The Boomerang That Came Back

As with writing, learning to throw a boomerang requires perseverance and discipline, the subject brought up this week at Poets and Storytellers, the power of discipline.  As it has an important, if symbolic, place in my novel, and in anticipation of my April 2nd release date, I thought I'd repost the poem I wrote back when I was first throwing the idea for a novel around in my head. (No pun intended.) 

Some of you may remember the G-Man and his Friday Flash 55 challenge to write fiction with a plot in 55 words. He inspired me to write flash poetry.  You could say, in a convoluted way, that he inspired me to write Let Evening Come.

The birth of a novel in 55 words.

Even as a child, she was drawn to the night
when the air was soft and fraught with life.
He, too, a child of twilight—
mysterious boy boomerang in his belt
Was my father’s he said,
dog circling, divining the night air.
Fingers entwined, he taught her to throw
so it would always come back.

Friday Flash 55 - The Knife Sharpening Man

was comin’ around,

so we hid in the closet

and shuttered the lights.

But he rapped-a-tat-tat

with his knives all-a-silver

and peered over the sill

with a smile like a sword.

It wasn’t a dream,

wasn’t a trance.

Next morning a trail

from the club foot he favored

dirtied the snow round windows and doors.

 

Let's start the New Year off right. Tell us a story in exactly 55  words and then let the G-Man know.  He also has your horoscope for 2013, so check it out. You can click here if you want a little history behind the Flash 55.

And now for a little history behind my flash 55. As stories go around these parts, along with the Watkins Man who delivered extracts and liniments there was a knife sharpening man who came around every few weeks in an old truck with a bell. He had a wheel in the back of his truck he pedaled with his foot, much like a sewing machine, and he would sharpen knives and scissors in a flash for a pittance.
 

As children are wont to do, my older sisters contrived stories around the knife sharpening man, all of them sinister and disturbing to the young child’s mind. Hence the seed for my Flash 55, much embellished, of course. I’m sure that the poor man was only delivering a much appreciated service and not peering in windows.

TGIF

THE BOY FROM YUGOSLAVIA (Flash 55)

While the teacher was at the beer garden they beat up the new boy with the funny name and she hid behind the country school and covered her ears until they were finished. He ran past her bloodied and in his place, face etched with the horror, and she thought, maybe now they’ll believe us.



If you can write a story in 55 words, post it on your site and then visit the G-Man to let him know. You'll get marvelous feedback from his many participants and even a visit from the man himself.

Have a marvelous weekend, writers and compatriots.

The Wrong Side of Town (Flash 55)

Beside a three-story house in Romanesque style
that’s falling down,
a station wagon is parked
in the tall grass on two flat tires.
An old man sits behind the steering wheel
and reads the newspaper,
oblivious to the crumbling ruins.
He does this every day,
past All Saints,
warm in his sunroom
but going nowhere.


If you can write a story in 55 words, let Mr. Knowitall know. TGIF party animals!

Miner Dorm

I remember the radio I won
selling magazines
and the song playing
the last time I lay with you.
The dorm was emptied for summer—
wisteria in bloom.
We lay on the bed
and listened to the closing of the doors.
We didn’t make promises to keep in touch
because we knew that we wouldn’t.

This is a Flash 55. And least I forget, Mr. Knowitall is the motivating factor.

The Brothers and the Shrew

The brother is back.
His stuff fills the garage—
styrofoam take-out on the table.
Brothers who shake hands and don’t hug,
who talk about the weather
and act like they don’t care.
Her husband acts like his brother
when he’s in town.
They lie on the couch and watch TV.
It’s them against her.
Brothers.


It's time for a snapshot, a peek through the open window, a captured moment in time. I thought I was going to write something for Earth Day but then I thought every day should be Earth Day and Brothers wanted out for the weekend. They wanted to raise a little hell. If you or anyone you know has written a Friday Flash 55, go tell Mr. Knowitall, known to some as the G-Man.

At the Lake House Borrowed From a Friend

She dressed for dinner even though she was alone, knowing there were worse things. There was losing a baby that was hard to conceive with a man she would have died for but who was now also lost to her. She walked out on the weather-beaten deck and waited for the sun to set.


If you can write a story in 55 words, post it and then visit the G-Man.

Sabotaged (friday flash 55)

Everything’s her fault.
She missed the UPS delivery
sunning by the pool.
She left the shutter open
on the camera
ruining the battery.
He sets her up for defeat
as he anchors the house.
She takes her masters in February
but she’s defensive as a naughty child,
hobbled as the three-legged cat
she furtively feeds.



If you write a Friday Flash 55 (a story in 55 words, no more, no less) make sure you let the G-Man know.

Speaker's Corner

Hyde Park,
where anyone can speak their mind.
It’s Sunday so there’s religion—
urgent voices and eyes that would drain you.

At the far edge is a Marxist with a different stick.
His long hair whips across his face
as he extols the virtue of public transportation
Across the green, the park moves with soccer.


I liked the idea of a Speaker's Corner for my Friday Flash entry.
If you or anyone you know has written a Friday Flash 55, go tell the G-Man where you can find more brevity and wit and get feedback from coast to coast.

And then have a great weekend.

Taking the tone of the company you keep

We passed three bars before we found one
you could be seen in.
You threw darts that wouldn’t stick
and I looked for songs on the jukebox
that wouldn’t make you want to leave.
Everyone wants to leave the country to turn fifty.
After the train pulled out
I fluffed pillows into the shape of you.


If you write a flash in 55 words (no more and no less) vist the G-Man (Mr-Knowitall, himself) and let him know. If not, visit him anyway and read some others.

What are you doing today? I'm watching for my first robin, planting seeds and query pondering.

TGIF and all that jazz.

Here's to blogging! (raises coffee cup)

Finding Truth in a Tree

She put her arms around it, listening
to the leaves shuffling their cards.
The bark was rough
like the bristle of her lover,
the resonance of his voice.
But she only smelled the rot of the wood—
the bowels of her longevity
and nothing more.
The tree was dying
and no longer spoke to her.



If you write a Flash 55 visit the G-Man to let him know. You'll get feedback from the most gracious host from coast to coast and from his followers as well.

Thanks to all of you who visit my blog. Even if you don't comment I feel you right . . . here, like Men who Stare at Goats.

First,

you lose the impatience of youth,
linger over emerging bulbs
And let the phone ring.

Mirror mirror on the wall,
from the first step out of bed
to grinding the next day's coffee,
I am my mother after all.

I rub the bump I’ve developed in my palm
And gauge the knob on my wrist.



The idea behind this Friday writing game, called 55 Fiction Fridays, or 55 Friday, is to write a complete story in 55 words. If you can do it, don't forget to let the G-Man know. I'm amassing a number of these nuggets and who knows....I might find another story idea buried in the rubble. Give it a try, those of you out there who say you can't do it. The story is right outside your window (or in the palm of your hand).

T! G! I! F!

Flash 55 Friday

THE DETOUR

Signs led us off the road we knew
and pot holes sprang up like curious prairie dogs.
Shacks and crooked trailers dotted the road
and the car quieted.
Our children in the back were suddenly paying attention.
We’d crossed a border without guards
and entered a country where people sit on porches
and don’t wave.


If you can tell a story in 55 words let the G-Man know. He's the F-55 moderator, and you can check out the history of Flash 55 from his website and challenge yourself.

Flash Fiction Friday

REGRETS

The road to the lake is as flat as an ironing board. We rode his motorcycle to a ramshackle bar on the water. On the ride home the asphalt shimmered and I used the backrest. He left me on the bike to take a leak behind an abandoned farmhouse and then never called me again.

Now . . . this is what might have happened, and what I wish I’d written:

The road to the lake is as flat as an ironing board. We rode his motorcycle to the sand’s edge and drank beer from his saddlebag. On the ride home bugs caught in my hair and summer rushed past. He pulled off the highway to pee in the ditch and grasshoppers jumped over his boots.

I won't post the history of Flash-55 because I did that last week but if you can say it in 55 words please let the G-Man know.

Happy TGIF to y'all!!