The Devil You Know

A mouse snuffles through
A bag of bread crumbs.
It seeks grain to chew
And sate its hunger.
What does my stomach
Crave to digest and
Break down? I covet
Some form of rapture,
Like dogs with a bone
Or birds with a worm.
With this ache grown
To its final form,
I turn deep inside.
Will I starve before
I forsake my pride?
Of course not.
I cling, tenacious,
To my misery.

What goes better with poetry than a touch of depression and faking it ’til you make it?

Maybe some cake. Or things that will happen in about 4.5 hours following this post.

Either way, this was written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #192, Tenacious. You should all just be thankful I resisted the urge to write about Tenacious D. Also I didn’t know what picture to choose, so I just slapped some nonsense I liked on there.

Photo by Kaique Rocha on Pexels.com

God’s Program

God saved their computer program then recompiled it with some new updates. The opening sequence, light and dark, went as planned. Then came oceans, land, plants, and animals. The computer at last compiled the while loop they’d been working on for quite some time. Mankind popped up, but once again the program’s asinine “people simulations” betrayed God.

They’d spent so long on this program and it never worked. Maybe they would patch it later.

This was written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #178, “Asinine“. At first I just thought of computer programming, but then I wrapped it together with a religious context and it worked out this way.

A Green Confession

I was jealous of Heather because she was tall. She was a preacher’s daughter, a good girl.

When her parents started homeschooling her, I wasn’t jealous anymore.

This tiny story was written for the Sammi Cox Weekend Writing Prompt, Heather. I knew a girl named Heather in elementary school, and I guess this counts as an IRL story because it did mostly happen (though this condensed form conveys none of the nuances regarding what homeschool in America is often about and why it can change the game in a bad way).

Photo by CARLOS Pu00c9REZ ADSUAR ANTu00d3N on Pexels.com

The Standing Stones

 

He chased her through
the standing stones,
to catch, seize her
smile and laughter.
He crashed into
megalith‘s bones
to a place of
grass and heather.
Now he’s lost to
a world unknown
unable to tear
at the aether.
She laughs anew,
his pitied groan
feeding banshee’s
lustful anger.

This poem was written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt, Megalith. Because I didn’t know the word before looking it up, I thought I’d clarify that a megalith is a stone structure like stonehenge. Pretty neat!

Photo by Stephen + Alicia on Pexels.com

Embrace Engineering

“Then using the continuity equation, we…”

The ceiling closed in to a circular point around the visitor’s mysterious symbols. We did not understand but jotted them in notebooks and promised to use them on pipes…

This Lovecraftian flash was inspired by Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #150, continuity. The continuity equation is used in fluid dynamics to describe continuous flow and conserve mass/energy. Since Lovecraft was traumatized with geometry, I thought I’d use that equation to cause even MORE trauma.

Mojito

“Is that mint you’re muddling for my mojito?”

“Yes,” I lied as I crushed poison ivy.

Hello, everyone! It’s been a while since I got around to a Weekend Writing Prompt, but here we are! #149 is muddle, and what a better use of muddle than in the mixed drink sense*? So sit back, relax, and enjoy the pandemic!

*I don’t drink, so I can’t be sure.

Photo by PhotoMIX Ltd. on Pexels.com

The Death Machine

Some new thoughts
are scary-
they’ll ruin our
ways.

So we’ll fight,
kill to choose
the future’s
course.

Why must the
death machine
precede a new
epoch?

This was written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #146, Epoch, in 27 words.

Run, Sinner

The dogs barked. They were getting closer.

“Dear God, please save me.” She clutched a small rock tied to a thong and prayed they not sniff her out. She’d stolen a crust of day old bread for her kid brother, but that was illegal. Draconian laws still demanded her hands be amputated for thievery.

She pulled herself further underneath the poplar’s roots. The dogs’ feet splashed in the creek as they sniffed and snorted.

“Hoh!” a man’s voice called. The dogs looked up and ran back to him, the hunt called off.

She waited until they left, then ran for the next county.

This was written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #132, Draconian.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

A High Price

“I’ll give you power,” the devil crooned, “For bartering your soul.”

This was written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #124, barter. With only 11 required words, I had to do it.

Hello, everyone – as any regulars may be able to tell, I’ve slowed down a LOT on the blog recently. I’m in the home stretch on my dissertation, though, with only about a month and some change to go! Hopefully after that I can get back on the bandwagon.

Until then, I’ve got all my book review posts planned through to the new year, and those should be reliable.

I got the picture off a royalty-free image site a couple years ago and don’t remember which one.

Tea Ceremony

The courtesan poured from the teapot into the fairness cup, mixing the water and steeped flavanols before splitting it into two dainty cups.

The client took a cup and sipped. “This ceremony soothes me.”

The courtesan nodded. “As it was designed to.”

This was written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #121, teapot. I considered writing about the Teapot Dome scandal, but I just couldn’t fit it into 42 words! 😦

So here you go – hopefully something calm, soothing, and visual.

Photo by 五玄土 ORIENTO on Unsplash