Small Stone Blogsplash -- we need your help...

Kaspa & Fiona have taken over my blog for today, because they need our help.



They are both on a mission to help the world connect with the world through writing. They are also getting married on Saturday the 18th of June.

For their fantasy wedding present, they are asking people across the world to write them a ‘small stone’ and post it on their blogs or on Facebook or Twitter.

A small stone is a short piece of observational writing – simply pay attention to something properly and then write it down. Find out more about small stones here.

Summer Argument

Breathless afternoon:
Clouds thicken,
Static ignites.
Then, a thunderclap of
Careless words.
A flash flood
Scrapes out gullies
And tears up roots
Where self once stood.
All quiet now as the
Sun peeks out.
We step over debris
To survey the damage.

© Judith C Evans 2011

[Written for Jingle Poetry's Poetry Potluck -- this week's prompt: Thunderstorms, floods and water fury and submitted to Short Story Slam image prompt at Bluebell Books]

Texas Sidewalks

Four-inch lizards
bask in a sun-induced trance
on Texas sidewalks

© Judith C Evans 2011

[Written for Haiku Heights prompt #45 -- trance]

Fiction Friday: House Cat

I smell an open window. Cricket song tells me it’s the living room window. Mr. and Mrs. Human marvel at my ability to silently lunge--so feline--through the vertical blinds and softly land on the window sill. There--a four-point landing, as always!

The Humans call me Guardian because I appear to keep watch out the window all day and into the evening. I sit, stare and smell the day. You can only imagine, unless you are a cat, how my bones ache to follow the scents to their sources. I salivate. A hatchling chirps just outside the window, and I can’t do a damn thing about it. My spine tenses, my teeth chatter, and my skin prickles under my fur. 

Excuse me, that cricket has just crawled in under the door. Black and shiny with spindly yet sturdy legs, he’ll leap behind Mr. Human’s chair once he catches a glimpse of me. But it’ll be too late. We’ll run, jump and weave across the living room carpet, and the Humans will squeal and put their feet up on the coffee table. The cricket and I will dive out of sight behind the couch.

The next time the Humans see the cricket, he’ll be dashing across Mrs. Human’s oak credenza, still agile in spite of the loss of half a leg. Each time we race across the floor, the cricket will be missing another leg segment—maybe an antenna--as I suck pieces of shell from between my teeth. The Humans have never gotten used to this. 

Excuse me. If I don’t hide this leftover leg, Grandma Human will sweep it up and throw it in the trash before I have a chance to snack on it later. Do you have a cat? Take it from Guardian: do not look under your refrigerator. 

Submitted to Fiction Friday 4th Edition on The Domestic Fringe

Guilty Pleasure

Shiny, sharp-edged, expensive chocolate:
72 % cacao, raspberry-filled.
Manufacturer's regal stamp
Precisely impressed into smooth dark square;
(I can feel the impression on my tongue).
In my hand: not a trace.
In my mouth: a 6-minute silky melt.
All better.

© Judith C Evans 2011

Submitted to Poetry Potluck Week 36 at JinglePoetry and Thursday Think Tank  #50 at Poets United.

Small Stone #8

Empty Life Saver wrappers
litter the coffee table like old worries.

© Judith C Evans 2011

Solitude

Storm-tossed,
I touch solitude's shore
-- there's room for all here.

© Judith C Evans 2011

Written for Haiku Heights #44 prompt -- solitude]

Salsa and Chips for $1.75

I had never eaten there before.
It was the time of the afternoon
When I habitually fear I will die
          without having mattered.
It was at the moment when
The crunchy salt and the mango and pineapple
          met on my tongue
That I noticed the brilliant blue textures
Of the hand-painted walls
And really heard Lynyrd Skynyrd pumping from
          the speakers on the ceiling,
And remembered that I love long skirts like
          the purple gauzy one in the
          shop window across the
          Arizona sun-baked plaza.

© Judith C Evans 2008

[Written just after a period of homelessness while I lived in Flagstaff, Arizona.]

Submitted to Poetry Pantry #50 at Poets United.

Untitled

The psalmist says we should
Look for Him in the rushing waters
Where there is nothing but loose pebbles
And air to cling to.

Keep afloat wherever the current takes you;
Find Him when your toes can
No longer touch bottom.

He won't let you go.
Reach out.
He is here.
After all, He gave you
The desires of your heart.

© Judith C Evans 2011

[Written for Thursday Think Tank at Poets United. This week's prompt -- untitled.]