[x]

Sense MemoryI developed taste.
We lost touch.

Whale Songs of the PacificListen, the girls swallowed by whales are the ones that grow up lucky.

Listen, no one will warn you about the little boys with the magpie eyes and the fists swinging splinters of glass. No one will warn you that their smiles are sweeter than their words are sweeter than their souls are sweeter than their intentions. No one will warn you of the sheer weight of the world.

Listen, sometimes girls are fragile. Sometimes girls are frothy. Sometimes girls let boys nuzzle "I love you"s into their necks and sometimes girls drink the wine of believing them.

Listen, sometimes the boys really are sweet, and little girls' tart puckered mouths can't ta

the hungry look...the hungry look,

the wolves
weaving through
and around
the gully of your throat like wraiths,

we can feel you rusting, lost one;

i know that drainpipes and fenders
begin to crackle after winter wet

and that there’s a touch of snow
in all of us,

but no one,
no one could hold you as tightly as you do,
your whole body, bloodless in this arrest,

and if you will not let your fetters show
i will show you
there’s a place for going, and you haven’t gone there yet;

where quantum particles, once in contact, can retain a connection
even when separated

where you
wander up to a stranger
with your shirt inside-out
and say &lsq

Decree AbsoluteWe married.

Exchanged rings.

Fools' gold.

a shut in placeMeg's world is a world of uneven earth and blue skies, surface rock cracked and blown about by howling wind. She runs through wasteland, stumbles with purpose towards a wooden desk in the distance. She runs and runs, dirt and stones scuffing Mary Janes, but the writing desk is a finish line she can't reach.

"Why a writing desk?" her friend Alex says when she tells him about the dream. He emphasizes the question with a hand, waving the sandwich he's holding towards her before taking a bite.

She's left out details: how she is smaller, younger, a smooth-faced child with little hands dressed in her Sunday best instead of the twenty-one-year-old

starspunobserving the romanticism
of hooded cemetery kids,
smoking cigarettes pretending
they are not dead.

you were always so sure
about my uncertainty,
you watched
all my pick up lines
drop things.

we built the heat
of the evening from the solidity
of starlight,

pretended
that two teens at the park
at midnight
is the stuff of teen novels
(cliches dim on
our leaf-gold horizon)

your eyes darted
from the gray expanse
of the churchyard & wandered
in thoughtful
paths.

i wanted to ask you
if i could follow. shove
the words aside &
remember that i came here alone.

i remember our innocence
in the static b e t w e e n
stars

The Gay AgendaThe Gay Agenda

we unpacked the car in hundred-and-ten degree heat
home after our three-months, big-haul supermarket run
stared at the late season watermelon
we grabbed on an impulse
I got the cutting board and a bowl for rinds
you got the never-dull, wedding-gift ceramic knife

we tore into our pieces at the same time
swamping desert thirst in southern fruit
pretending we were comfortably cool
believing it during each bite
I opened a new paper towel roll (we had been out)
you gave me the next slice, cut yourself another

we ate the whole damn thing in one sitting, not talking
just munching one icy wedge after another
until I mumbled a joke y

SuperimposeHe doesn't look like a gymnast. He's all button down shirts and frazzled grey hair framing wire spectacles, a picture perfect professorial archetype down to the very tips of his frayed shoelaces. But he was a gymnast once, or so he tells us, and I believe him because he smiles like he knows something while he's chatting before class.

It's strange to see that image superimposed over the current one – the distinguished professor in pressed khaki slacks and a jacket, worn brown loafers exuding a faintly courteous manner (you can always tell them by their shoes), and a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand – versus the athletic ki

The Solipsist's LotThere's something about yourself that you don't know. You probably don't remember the circumstances very well, but I do. If you enjoy things the way they are, if you revel in even the smallest speck of ignorance, you need not read ahead. I won't force you. But from what I know of you, you don't like secrets. Especially not when they are about you.

You see, when you were born, so at once was everyone else. Your mother, she sprang into existence, just like that, the instant your tiny infant brain achieved the smallest semblance of self-awareness. Woven out of the ethe

Out For The CountCalm before math homework.

Bloody aftermath.

tree, fiddler crabIt took days to hollow out the soft parts
of the trunk, dig out the tree-flesh and sap,
polish the raw wood so that when he sat,
there would be no splinters. He carved his name
into the side, like a blessing, a declaration
of good fortune, and stowed his forest inside.

FiftyPlease understand: I do not want
to want this (you).

I realized at poem nineteen-of-fifty:
You (college-borne) are a new you,
I (weaponized) am a new me,
and the new me still wants the new you.

The TimesI was printed on the evening of November 27th, 2008, just as the weather was turning from chilly to cold. I was tomorrow's news. At the moment I came off the press, I told the future. I knew things before the rest of the world; it was wonderful. I knew what my purpose was: to inform as many people as possible about the world's happenings.

As I was put to bed, bound against my brothers and sisters, I dreamt of being passed around a construction site, making sure all the workers were aware of which sports team triumphed, and which celebrity was getting a divorce. I dreamt that corporate peons debated over politics, and the state of the economy

CrowBarGot hammered.

Nailed her.

Husband saw.

The Price of Dying“I want to be interred after I die,” Mr. Peters said. He made that clear to his family while he was still lucid, before old age and illness rendered him unintelligible. Seventy wasn’t that old, but he recognized the symptoms that were creeping up on his ailing body – the aches, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness and despair. Despite his daughter’s attempts to assuage his concerns, he sensed his own mortality.
The worst part about dying, Mr. Peters thought, was what happened afterwards. Even since he was a small boy, he had been afraid of fire. He could never forget the scorching heat of the orange flames searing his skin, the dark billowing smoke entering his nostrils. The time that his house burned down, the fire almost took him with it. How ironic then, to escape the fire only to be fed into it after death.
So one day, he sat his son and daughter down after dinner. “I want to be buried whole,” he said, emphasizing the

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The ShepherdAt first Jim's adrenaline-drenched mind thought the station was called ST CHAOS. However, the sign rapidly resolved itself into the more likely ST CHADS. The train had abruptly terminated. The passengers were herded towards the bridge that led to the other platforms and then abandoned. Jim didn't decipher the tannoy announcement but he knew better than to ask for help. He would follow everybody else.

He took the steps too quickly. As he reached the top, he tripped. A little shaken, he stopped and waited until he felt ready to go on. He contemplated his surroundings. To his right was the track that led back home. To his left, the track that l

The Small GameJohn was beaming. "Donovan said you're a freak."

"Damn!" Sherlock looked very put out. "I was being particularly civil to her."

"Exactly," said John. "Acting out of character. Completely unnerved her." Sherlock glared at him.

"Been quite a morning," John continued. "One witness asked where your hat was, another was a fan of my blog and that new DC assumed we were a couple."

Sherlock scoffed. "Don't look so smug. Before we left, I guessed your new password and Mrs Hudson reminded me she wasn't our housekeeper. When we got here, the officer standing guard said I looked taller in photographs and three deductions in, you automatically called

IlluminationIt was a locked room murder. And Sherlock had managed to lock them all in. Happily, the body had already been removed but that still left John, Lestrade and a consulting detective trapped in a cellar.

"OK," said Lestrade. "Someone will notice soon. Let's just make ourselves comfortable and wait."

John leaned back against the wall and Lestrade perched on the freezer. Sherlock wandered around, examining the cellar's contents. Tinned food, light bulbs. Siege supplies. The victim had known he was in danger.

Sherlock turned to discuss this with John, but John was staring at the high ceiling and muttering to himself.

"He doesn't need to because

Life is Fleeting      HERE:

     WERE(wolves).

(Be)WARE!

  (S)WORE,

      GORE...

      GONE.

Small WitchesAsk me about Hallowe'en
And I have to think back.
Turnips for jack,
Apples to bob.

Dressed up in black
To play in the dark.
Turnips for jack,
Apples to bob.

Father-made besoms:
Small witches take flight.
Turnips for jack,
Apples to bob.

Fly through the night.
In bed by nine.
Turnips for jack,
Apples to bob.

Quicksilver spirits
Run to saints and all souls.
Turnips for jack,
Apples to bob.

November gold,
October bronze.
Turnips for jack,
Apples to bob.

Ask me about Hallowe'en
And I have to look back.
Turnips for jack,
Apples to bob.

No Beauty in My SoulAsk me to write a poem
And I'll look at you blankly;
I'm not well-versed in this sort of thing.
Though I've got form,
My collection's prosaic.
I'll float an idea but that ship's going to sink.

Ask me to write a poem -
I will marry my words up.
They'll live more in sickness than in good health.
Here are some lines
To demonstrate friendship
But wouldn't you like a one-liner instead?

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Three Billy Goats Gruff

by *SCFrankles, Feb 2, 2013, 12:32:08 PM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / Humor / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

Goats outwit a troll.

(Abridged story.)

Three Billy Goats Gruffby *SCFrankles

Literature / Prose / Fiction / Humor / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

Written for #SixWordStories' Theme Prompt: Bridge.

23/02/2013

I'm so thrilled that this story has got a DD feature

Thank you to `Ravenswd for suggesting my work and to ^thorns for featuring it. Thank you for all the comments and faves - I'm getting to work on my messages right now! ^^

Daily Deviation

Given 2013-02-23

Three Billy Goats Gruff by ~SCFrankles The suggester writes, "The perfect bedtime story for people who don't have a lot of time, and who love puns." ( Suggested by `Ravenswd and Featured by `thorns )

love 5 5

joy 2 2

wow 1 1

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~Deus-Suetonius Apr 15, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

My mother used to read this story to my brothers and I, and put our names, instead of the goats

*SCFrankles Apr 16, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

That is so sweet ^^

~Deus-Suetonius Apr 17, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

and, I love this sws, in case I didn't mention that earlier <3

*MsLissome Mar 2, 2013

So this is your second DD? Where do you hide the first one?

*SCFrankles Mar 2, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

It's tucked away safely deep in my gallery

(Am I going insane? ^^" Didn't we meet because of my first DD..?)

Sorry I haven't answered your last reply yet - behind as always ^^"

*MsLissome Mar 2, 2013

Damn

- *hides under the next stone*
It´s

"Colourful Language"
They talk blue - You see red.

First thing I faved...
You´re stuff is too short... preview pertinent... never looked on the actual deviation again.

(my retention ability is a mess - now proofed )
Hope, you won´t look up, where you tucked away you´re bear traps... for revealing your first DD

here

*SCFrankles Mar 3, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Don't worry - there are no bear traps

I'm just relieved that my memory wasn't playing tricks on me... ^^"

=tonepainter Feb 25, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

I'm so wrapped up in my own arrogance that I didn't notice this right away Saturday. This is great, and I'm so glad you got much deserved recognition for it.

"(Abridged story.)"

These 2 words encapsulate what I love about your writing. Your humor always works on multiple levels and it delights in language itself. I laughed aloud at this...it's just hilarious.

*SCFrankles Feb 26, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I can't really be offended by you not noticing this when you don't even notice your own DLDs ^__^

Thank you for all the compliments ^^" ("Your humor works on multiple levels..." I think it's "two", isn't it?

) I do love playing around with language - these SWSs give me great satisfaction.

I'm so pleased you laughed. In the end that's all I'm aiming for!

*BlakeCurran Feb 25, 2013 Student Writer

Well done! Congrats on the DD!!

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Three Billy Goats Gruff

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