A Poem a Day (116): Tick

Here's one I wrote for JD Mader's 2minutesgo website last week.


Tick

It’s time,
The clock says it’s time
For all hours, minutes, seconds to
Unwind, sinking, swimming into mist.
The telling time.

The seeker waits in the wings,
Frozen in the dream state humming.
Nimbus rolls in darkest thunder
To keep the fireflies buzzing.
White candles flicker in the burn,
A hint of sage sweeps the air.
He listens to this dark electric,
Sparks tripping off beyond the veil.

The puppeteer resides in corners,
Moving pieces around his board,
Stuck in this stasis, in rehearsal,
Not seeking a reversal of his fate.
He ushers full sound upon this stage,
Ringing a bell for the Pharisee, who
Like the witch, has far to travail.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, November 16, 2019

Flash fiction (24): The tailor

Written for JD Mader's 2minutesgo.

Travellers

It’s comical and tragic how she floats between walls, the silent watcher becoming the studied, the scarlet magician defeated. These lines were painted long before her arrival, their essence already etched into the red soil made solid. Dust is all they know, and dust keeps smothering the spaces in between thought, the gaps of knowledge covered anew, as paper evens cracks. The tailor arrived yesterday, carrying his dispirit trapped in a glass jar, empty except for a listening ear. A stub of gristle marked the removal, but I did not flinch. He eyed me curiously, seeking evidence of my fear, my repugnance, yet I gave him nothing. I watched him go, the hours of travel drawn on his back, blank on his face. I did not think of him again until I heard the cry. The night split in two.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 6, 2019

Flash fiction (23): To fading

I wrote this today for JD Mader’s writing site. If you fancy writing some flash fiction or poetry, and getting/giving feedback, or just reading other people’s creations, head over to JD Mader’s 2minutesgo website. It’s a great place to go and write whatever is in your head. Cheers.

To fading

I give you nothing in the eyes of this sacred summer; a cold distancing you need to get you through this night. It will breathe, the truth, resurrect you in a blink, deliver you from the evil you bang on about. Yet you love it so, inhaling its dank breath; relishing this reality, this true relationship, the deepest one you’ve ever shared with another – behold, the biggest loss you’ll feel when claws wrench it away.

I watch you. Like a child you sleep, breathing the nether, the empty, a time of bliss and quiet, and still, so still. A sculpture, palest cheeks carved into the pillow. I’m scarcely aware that you exhale. Do you? Are you real? I sometimes wonder.

The way you tilt your chin and look at me in that way you have when you think I’m not seeing you, it makes me weary now. Weary of tomorrow. If only you could stay like this, simple, away from the world you find so difficult to trudge through. It starves you of what you need. You never tire of telling me this. Reminding me. Informing me why the creative inside of you is dead.

They killed it, you say. And sometimes you cry. But you know I can’t bear to see a man cry. Your endless desire for empathy is a drowning. You would have steered me away from you, dragged me across a lake, pretending you could walk on water. And now you disintegrate into dreamtime, the only safe crossing for you.

What if you don’t wake up? What if you just stop? What if? This second is the longest and I keep the door ajar for you, waiting. Outside an owl sounds and I know it echoes here for you.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 6, 2019

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Flash fiction (22): Moral code

Flash fiction written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writingexercise... It's every Friday-Sunday, so if you fancy writing something - whatever you feel like - head over there, or just read the flash fiction and poetry.

Moral code

Come what may, those are the lessons we have to learn, he stated, settling too long on the word “morality”. The room spun on a revolving desk woven with autumnal leaves; a veritable feast of reds, oranges and yellow, sliding like liquid ink towards the swirl of the thick carpet, in contrast to the hollow beige of the man, from his wispy hair to his sharp suit, far too short in the leg. Did he actually wink at me as he spoke, the curl of his lips seeming to reveal something else? 

I looked again and the colourful cloth resumed its everyday appearance, but the flaming red still sounded a warning. I backed away towards the window and the rigid black ornamental feline perched there. As Mr Brown strode towards the door, the cat’s stiffness slunk away and she sank down on the sill, back into Sphinx mode, eyeing me in empathy. I could have sworn she smiled. 

Once he’d left, I took the sealed, stamped letter out of my pocket and reread the stick blue scrawl, asking for Elizabeth Main. So she hadn’t forgotten me over these nine long, silent months. Her confinement at an end, it was only a matter of days before she’d walk through the front door and everything could go back to normal, and he’d be sent packing whence he came.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, June 1, 2018

Flash fiction (21): Midst

This one was written for Dan Mader's 2minutesgo writing exercise – kicking my writing butt! Head over to his website to read or write. It's up to you :) Happy Friday!



Midst

We have this and we have the middle, the beginning, but never the end. The finality of it all hovers in the distance, a bridge of empty air, conjured up by magic, wondered at, imagined; so clearly defined we may feel we can step upon it, touch it, grip the safety rail if we wish, but we’d be wrong. It fades into the ether, sinking, becoming one with it, spreading into the very air, devoid of atoms, full silent. In this middle we have our understanding, our being, our rest, our all; the sounds, scents, feelings of each and every echo of each and every second, and we long for them. How we will miss them when they are vapour. Yet even then we will still find ourselves wandering in circles in the middle, enveloped by meaningless time, spilling and never spilled, emptying but never emptied. And when we finally draw towards the edge, there will be the very centre of it all, inviting us, the ghosts of our passing, our sacred seconds spent.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, June 1, 2018

Flash fiction (20): The aftermath

This one was written for Dan Mader's 2minutesgo writing exercise – the only thing managing to kick my butt into writing lately. 

This week I injured a finger. I touch-type and I'm never taking that for granted again. Typing with one hand is kind of slooooow. This took forever! I guess this is an ode to little fingers!

The aftermath

So the thing was said in two words when speech wasn’t needed, the reply losing itself upon the wind whistling through his brain. In the darkness in which he wrapped himself these things he came to see: the arch of her back, the light dancing in her eyes, the red flecks in her hair. But it hadn’t always been that way. In the past they always sat in rooms, silent; the back of her head the only thing given freely. The monotone answer of her voice stagnant water, the tapping echo of her pencil tip an irritation he could never scratch. She was always good at sums, able to add up anything. Numbers were her thing. And dates. Birthdays, weddings, appointments, anything – some so random as to be inconsequential. And anniversaries. He breathed in the smoke. His one downfall the pitiful memory he inherited from his father, no matter what they say about most chromosomes being inherited from your mother. How he wished. The woman filed memories like an elephant. He stubbed out the cigarette butt on the step and gazed down at Layla’s soft, brown eyes beneath him. She barked and cocked her head to one side. He nodded and stood. It would be a while before it was safe to venture back inside anyway.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, Dec 22, 2017