~ It was night in the dream-room. There were table saws, whistling kettles, a hallway maze, and cushions strewn on the floor. A serious bird that bowed and said nothing. The only light was red, shining into the years ahead...~

Hello, lovelies. The wonderful Ilanot Review explores character flaws and favours. I'm thrilled my story is included alongside these brilliant poems, stories and CNF. Hope you enjoy. #amwriting #fiction #litmag www.ilanotreview.com

Tonight’s sunset

You are different. You can look into my eyes, and not look away. I remember, now, how to look into a mirror, unflinchingly. From what life do you come, and how came the art of this miracle? This smile that cracks my lips. This wanting to play.

There ain't no flying straight lines, Beach Crow tells me. Or walking. Life ain't got grid coordinates. Yer follow yer beak. Or nose. Wind sends yer off in sweet curves or curlywurlies. Hills to rise above. Or crawl up. Ooh and shinies distract- She blinks. Where wos I going with this? #whistpr

~ About dishes ~ Pretend, at the sink, to be enthralled by those sheeting waterfalls. Those rebellious spoons that always lay just so, contriving their founts of rinse water. Float that pasta pot. Let it bob, see its handles whirl like a time-lapse sundial, softly, softly to bed.

In want of an enfolding, I imagine a bird of Pray. Winged as an angel. As bright as a day.

Somnambulant, I have the night terrors. In the bathroom mirror, I am a bearded ghost, gowned and scream-faced. Adrenalin pumps- a syringe to the heart. The earth shrugs us off with her manic quakes. The nattering television cannot help me, for it won't listen. Won't listen.

finding seeds amongst the stubble next summer's skylarks #DailyHaikuPrompt (straw)

Seagazing, I wonder. These sparkles must be telling secrets. Nah, Beach Crow says. The sea whispers her lickle myths into shells. All about moons & stars & comets. But that's how most water began. As comet ice flying through space. Cor, says Beach Crow. That's why she's full of sky. #whistpr

~ Pleased to meet you face to face, you windblown leaf with heart of lace. And, I'm so glad you stopped to chatter, never asking what's the matter. ~

The old man still dreams of French kisses, and stays in the curb lane. He knows that the speeders and the weavers aren't the ones who are in love.

Some sour long-nosed elf, eyes a-bulging, is stirring the pot with a long-nailed and dirty finger. With a thin-lipped and gap-toothed smile, he breathes a breathy whisper… “and so. Just so.”

In the booth across from me she sits. I knew her from the drugstore, when she was blonde. Legend has it that she was fired because she never smiled. I liked her, automatically, ‘cause her eyes had seen lives. Today, she’s mystery. With the blackest crown I have ever seen.

The ice cream truck jingle I was ten in shorts and runners Star streaks in my eyes The sigh of the leaves all a-glitter saying here- here is everything

You said but four words, with round eyes and arc of hands, and I love you, now.

I feel it in my heart of hearts. We're not alone. Among the untold trillions of worlds in God's wide wild universe, we can't be. To think that they can't come here, given the limitations of light speed, is provincial. We're limited by the yardstick of our own knowledge.

Fix things. Clean a mirror. Switch pillows. Allow the cat into your room. Vacuum the rug with that perfumed powder. Have your morning coffee outside, if you can. Solitude and loneliness are not true sisters. Be your own best company. Keep Niagara at bay, just for today.

Ms. Bug- Were I to give you a small pencil, would that you could trace your wanderings. Are they to a purpose or, like the bumper cars, do you move at the caprice of dumb luck? Do you pause to consider the import of watchful things? Or dilly-dally all the livelong day.

Losses- The spelling The language The surety of the next move The inner hum, then the melody A matte screen is good- it allows no reflection of the slacking jaw, the black openings, the fixed stare going going gone In the end we're chaperoned by gravity.

A watched pot never boils. This is your punishment. The Gods writhe their displeasure. There will be no more coffee or instant noodles for you.

She watches, bemused, then walks away as I keep up the stirring of the hot pot of milk and cocoa. I covet that clunk of spoon, milk-muted, because of a recurring dream in which each of my teeth is tapped with a tuning fork. Like a drip on a hot burner, I make myself into a very small world.

~Forlorn~ Dreamer Have you awakened from a theatre of tears? You know, you smiled and cried, as did the players who once were yours. Sweet one, may this day help your heart home, and give respite from your tireless search down the winds of the world.

We all wanted safety. Father, from trouble’s horde. Mother, from father. We chickens, from the storm. All of us were running, and love was hard pressed to keep up. Adolescence held confusion, guilt, and strange desire. I looked for yellow bricks, on the cusp of a fireworks life.

Getting an eye popping medical bill even though you have health insurance... it's the American way (cue hysterical laughter) Anyhoo, I got books, I got t-shirts, I got art prints... full list of links in bio and pinned post. I gotta go lay down 😂😭

living barren lives staring down the cold #barrel of futures unknown #vssdaily #barrel

~We steep in the familiar: That intimate cave that the tongue finds, years after the bloody extraction; the tattered dog-chewed shoe that you won't throw away. The off-key whistle, often practiced. The sock smell (supposed to bring on sleep). That one nail you let grow longer.~

Night splints hold teeth in position, I believe. There is a baseless fear of dismemberment, of awakening without the sum of one’s parts, like the cave of a missing tooth. I lie in bed running, and too fast. Of what do predators dream?

~What is God's truth today Not mine nor yours Must we divine the mechanics of a knot as we take small sips of vinegar then a full-throated swallow This gut hurts yes~

In the gallery, I walk alone. There are none to hurry me or rudely rouse me from the trance. No one to share with, you say? Ah, but it’s fine. I know you will be here. We just haven’t met as yet. I’ll wait by the old mill stream, on the gaslit cobblestone walk, under the ivy sky.

Would that I could reach back and crack the great secret- hold the hand of a three-year-old who could not open that glass door; sit with the boy who went to camp and sat apart; tell true tales to a confused teen; buy that diamond another time.

To those who say "S" through a chosen tooth, the tongue at the roof- you thrill me, and I smile with an eye. Does the young oak look upon its ancestral leaves with reverence? No, but so I imagine. My left knee feels robotic, foreign, so I stumble home to write and sit.

A rumour of you inhabits the dream, corner of my eye. We met once, thrice, heads turned, off-season. An imagined leap of faith, a flash of quickening, an unspoken conversation. When next we’re near, will you know? Keep me in the corner of your eye…

To know what to say, or whether to say it. To loose one’s breast-felt feelings before their season fails. To decide what is fitting, or might damage, be ignored, or be spurned. Suffer, does the fool, for the promise of love, while ships pass by in midnight’s glove.

Consider the Elephant's relevance, the Cockatoo's vanity too. The toothy piranha, the pig (if you wanna), and the gorgeously odd Kangaroo.

I wish to do a search of memories…the last time I said certain words: sawmill, his arm is broken, I can take you, I love you. (The last, in an ill-advised letter that has had secret birthdays since the day). Wrong can be so heaven in a world of hell.

Oddly placed legs were seen today- one dangled, shoeless, from a car window. Another, spousal and somnolent, draped awkwardly over the sleeper's chair. A third had been bent the wrong way in an unhappy accident. My walk slows and slows, my reach more shallow; my arms vestigial.

It's in the slow eye of the contented cat, waiting on your belly scratch; the tilt of chin, the tip of tooth. The forest of fur; the warming purr. Everything will be alright. It will be alright.

~I dream in a crowded forest of bayonet branches. I run faster and faster towards the colossus of your fogged-in face. Slowly you turn, and I am stabbed with a thousand cuts. Ornately you are sculptured. Transfixed, I am, with the blades of love.~

If you don't read another thing tonight read this and share it As a Canadian I can't do shit ...but I can help you reach a wider audience if you give me a chance.... You can't let this get through Senate approval Please share this 🦋🫂🦋

When I was alive, you quickened in bright crimsons. When I was alive.

That melody you once heard, but could never find again. The one that came back in a dream, then was lost once more in the surfacing of the day. Look for it, my dear, in the half-heard fade of that nameless tune that otherwise was base and common.

One house had hooks and stairs. Sharp corners and forest. This house is smooth, considerate, and many-plugged. Cats, exploring, find concrete caves down a flight. Loud laundry in the kitchen, window-lofted light.