Tag Archives: carrot ranch

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Winter Calls

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Winter Calls

We flow into autumn

from summer’s embrace

when twilight hastens and the sun rides low

ripening abundance

a gilded farewell

Quilted paths of crimson

through colors we roam

mugs of cloved cider and a cinnamon moon

our pumpkin’s grin candled

memories loosen

When scents of woodsmoke curl

on crisp, crackling morns

will you weave me a shawl from skeins of soft wool

hold me warm by the fire

for my winter calls

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This poem is a double ennead – a syllabic form consisting of three stanzas of 33 syllables in a 6/5/11/6/5 pattern for a total off 99 syllables. The challenge is hosted by Colleen Chesebro over at Carrot Ranch. It runs once a month and I invite you to check it out. Colleen’s prompt this month was “Autumn” and she encouraged us to use our senses. Happy Writing.

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Liminal

Photo prompt “Hidden” by Sue Vincent

Liminal

Her sable brush roamed the canvas. Delicate strokes of umber and ochre for the barren branches. Burnt sienna for the dying autumn leaves.

She paused. Amused.

Had she painted autumn’s abandoned twigs? Or young buds, heralds of the coming green? She savored her newfound uncertainty. Fall or Spring? Snow a foretelling of what was to come or a last gust of cold breath before the skies turned blue?

Her lover leaned over her shoulder, adding bergamot to scents of oil and turpentine. “Why the gray skies?”

She angled a smile. “Because the liminal world is rarely black and white.”

~*~

I wrote (3) 99-word stories for the Sue Vincent Rodeo over at Carrot Ranch. Then, I read the fine print and discovered I could only submit (2). Uh oh. Decisions, decisions. Well, this is the one that I didn’t submit.

Remember that submissions can’t be previously published, even on your blog. If you want to try your hand at a 99-word story in honor of Sue, you can saddle up and read the rodeo rules at Carrot Ranch.

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Murder Mysteries

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The winner of the Carrot Ranch challenge #7 was announced this morning. A little murderous musing before the holiday cheer sets in.

Challenge #7: Murderous Musings.  Write a flash fiction in 109 words, no more, no less and weave a murderous vibe through an every-day setting, either in thought or deed.

Murder Mysteries

Margaret loved murder mysteries, anything with forensics, cops making sense of clues, how the most minute residue or oversight unlocked a case. Recently published books served her best, ones scribed by someone in the “industry.” Those pages taught her about poisons, carbon monoxide, overdoses, DNA, sanitation, those darn receipts that could follow you forever, surveillance cameras on every corner… At times, it overwhelmed her.

Herbert didn’t understand the fascination. He insisted real life wasn’t like books, and murders frequently went unsolved. Well, that depressed her. The whole point was creating a finely tuned reality. When she finally got around to murdering herself, she wanted Herbert to take the fall.

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To read a fabulous winning story by Marje Mallon and the judge’s picks, click here: Carrot Ranch

 

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The Seamaid

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The Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Rodeo turns to Twitter. I gave it a go…

The Challenge #5: #Twitterflash. In this challenge, you are tasked with writing a complete 99-word story using Twitter. The story can be on any topic and in any genre, as long as it is exactly 99 words. Easy peasy, right? Not so fast…
-Every story must be made up of 11 sentences of exactly 9 words each.
-Each individual sentence should be tweeted, one at a time, for a total of 11 tweets
-Individual sentences are tweet-worthy and contribute to the story as a whole in a meaningful way.

The Seamaid

A mermaid’s sequined tail lures me to the sea
Gulls shrill a warning, I’m headed to a drowning
Lulled by a siren’s song, footprints forsake the sand
Wash away my castles when love sings me home
She is my nixie, nymph of an airless death
Bare toes sink, swallowed by the sea’s lapping tongue
Fingers caress my ankles, beckoning me farther from shore
Entangled am I in floating whorls of unbound hair
Her silver arms are the surge embracing my surrender
A life forlorn abandoned for her wild blue beauty
Yielding to the tides, breathless in my seamaid’s kiss

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To read D. Avery’s winning Twitterflash, click here: Carrot Ranch

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Galatea

Étienne Maurice Falconet: Pygmalion et Galatée (1763)

The Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Rodeo announced another winner, and I’m thrilled to have pulled off top honors with this one. Yay!

Challenge #4: In a double length Carrot Ranch flash, or 2 chapters of 99-words each (198 words total), tell a story that shows a scar. It can be memoir, other forms of creative non-fiction,  any genre of fiction, or based on a true story.

Galatea

My father was Pygmalion and I his child chiseled by his scowls and smiles into the woman of his daydreams, a huntress, a poet, a woman who walked barefoot over mountains. In the light of his approving eye, I flourished in the myth of Galatea, a living statue until age cracked my smooth skin. What he thought was carved of marble I revealed as plaster, the child beneath growing beyond the sculptor’s control. I was a betrayal of his art, his vision, a flesh and bone girl with her own daydreams, and he said, “I don’t love you anymore.”

And so, the sculptor became a butcher, his chisel traded for a cleaver, Galatea gone, my myth smashed into rubble on the floor. In pieces, I sought new masters to glue together my shattered heart, unable to accept I was clay, not stone, and the only artist was me. For decades, I fashioned a new myth, molded her with tender fingers and scraped away layers of pain, all the while longing for my maker to undo the original wound. But time cannot be undone or cuts unmade. I forgave and finally became a woman wholly of flesh and bone.

 

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Many thanks to Carrot Ranch and to the judges, and congratulations to all those who entered. To read the powerful work of other top contenders, click here: Carrot Ranch

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Love Undenied

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The Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Rodeo has announced the results of Challenge #3. I loved this prompt and the opportunity to write a little fantasy.

Challenge #3: Create a piece of flash fiction (200 -300 words) including a Septolet or two as the spell or charm that helps your character out of a bind (or go where the prompt leads you). The Septolet is a poem consisting of seven lines containing fourteen words with a break in between the two parts. Both parts deal with the same thought and create a picture. 

Love Undenied

Smoke swirled, dappling the forest floor with blotted sunlight. Feathery wisps spun, wove, and coalesced into the skeletal body of a man, ribs and muscles sculpted beneath skin the pallor of death. His face was my lover’s but hawkish, black eyes smoldering, malevolence darkening the hollows of his skull, a beakish shadow for his nose. A cowl of smoke, a cloak, undulated as if windblown, yet the air lay still. In his hand, a staff of black fire blazed.

“Why am I summoned?” His voice ribboned around me.

“To set you free.” I held the amulet in an outstretched arm as if its magic might shield me.

His predatory eyes tightened. “To send me to my death.”

“You are already dead, my love, as am I.” He winced at my words. At the truth or the endearment? “This is an enchantment that binds you to the mortal world.”

He stepped near, a hair’s breadth from the soulstone trembling in my hand. I held my ground. His eyes burned, yet in the flare of light, I beheld the reflection of my feathers, whole and downy to his charred pinions. He longed for my wings. “You may have them,” I whispered.

“No!” he roared.

I met his fire with love in equal measure, amulet extended and pulsing, light peeling away the smoky tendrils binding him. I spoke the grimoire’s spell.

Life and death
Cycles
Undenied
Fear imprisons
In flightless chains
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Love unfurls
Eternal wings

I thrust the soulstone to his chest. Fear slashed its talons, meant to shred flesh from my face, rip feathers from my wings and claim them, but I was no more in this physical world than he. And when he saw that my love was unconquerable, he surrendered to the magic, and his white wings bloomed.

 

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To read Deborah Lee’s winning submission, runners-up, and judges’ favorites click here: Carrot Ranch

Happy Thanksgiving!

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I will dig a well

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The Carrot Ranch Literary Community ran a Flash Fiction Rodeo during October. The variety of prompts were loads of fun.  As the competition closes and the winners are announced, I’m delighted to share my contributions.

Challenge #1: Cast yourself back to six years of age, knowing what you do of life in the present; what would you want to be when you grow up and how would you go about achieving that goal? Tell us in 100 words, no more no less. It can be real or imaginary, serious or light-hearted.

I will dig a well

When I grow up, I want to dig a well as deep as the Baobab is tall. With my hands, I’ll fill buckets and pass them up a ladder to my sisters’ eager fingers. Water will rise, turning the dry dirt to mud, and I’ll hold my breath and labor in the earth’s wet coolness. And on the day my well draws pure and clear, the village will sing, but praise is not what will lift my song. That day, my mother won’t walk to the ditch to reap sickness with our water, and my sisters will dance to school.

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To read Hugh Robert’s winning submission click here: Carrot Ranch