Mondays Free Write: Congrats Christine!

Congratulations Christine on your winning contribution!

Is it that the gods have set fire to the earth to purge it of evil?
Is my neighbor across the street burning autumn leaves?
Am I in Alaska gazing at the Northern Lights?
No, it's "just another" sunset, a glowing farewell to the day.
Goodnight.

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Tuesdays Tale

Thanks, izzy, for your contribution to this photo - your melancholy words fit the photo very well.

In the last year,we have heard quite a few reports (in the area we live in) of people hit and killed on the tracks-
It always baffles me- are people risking themselves by standing on the rails until the very last second?
Are they being sucked in as the train goes by? are they putting an arm out
and getting whipped about somehow-
Are they considering hitching a ride?
Some have a car involved, some were more than one person... one survives, one does not. Very sad and mysterious.



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Tuesdays Tale: Featured Post Winner

Thanks, morganna, for your wonderful contribution!

Thrum. The first vibration caught the spider's attention. Thrum. The second had her racing down the ley lines. Thrum. She was at the fly's side, wrapping it carefully and preparing to suck out it's life. Yum.


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Tuesdays Tale

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Wednesdays Ten: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations to bel on the winning post.

Out past her bedtime, she cherished her date with Dad.

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Tuesdays Tale: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations, bel, on your winning contribution.

She couldn't believe there was school today. Didn't adults ever look around and think, "What a beautiful day. Who wants to be inside? Let's cancel school and spend the day taking in the beautiful snow-coated trees." And whose idea was it to equip the buses with whatever tires were required to drive in 4 inches of snow? That guy needed a life. As soon as the bus came chugging around the corner, the trees would tremble and all the beauty would be rattled to the ground where it would turn ash-colored and sad. And why couldn't it have snowed for another couple of hours, anyway? An hour or 2 delay, at least, in the beginning of school. That would give her a little more time to finish writing the paper she had been certain last night that she wouldn't have to hand in today. Stupid NOT-snowday.


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Thursdays The: Featured Post Winner

Thank you Dani for your terrific contribution.

The little road was located at almost the very top of the hill and to the right, the ground dropped down quickly amongst thick green grass and pine trees. I stood next to the pretty little fence and breathed in the mountain air. The sky was beautiful today, blue with floating puffs of white slowly creeping across it. It felt so free up here somehow. I was so far away from the office. I was far away from everything and they seemed to be far away and long ago, even completely insignificant, although I had been at my desk just yesterday in my business skirt, shuffling papers and talking on the phone. I couldn't believe it had just been yesterday. Now I stand here in jeans and a t-shirt, one booted foot wedged up on a wooden fence near the smell of pine and fresh air. The breeze made my hair tickle my cheek and I wished I'd never have to return to the office. I knew I had to, but I would definitely be doing this kind of thing more often from now on.


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Tuesdays Tale: Featured Post Winner

Thank you, r92, for contributing! Beautiful!

Drifter

drifter

he

floats on the slate-black surface

a glint of stubble

and shadowed eyes

casting blackness over the darkness

drifter

waiting

and waiting

for something to bite the line.

drifter

he waits

floating

between this world

and another

waiting

between

the blurred lines of night and day

and before dawn

and after night

and waiting

for something to bite the line.

drifter

the moon fell asleep

waiting for him to leave her in peace

but he waits

stubbornly

for proof

that fish

exist between worlds too.

***

drifter

ethereal

she floats

between this world and that

her hair browned

bleached

with dirt and the sun

straggling behind her

as she lifts her face

grimy

paled

eyes widened

wider than normal people's can be

light eyes

shocking the rest of her face with their beauty

unaware of existence around her

drifter

she waits

for luck to fall into her palm.

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Thursdays The: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations Sarah on the winning contribution.

The summer had surely begun..
spinning silver and flashing wheels.
Bend in concentration
as they press on.
Rushing through the summer.


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Wednesdays Ten: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations to Dani on the winning post.

Sometimes, darkness is comforting. Somehow, bright light is what's feared.

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Tuesdays Tale: Featured Post Winner

Thanks Heather, for your contribution!

Remembering that day long ago, when they first met one another; it was to an old Beatles tune on the car radio that played. Everyone was hanging around the bon-fire and the music grew louder. She was twirling and dancing with drink in hand as she stumbled into him.

Twenty years later, on the eve of that first night...they toasted. A reminiscent toast of first sight, first kiss and the first time she'd stepped on his toes. All to the tune of a Beatles song.


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Tuesdays Tale: Featured Post Winner

Congrats to Matt Merritt from One Block for his winning contribution:

The air twirled with Maple seeds.
They sat quietly near the bank together. Her fingertips danced on the back of his hand. Her palm was damp and warm, and the heat climbed her wrist, up her arm to her elbow, which was nestled in his. Everything else was numb.
She took in his smell of dirt, sweat, peanut butter, and honey. It was so uniquely boy.
She studied his knee, a smear of dry blood on dark green, and the threadbare hem of his khaki shorts. She studied every blemish on the back of her hand as it lay on his.
Then he turned toward her. She was spinning or everything else was. She closed her eyes and saw white.
They kissed.
Sunlight burst from her. It bounced back off the water, leaves and grass. The pair glittered.
He squeezed her shoulders hard and pressed against her, upsetting her tenuous balance. She caught herself and put her arms around his neck without breaking contact.
It was absolutely everything she had dreamed and obsessed over. Perfect.
“Ryan! Time to go!” They jumped apart as his mother called for him.
She blushed fiercely, and he scrambled up the slope. “Bye,” he said and raced across the grass to where his mother was rounding up picnic supplies.
She fell back against the knotted trunk, replaying each moment, rewinding the memory, and playing it again. She subconsciously added a breath of wind, sunbeams, and bird chirps at just the right moments.
Ten minutes later she rejoined her parents.
“Hey, honey. Did you have fun?” her father said as they loaded the minivan.

--

Barely 24 hours later now, she sagged against the Maple tree and stared through the bare earth between her knees.
The world was dull grey, gone cold and soulless. The tree wept with her, seeds that clung to the tousled curtain of hair encircling her down-turned face.
Clenched in her hand was a note, crimpled and smudged but legible.
I hope we can still be friends.


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Thursdays The: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations to septembermom on the winning post.

"The earth will remain," Jake's grandfather reminded them as they surveyed the land. With a chuckle, he whispered to Jake, "Even when Grandma has had enough of me, I know that the earth will lend an ear and let me be." Jake's grandma smiled in their direction as she filled her basket with wildflowers. She liked how Jake softened her sometimes cranky husband.

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Fridays Poetry: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations Don on your winning contribution.

To the garden I've returned...

Behind the gate,
behind the wall,
beneath the flower tree,
I rest.

I've been beyond
the gate and wall.
I've been in
the chaos and the swell.

But now I've returned
to order and beauty,
to calm and quiet.

Here, I'll re-create and rest,
until I venture forth
again.

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Tuesdays Tale: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations septembermom on your winning contribution!

Curled up on the couch, she would wait for him to take out the guitar. Sunday nights became their night to play around with lyrics. Her husband still had that shaggy hair in his eyes as he began to strum those strings. If she closed her eyes, she could go right back to that bench in Central Park where he used to entertain the morning joggers. That turned out to be her favorite jog of the week.


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Wednesdays Ten

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Mondays Meme: Featured Post Winner

morganna, I love words too :) ~ Congratulations for your winning entry:

Words. I have been fascinated with words for as long as I can remember. Fitted into sentences, phrases, poems; letters substituted to make nonsense words; spelled backwards; any way you can think of, I love words.

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Monday's Meme: Featured Post Winner

Don, I enjoyed your witty way of sharing memories with us. Congratulations today!

Memories

Where dragonflies and soup meet.

Dragonflies are summer creatures
that skimmed our pool
and made us nervous.

Can they really sew your mouth shut?
Or was that just my sisters' taunting me?

Soups were not from summer,
but memories don't mark seasons.

Clam chowder, oyster stew, and split pea soup all conspired
to make me love my mom
especially at lunch time.

SoCal in the summer or winter:
the stuff of dreams.

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Wednesdays Ten: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations to bel on the winning post.

I can't see a thing! Did we miss the party?

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Fridays Poetry: Featured Post Winner

Congratulations Don on your winning contribution!

A Proper Ranking

An empty cross
And two disciples.

Unseen is the utmost pinnacle.
A risen Christ with arms outstretched in blessing?

And above that?
An open heaven.


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