklace.
“They’re real. Not paste.”
Excited by this my brother unwrapped his even larger parcel. It was heavy and had a bit of a smell. He said nothing but showed us her dog.
I was dying to say: ‘at least you can stay over now.’

RICHARD

Ho, ho, humbug!
I hate Christmas gift shopping.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy choosing and giving gifts, it’s all the hassle that comes with it, and I’m not the most organised of people.
I have friends who buy presents throughout the year, wrap and label them as they go along, and when December comes around, all the hard work is done.
Not me though.
I used to leave it to the last minute, and it was always a nightmare.
Thankfully, I don’t usually see family and friends until after Christmas, so now I buy most of my gifts in the January sales!

SERENDIPIDY

I grew up in a very annoying family.
All my siblings could have been described as gifted. Between them, they excelled at sports, the arts and academically.
Unlike me.
You’d never describe me as sporty, I can’t paint, write, sing, act or play music and I dropped out of school, failing every exam I took.
I suppose you could say that, for me, it was an unhappy childhood: watching my brothers and sisters succeed and flourish, whilst I floundered.
They’re not succeeding now however.
Not since I poisoned them all.
I guess my cooking skills weren’t up to much either!

TOM

Tis Da Season
I don’t go Christmas gifts. My family and every close friend is a good
1000 miles away. I do have one person who I do un-Christmas gift with.
Each year we head down to the local Walmart. Pick out a functional but
not so fashionable leather wallet. You do this four decades you end up
will a draw filled with wallets. Not bum you all out, but that friend
die a few years back, so now truly I don’t do Christmas gift. I must
admit look in the draw of wallet is a bit of gift when the snow falls

NORVAL JOE

The old man snarled at Billbert. “You’ve gifted the Five Star Sisters a reprieve, but it won’t last very long.”

The door slammed open. Mrs. Weinerheimer charged in, shouting, “Gift is a noun. Not a verb.”

His mother’s superpower of efficiency was more than the Black Knights control over Billbert and Sabrina could handle.

As the tsunami dissipated to nothing, a tornado formed over the dilapidated cabin and ripped the feeble roof away.

Mandy and Mrs. Weinerheimer rushed to Billbert while Bobbi grabbed Patrick’s arm.

The tornado shrank, wrapped its tail around the Black Knight leader and whisked him away.

PLANET Z

Sometimes I like to buy things on Amazon for myself, get them gift wrapped, turn off notifications, and get blackout drunk. I don’t remember that I bought the things, and when they arrive I’m pleasantly surprised. Then I read the notes, and they’re horribly disturbing… downright creepy. How the Hell did they know this about me? Are they spying on me? Are they stalking me? Then I see the credit card statement and wonder if they hacked my account and stole my credit card. I call the card company to cancel my card and I change all of my passwords.

Nails

You know, I used to bite my nails.
Don’t remember a time when I didn’t.
Therapists told me that it was a form of self destruction.
I said the suicide attempts were more important signs of that.
I stopped biting my nails after Piper died.
For some reason, promising a cat that I’d stop biting my nails worked.
Aside from a rare pruning when I don’t have a kit nearby, every few months or so, I’ve stopped.
Of course, the cat’s death provoked the last suicide attempt, but the gun jammed.
Probably on a fingernail clipping, knowing how karma works.