I recently had the wonderful opportunity to be interviewed by the lovely Ortensia from Truly Madly Ordinary – Diary Of A “Not So Desperate Housewife!” The questions were interesting, and I felt I could share some relevant information about myself with her readers. It was fun, and something I hadn’t done in a long time. Thanks, Ortensia, for a fun interview! I’ve seen the wonderful comments so far, and I’m feeling happy that your readers enjoyed it too. :)
I hope everyone takes a moment to check out Ortensia’s blog, not only for the other interviews but also for the hilarious stories that will endear you to her, just as they did me when I read her work for the first time.
Here is this week’s image to get your creative juices flowing!
Please create one senryu and one haiku to accompany this image prompt. Remember that traditional American haikus and senryus are three lines presented in a 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. The haiku describes nature or a season, and the senryu focuses on human nature and emotions.
This image features a mountain range with the sun illuminating parts of the peaks. The top half of the picture shows a mostly cloud-free sky with a few white streaks here and there.
Then, provide a link in the comments below or ping back to this post on your blog.
Here is a wrap-up of last week’s prompt. I appreciate each of you for sharing your thoughts!
black earth can only bury for so long a seed’s steel boldness
FIRE ON FIRST STREET
A house burns. Throngs of flame overwhelm firemen’s hoses. The family is safe, look up in horror from the opposite side of the street. In one collective searing raspberry, a great red tongue pokes and pffts through every window.
AFTER THE BREAKUP
like salmon swimming upstream
you too return to your birthplace
flop on your old bed
and die a little
MEDALS
Survived a helicopter crash, was shot three times and badly wounded from a roadside bomb explosion, of his chest full of medals, his very favorite was his chest.
TAKE PLEASURE
Through my window, I spy a sky worth waking to, the blue of Dutch pottery, and thin strips of cloud.
No tenements. No factories. No smoke-stacks. No traffic.
Looking up gets me out of the city.
POST-DIVORCE
the hands drifted apart
and the hearts were now for everyone else
yet remained unwanted
in the lonely years to come
~~~
John Grey is an Australian poet, a US resident, and has recently published in New World Writing, River And South, and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters,” and “Between Two Fires,” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review, and Cantos. John has been with The Short of It since its very first feature, and received a Push Cart Nomination from TSI for his 2024 piece – Handoff.
If you’d like to be featured on The Short of It in the future, click here for the submission guidelines.
The more we live the more we hurt first wound aching underneath all the others fresh one opening creating a new tear on the multitudes existing
Layers of lessons
waiting for a new danger
scars prickling in response
to a red flag waving
our nerves insisting on caution
our bowels all a jumble
preparing to hesitate
Safety beckons
but life still calls
ripe for a new adventure
pushing the previous pain down
putting flesh-colored bandaids
on the wounds
knowing the risks could be worth it
Here is this week’s image to get your creative juices flowing!
Please create one senryu and one haiku to accompany this image prompt. Remember that traditional American haikus and senryus are three lines presented in a 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. The haiku describes nature or a season, and the senryu focuses on human nature and emotions.
This image depicts a mountain range, with a man hiking on one of the grey and black ridges in the foreground. The colors beyond it in the middle are a kaleidoscope of shades of red and orange, with white clouds and blue sky at the top.
Then, provide a link in the comments below or ping back to this post on your blog.
Here is a wrap-up of last week’s prompt. I appreciate each of you for sharing your thoughts!
Diseases clambered onto injuries onto genetics. The recovery waves receding a little each time until the swells of ailments brought him aground. In time those close gathered to remember him, not as much for his many achievements, as for where he had nestled in their lives.
During the teary, half-smiling sharings, and during his gently reflective observance, his image was sharpened and brightened with memories of love, affection, and wit that the living will continue to hold close.
The Gathering
In time, all that is gathered in is lost. Persons beloved, enjoyed, or tolerated move or fade or die away. Beliefs defended with vehemence dry rot into irrelevance. Things ostentatious and idiosyncratic outlast posturings and purposes but toward the end are disposed of. In time, there is only memory of gathering.
Blissful Squalor
It was, I think, in Holland that I first noticed picture windows showing lit-up living rooms without curtains or concealment, displaying staged presentations of ordered domestic bliss. But I was raised in shrouded concealment, with the incoming light bound and blinkered so only birds could peek inside and see the relative dishevelment of my existence. A hermetic messiness usually only sorted when others were allowed inside the curtains.
The Grip
His fingers were always half cupped the nails dirty, horny, and split, the knuckles over large and gnarled. He perched his hands in his lap, as if lifting them was a chore. Those hands were the sigil of his life, abused by weather and rough work.
But then he stood up in the boat, picked up his fly rod and cast, line undulating like a dancer, his callused palm and fingers caressing the weathered cork, and I understood that this at least was still his to enjoy, hands whole enough for grace.
In My Image
There are perhaps a dozen men with whom I share unspoken bond, our foibles snugging up so tight that we can laugh in unison at one another’s feeble try at status-seeking posturing and smile together when we fail to gild an image thick with rust.
Hateful Comfort
There is perverse placidity in our turmoil and tension. No need to struggle to discern shades of meaning and intent. Just simply categorize and then also ostracize by label. Hate is akin to lust in that the emotions are compulsive, engorging, and uncomplicated.
Trestles
It is the quiet ones who are most sturdy not the flicker-changing charismatics not bargainers who give themselves away not the opinionated who suffer wrong not the flabby-minded who only consume it is those who wear themselves in silence that are the rarely noted support beams.
Patches of Snow
Snow in early spring lingers in scabby patches on the blacks and browns of streets and lawns, the last overstaying guests to leave a party, disheveled, and stained with the crusts and spills of an innately sloppy season.
~~~
Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty-odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over 550 stories and poems published so far, and twelve books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he squats on the review board. This is Ed’s first feature with The Short of It.
If you’d like to be featured on The Short of It in the future, click here for the submission guidelines.
I Write Her 