"Good evening!"
Revin turned. "Lady Cecelia! What are you doing here so late?"
"I'm watching for pollinators of the night-blooming jasmine," she said. Then she turned to David, "And who is this winsome young man?"
"Hi, Aunt Cecelia," David said.
"Wait? Daphnae? Is that you?"
"It's David now," Revin said.
"Oh! Oh, I'm so… Oh!" she said. "David. I'll try to remember! Can I still give you a hug?"
David opened his arms & Cecelia embraced him.
"You must come have dinner with Kasseh."

#vss365

"So, Holmes, we're in a rainy Dartmoor for?"

"Sacrificing home comforts to smoke out an assassin, Watson."

"That poacher, with the rifle!?"

"No, the gentle, old lady in our train from London. Sipping tea, waiting for us to return to the the Station with that huge hatpin."

#Satsplat Sacrifice #vss365 Gentle

#vss365 (#prompt: gentle)

A #gentle touch is necessary with nightmares, or your prey will realize it is a dream. They will wake, escape, and flee with their fear still uneaten. And you, little one, will have a hollow gizzard unless you can find a foolish daysleeper. We serve a purpose. The horror was there before we came to bring it forth and eat it. But they never do understand that it's for their own good. The best hunting ground is a veteran's hospital...

#amwriting #horror

I love the colored leaves, said the little ghost Belle. How gentle they fall, like red and yellow butterflies.
That leaf flew back on the tree! the bobcat said.
That leaf is a butterfly, or a yellow bird, said the fox-girl.
#vss365 #gentle

#vss365
they broke his arm with a length of 4x2 across lengths of 4x2. wood and bone cracked. white and yellow jagged edges.

they pushed the arm into a shorter length and wrapped it with many yard lengths of bandage and plaster

they left that chrysalis go hard

they left that stone hard as a gentle cook heavy of his shoulder

it left his arm the length of a butterfly's summer. not quite a 1/4 year.

the pod was smashed off with a 4x2

no symmetry no flight no butterfly
just a thousand flies

airplane mode
my words suspended
in a chrysalis
#vss365

today I saw a squirrel pause
beside a city road
to check for traffic

quickly I checked the news
but no : our leaders still don't care
about pandemics

that rodent, then
must have been a visitor
from some scifi stream

where foresight
won the secret war between
love and economics

#sciFiFri #TrueStory #squirrels #economics #pandemic #poem #poetry #poetrycommunity #vsspoem #vss365 #smallPoems #scifi
#wrdz

this artistic swirl
across an ancient lake bed
each SUV
a stylish badge of freedom
smells like dead planet

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2023/sep/07/how-burning-man-festival-descended-into-mud-and-chaos-in-pictures

#tankaThursday - late 😢

#poem #poetry #haiku #senryu #bonsaiku #bigOil #suv #BurningMan #vsspoem #vss365 #wrdz

It looks like a Chrysalis or Mumified dead thing? It's still ten billion clicks away but is, or was, organic and it's projected path is heading for Earth orbit. It's moving too fast for interstellar rubble. What it is we've yet to learn but should we catch it before it reaches Pluto?

#SciFiFri Learn/Teach #vss365 Chrysalis

hopelessly entangled
fishing nets
at the dockside bar
#vss365

#vss365 (#prompt: hopeless)

"Are you destitute? Broken-hearted? Helpless and #hopeless? Unable to satisfy your mate? In need of a fresh start from your household clutter? Join our family and you too can have a new life!"

A-List stared at the tattered paper poster--paper, in this economy?--and their heart jumped. It was a scam. It was definitely, absolutely some kind of weird alien scam. And they were going to take advantage of it.

#microfiction #amwriting #scifi

David and Revin walked through the dark corridors of Ravensbelth. After a few turns, he could see that David was hopelessly turned around and had no idea where they were. Revin smiled to himself to remember how the palace had seemed so immense and confusing when he arrived, whereas now he knew it like the back of his hand.
"Here we are," Revin said, ushering him into the botanical garden.
"Oh!" David said, spellbound with wonder. "There's a fountain! It's just like the one back home!"

#vss365

Groundfog played The Leaves That Are Green.
Hello, hello, goodbye, goodbye, said the baby badgers.
Autumn is coming, said the bobcat. We are hopeless to fight it. We can't glue the leaves back on the trees.
#vss365 #hopeless

September dusk
pepperoni clouds curl up
at the oven's edge

#poem #poetry #haiku #bonsaiku
#poetrycommunity #imagism #vsspoem #vss365 #MicroPoetry
#wrdz

holding oneself
at arms length
searching for a hint of soul
or dreaming
of accountants

more clicks
more followers
morose

#vss365 #morose
#poem #poetry #poetrycommunity
#smallPoems #wrdz

After several hours of tense meetings, Revin returned to his office and found David sitting alone in the dark, looking #morose.
"Worried about Campshire? And Boxhead Manor?"
David nodded.
"I'm not worried about the place," he said. "They can burn that down, for all I care. But I'm worried about our people. Our staff."
"That's understandable," Revin said. Revin thought for a moment & then said, "Come with me."
"Where?"
"Let me take you to the place where I go when I'm feeling worried."

#vss365

#vss365 (#prompt: morose)

The farther from any planets they flew, the less #morose the captain grew. By the time it was all starfield and no viable ports of call, she was practically giddy. It was a biochemical programming error, an overcompensation for common star-sickness. But she liked it, and so she kept it uncorrected, singing happily to herself out alone among the stars.

#microfiction #sciencefiction #amwriting

The sky's morose today, said the fox-girl. All overcast gray, rumbles of thunder. Lightning through your leaf. And now, drops of rain!
It's also an umbrella, said the rusty spotted cat.
#vss365 #morose

Walk with me now on the desolate moors
Like Heathcliff and Cathy once did
Walk with me now, come out of doors
The bonds of society rid

Leave the yoke of society be
Rend obligations asunder
For only true love binds you to me
And there we can be with each other

#vss365

Desolation Peak
the radio signal fades
in and out
#vss365