Author: Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

Two days late!

Silver moonlight penetrated thick branches throwing into relief the silhouette of sleeping angels.

Photograph by Ami (Gypsie) Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to Friday Fictioneers 11 – 19 – 2021 photo prompt micro-story 100 words or less 

The axe came first, it was our only warning. Split logs, whole logs, branches too rose, rolled and shot through the air, impaling anything or anyone in their way. 

Quiet for a moment, we huddled terror stricken in the cabin. A jarring sound and the chainsaw lifted, it’s blade sharp and spinning madly. It hovered over the roof of the little cabin before it too, devoured the old timber’s of the roof full force. 

There was a shudder, a thud. Then another thud. Then such a cacophony of thuds, we covered our ears against it. 

The trees had had enough!

19 November 2021

by Ami (Gypsie) Offenbacher-Ferris 

(Response to Sadie’s What do you see # 108 – November 15, 2021 Picture prompt.)

It’s a key. It’s just a key. It’s not an engagement ring, not a wedding ring. A commitment yes, but an open one right? Wiggle room implied, accepted, assumed. 

Don’t touch it! Don’t touch that key! Next comes exclusivity, then domination, then the rings, those rings. No wiggle room afforded, none implied, none assumed, none expected. 

It will work, it could work. Just a key, without a ring. Open the door, just open the door. Inside is security, affability, friendship, love. Sexuality, with one, just one. Exclusive together. 

It won’t work. It might work, for a time. For a little while. For the blink of an eye. But then, oh then. Another comes along, singing his song. Pulls him away, he’ll never stay. Accept it. 

Reach for it, almost touch it. Can’t. Try again, hand freezes then falls. Knowledge is heaven, but this time it’s hell. Never again, no never again. Turn from the door, turning away from the door. 

Leave behind what might have been, not going to face what might of been. He sits waiting – within. 

(more…)

by Ami (Gypsie) Offenbacher-Ferris

In Response to Friday Fictioneers prompt. Write a 100 word story in the historical fiction genre, using the prompt provided.

It was but a small bump, barely a shiver down in third class where so many of us traveled together, to the New Land.

In fact, I rather liked the feel of the big ship as she took the waves and faced the wind. As I’ve done in the past, I wondered at the incongruities of cultural expectations and strictures.

Mama near passed right out when I told her I wanted to be a captain like Captain Smith. She said it weren’t a proper position for a lady.

Cold water slid over my slippers. Did Captain Smith know about this?

There’s meter and there’s meters

One measures a poem’s length

The other the length of a road

Epistemology is much like genealogy

Discovering the secret starting places

Of the words we use to this day

It certainly never occurred to me

To use the algebraic written form

Instead of the good old A, B, C’s

Then we get to the iambic state

Which seems to me a way to relate

Without using words but beats is all!

Last now we see a lambic parameter

A way to install a measured meter

with a beat musicians love to use

As for me I find I have to say

I’m just an eccentric heretic

An apostate non-conformist

An unintentional recreant

Of the well authored word

In layman’s terms – I just write!

by Ami (Gypsie) Offenbacher-Ferris

Passed a patch of pussywillows today

I thought of you and smiled

How you’d make Dad stop each time

To gather a bushel from the swamp

He never fussed he didn’t complain

That in itself a sweet blessing to us

We three girls would sit and watch

As our Dad traversed those Florida swamps

Never a thought nor did he mind

Those alligators standing by

Why they let my Daddy be

Is still a mystery to me

Upon the shelf she kept her prize

Fluffy puffs of nature’s whim

Until the day they dropped their seed

Then back to the swamp we went

Years and years have passed

Since last I saw her smile

Dads gone to join her now

A sprig of fluff in his tight hand

I passed a patch of pussywillows today

Your voice a distant memory

Upon my shelf now sits a bunch

Of willows from your favorite swamp

Agent’s due to come at dusk

A handsome gent

that smells of musk

The kind of gent

that makes a mama proud

A man to make a young girl

do twirls in the center

of her small living room

Over the moon

About a gent in blue

Brother stands and shakes his head

convinced his sister never will wed

Whether or not the gent is true

Whether he wears red, white or blue

This ones not the one for you

Father enters his scowling face

not a hint of kindness

Not a trace

As he explains to one and to all

It’s not a gent that’s going to call

Family all turns as one to stare

at the man in his overalls

He stands to a height of six foot four

sauntering slowly

towards the door

My sweet little girl I’m sorry to say

it’s not a-gent calling for you today

It’s me that’s been caught

well and good

An agent he is for his livelihood

An agent in blue to take me away

My moonshine still did he find

Up the creek and far away

a-gents not yours

I’m afraid he’s mine

Prompt: 🌺 FLOWERS

Flower petals drop heralding winter’s come.

Saturday Six Word Story Prompt (6WSP) #98 – Nov 6, 2021

(Response to Sammi Cox’s prompt EMPIRE – 70 Words)

Babylonia, Media

Persia and Greece

Four empires

the final fourth book

Israel as it stands now

but a crossroad stop

for the armies of

Asia Minor and Mesopotamia

The eastern boundaries

those blazing Arabian deserts

denied their escape

sealed by nature’s fickle fate

Four empires desecrated

passing marauders

Egypt bound for fame and gold

Arts, sciences, literature gone

The burning pursuit

of golden riches eternal

Embedded Inhumanness

since time immemorial

(A response to NaNoWriMo prompts: train, reflect, fog, night, incense.)

Rumbling and rattling soothing sounds to a train engineer Annoying clatter to the car waiting there

A little boy bounces his safety seat swaying counting how many cars the big red engine pulls through the night

A woman sits quietly at the stop without signals Her red rimmed eyes and tear streaked face reflect her youthful agony

Obscured by the incense of fog a possum struts across the tracks in blissful ignorance until the moment bright lights mark his imminent demise