Bloomsday Again

 21st Bloomsday

                for Pep

Today your death is

twenty-one years old.

An adult.

Today your death could

walk into a bar in Boston

and order a Sam Adams.

Today your death could

play blackjack at Encore

(which is only five, btw).

Today your death could

rent a car, adopt a child,

be a driver's ed instructor.

Today your death is

a college junior majoring

in grief management.

Today your death is

so big it would need

numeraled candles on its cake.

Today your death will

have just fifteen more

years to live.

One Ocean, Two Seas in Firth

I have a very special poem in the first issue of Firth, and I wanted an equally special spot to place the second contributor's copy that Firth urged us to leave "for someone to find, and hopefully to read and enjoy."

From Scotland to Barcelona, from Barcelona to Jamaica Plain. Bon voyage, Firth!!

Visit Firth on facebook.

For the record, the poem is for Keith.

The Siren Call

When I went overboard, the shock of the cold was greater than the shock of your hand at my back. I swallowed the dark Atlantic, warmed to its voices. Keening whales sang me to her. She was tangled in your fraying halyard.

Passing On Tradition

This story was included in the #NFFD2014 Flash Flood:

 http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/passing-on-tradition-by-kymm-coveney.html

November

       “Katie’s nine now,” Blanche said into the phone. She picked up the envelope, straightened it. “Shall I get tickets to the Nutcracker while you’re in town?”

      “The Nutcracker,” Jenny said. “Who’d be going?”

      Blanche tucked the envelope behind the fruit bowl. “Just us girls,” she said. “Won’t that be fun?” She closed her eyes to the silence, remembered Jenny and Sarah in matching winter coats. Her mother-in-law herding them into the theater, cigarette hand waving Blanche off.

      “Just you, Katie and me?” Jenny finally said. “That would be fun. A real treat.”

      “It’s settled, then.” Blanche pulled the envelope towards her and shook out the four tickets.

December

      Blanche hummed as she prepared the tree-trimming dips to go with the spiked eggnog. She paused over the photograph she kept on the fridge of Jenny and Sarah draped in tinsel, arms across shoulders like college roommates. She listened for the sound of banter, laughter. When she joined them, the eggnog was mostly rum and their voices were not full of cheer or even camaraderie, but were clipped and strained.

      “Let me hang your ornament, Mommy.” Katie was excited, demanding.

      “Remember which one is Mommy’s?”

      Katie dug her hand in the box, then held it behind her back. Not the silver sled, thought Blanche. Sarah turned from the tree, sloshing her drink.

      “Hey! My silver sled!” She lunged towards Katie. “Give it here, Katie-Poo.”

      “I think it’s time for bed, Katie,” said Blanche. She took the child by the shoulders. “Let me see?” She dug the sled out of the girl’s hand. “This was Great-Grandma Ida’s when she was a girl.” Katie shrugged out of her grasp. “Here, Sarah, hang it by the glass ballerina.”

      Jenny led Katie out of the room. “Have another drink,” she called back. “Eggnog with a dash of silver sled.”

January

      Blanche found them brushing Katie’s hair. “Look what Aunt Sarah got for you.” She held up ruby red ballet slippers.

      “It’s below zero,” Jenny said. “You really don’t expect”

      “Mom, look!” Katie stood and plied.                               

      Jenny clipped Katie’s hair back. “You’re gonna freeze. Go get your coat.”

      “Why are there four tickets?” Jenny asked the mirror.

      “I think,” said Blanche from the doorway, “that’s Sarah I hear.

      “Mom.” Jenny followed her mother to the kitchen, where Katie modeled the shoes. Sarah stood in their grandmother’s fur coat.

      “Where are you going?” asked Jenny.

      “We’re going to the ballet,” said Katie.

      “But Aunt Sarah isn’t.” Jenny looked at Blanche, then back at the fur coat. “It’s just us three, right, Mom?”

      Blanche jiggled the car keys as she pushed her arms through her coat. “Come, come, girls, we’ll be late.”

      Katie petted the fur coat. “Are you going to see the game with Daddy and Gramps?” she asked. “Cause they left already.”

      Blanche sat Katie between her and Jenny. Little girls in tutus and tiaras skipped down the aisles. She watched them, studiously ignoring the sold-out theater's one empty seat on the other side of Jenny.

A dream has power to poison sleep

- Mutability, Percy Bysshe Shelley

The above quote was the inspiration for this entry to the inaugural Light and Shade Challenge.

The Artiste

Alice got up from her desk and walked through the small office space, past Joan the typist, Chuck the salesman and Tom the accountant. She knocked at the open door, where her father stood talking with his partner Don, and Alex, the comptroller.

“Phone call, Dad.”

“Who is it?”

Alice shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

“Go ask who it is.” Her father turned back to Don.

Alice returned, passing by Tom and Chuck and Joan, smiling aimlessly, unsure of the pertinent office etiquette. She sat and picked up the phone.

“May I ask who’s calling?” She remembered the line from some TV show.

“Ed Duncan.”

“Ed Dunlop?”

“Ed Duncan.”

“Ed Duncan, just a moment.”

Alice got up from her desk and walked past Joan, who smiled, and Chuck and Tom. She tapped at the doorframe of her father’s office.

“Dad? It’s Ed Duncan.”

“What company?” he asked, without looking up from a flowchart.

Alice looked at him for a beat or two. Seriously? she thought. She turned away and walked past Tom and Chuck and Joan.

‘I’m learning the business,’ she mouthed to Joan who was typing furiously. Even in her head she could hear how weak it sounded. She still wasn’t even sure exactly what the business was.

She picked up the phone.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dunlop. What company are you calling from?”

“Duncan.”

“Mr. Duncan, I’m sorry.”

“Comm Lighting.”

“Chrome Lighting?”

“COMM Lighting.”

“Com Lighting, thank you.”

Alice counted her footsteps as she walked past Joan, who stopped typing to gaze at her, past Chuck, who had yet to look up from the phone, and past Tom. She stood in the doorway as Don but not her father looked up.

“Ed Dunlop from Com Lighting.”

Her father turned, the phone to his ear.

“Ed Duncan,” he said. “Take a message, I’m on another call.”

Alice turned and walked past Tom, Chuck, Joan, her face burning a bright pink.

By the end of the summer, Alice had learned how to be a secretary.

33 words for , including WEAK (adjective) 3: not factually grounded or logically presented: weak 

argument>

Town Pier

 Photo credit: [ changó ] / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

Boat launching out by the docks.

A mooring

dumped by hurricane, stranded.

Waves, seaweed, gulls.

Caustic

bite of salt.

Sand like end-of-summer dirt

duned up against a lamppost.

Ahab waiting on the tide.

33 words for , inspired by the photo.

Prey

Adrenaline rush of the century. Like a charge of electricity, it pushes me through suburban yards. Heart pounding, my lungs burn. Hidden under a musty tarp. Feeling lost. Jaws snap at my ankles. Night falls howling.

 

This weekend  wants our usual 33, plus charge, century, lost.

 

Everytime I heard or read the word "pray" yesterday, I thought of "prey". I am not a religious person.