Month: September 2024

Tableaus and Nightstands

by Stephen J Frankenberry8 Comments on Tableaus and Nightstands

Something for a latest dverse poets prompt.

//////////////////////////////////////////

I was all a reach

with tableau which sounds

like table but wasn’t

as it don’t hold no

lamps or knicks instead

real tried light and knacks

to table tableau’s

nightstand sleep wishes

to reach when night comes

hard unforgiving

dreams of cold monsters

that scream for a day

to forgive where went

night in its anger

spent too much time dear

colorful though but

when she said enough

I agreed, again

to way pass this new

time her table side

and mine, can you click

light dear on your side

need to sleep again

find a new tableau

table nightstand to

reach for

Oranges and Halter Tops (flash fiction)

by Stephen J Frankenberry8 Comments on Oranges and Halter Tops (flash fiction)

So I have this new friend who posted an idea for some flash fiction, with a picture to base it on.

“Do you see anyone?”

“What?”

“Do you see … dude, never mind. You are just fucking dim”

“No, I don’t see anyone and yes, I see that too and no I’m not dim, sometimes I just choose not to hear you”

“But this …  I mean, there is someone here right?”

This was OUR spot, Jaimie and me. It was our escape from Mom’s and Dad’s and teachers (though it was summer so we didn’t have to concern ourselves with them at the moment) and Bart’s and his pal’s mean spirits and priests and neighbors and even delivery guys who would just show up.

Mom really needs to stop ordering stuff she doesn’t need or even remember she ordered in high heels.

This was our escape to talk about baseball and girls and how we hated everyone.

“Well, this a curious conundrum”

“Seriously?”

“What? It’s a cool word”

“Do you even know what it means?”

“Kinda, I just used it right? Though it confuses me”

“Shut up dude, let’s look around”

“For what?”

“Jesus, for whoever left this here asshole”

Jamie and I had been friends since we were two or so when our Mom’s met by chance and gloried on the “joys” of momdom. They weren’t serious.

“Can you at least look with me? I mean no one just leaves their shit lying around like this”

“Why do you care?”

I gave him a stare.

“Ok fine, let’s look, plus there is bra looking thing, maybe she’s topless”

I gave him another stare.

/////

The next day the news and the cops were all over our little place in the sun and sand, and we knew we had lost our one refuge and maybe even a new friend.

Tooth

by Stephen J Frankenberry1 Comment on Tooth

Tooth

It was early 2020 before the world got bent and the rubber gloves told me that that thing was going to need to come out, another tooth to not weirdly save in a flowery box that Mom has in a closet right next to her fall pajamas. I went with that and ran.

For four years. I know, not good.

But my adult teeth finally caught up with my baby ones, eventually, again, and the rubber gloves had their day.

I knew this was going to come, this pockmarked, cracked, broken molar constant dental floss grab of bits of breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks moon rock of a tooth was going to have to see the light of day out of my head eventually.

Dramatic re-creation (from only professional actors though, no amateurs need audition).

“MMMTHPTPUTTAARGHH!” drool, spit fly on my own cheek and even in my eye.

“It’s just pressure, no pain” said the rubber gloves with a magnifying lighted eye.

“NOMMMTHPTUTAARGGHH!!”

“Does this hurt?!”

“YESNOMMMTHPTUTAARGGHH!!”

“No, it’s just pressure right, no pain?”

“NOMOMMTHPTUTAARGGHH!! TMUMMBLEMUMBLEDROOLDROOLSPITSCREAM!!!”

“Let’s take a break”

Pulling the rubber teeth stopper thingy from out of my other mouth like the stick you are told to clench down on before having a limb removed in a bloody grassy warring field on the fly and getting a rinse.

“You know Doc, you are the worst first date ever! Nobody does a take your first date to work by the way!! That is NOT a THING!!”

She said with a Marquis de Sade glint “Ok, let’s get back to it”

Son of a bitch. Sigh.

Almost two hours later my head was a little lighter of tooth but at least I have this little moon rock for the diorama I want to fashion in a cardboard box, the one Mom has next to those pajamas, a lunar moonscape I think, maybe even with a tiny cute little Neil Armstrong … “One small tooth …”.

I know they wanted to avert their eyes but were forced, through sheer professionalism, to meet my gaze at the reception desk as I gingerly pulled out my wallet (everything was gingerly right then).

I apologized. They weakly smiled even though they had probably lost whatever business might have come walking through the door during my screaming time.

“That will be 65 dollars … oh, and come back in two weeks. We’ll be wearing full body rubber gloves then, black, and tall spiky boots too and we’ll even slap you around some more if you’d like”

“Noted, thanks.”