Poetry, Flash Fiction, Stories, Musings, Photos
By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
The air crisp for a mid-April morn
Yet by noon-time
Flower petals are dry and brittle
Beneath the old Bald Cypress tree
lay two special eggs
hidden each Easter Day
Though both are grown
No longer at home
I hid these two precious eggs
Knowing one day
You’ll both come home to find
the precious gifts I harbor inside
By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
Response to a prompt provided by Linda G. Hill for The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS April 16, 2022
The prompt words: nose/noes/knows
My little girl
has two little feet
as cute as they can be
On those feet
are ten little toes
pretty little digits all
Alas my little girl
grew to be a big girl
she’s over six feet tall
Her pretty little feet
now pretty big feet
did sport ten stinky big toes
When I asked her one day
spying her shoes where they lay
Say what is that smell?
My big little girl denied
straight-faced with a whirl
she had not even a clue
But a mother’s nose knows
when her little girls toes
do stink up a room for sure
No matter how those ten toes
denied with adamant noes
it was not their foul aromatic smell
A mother does know
in fact she will always know
the scent of ten stinky toes
There’s nothing quite like it
no man-made sniffer that can rival a mother’s whose nose knows noes
By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
Today is your wedding day
your day full of happiness
and joy
I remember that look on your face so happy and loving when you were a
little boy
The look of wonder and the look of awe when you opened a new
Christmas toy
Or when you ran so fast and so hard
and rode your bike near and far you
utterly enjoyed
Playing with kittens and puppies
bearded dragons and snakes too and
sharing pomeroy’s
You determinedly rode that big yellow bus on your first day of school
so overjoyed
At the end of the day a call to say you had strayed on to the wrong bus home
brave boy
My frantic attempt to chase down that bus who inside held my sweet boy
street ploys
When you came running around that corner with your knockout smile
heart joy
How I wish it could be so
that you still loved me though
heart destroyed
Yet with all of that I can wish you
only the best and a life full of love
sad goodbye
By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
Darkness swallows my fear
the gloom smothers my dreams
Moonless nights call forth
from within me – something
Barefoot stepping on branches
sharp further and further into a
Noiseless universe pulling
me into a void of – nothingness
Night so dark it drips
from my own bare limbs
Inky blackness inhaled
fills mouth and nose – drowning
Down, down into the black abyss
straining to stay on top
Sucking me roughly to the bottom
where I emerge – anew
By Gypsie Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
In response to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC)
Today’s word is COLONY.
They all look so happy, so content, each in their own little colonies. I like to watch, to see the warmth in their eyes as they greet. Husband and wife embrace and say hello, children run to their parents and grandchildren hop up and down to see what treats their grandparents and even great-grandparents may have brought them.
Little babies coo pleasantly along with the night songbirds and giddy tree frogs hugging the trees surrounding the village.
Evening settles and the women sing together as they cook. Batting away at the myriad of night insects hoping to catch a meal either from them or what’s cooking in the big pots.
Darkness surrounds the colony and the children are all asleep; all except one or two who stubbornly refuse to give up the fight against sleepiness. Eventually they grow quiet too, along with the dogs, cows, horses and other day creatures.
I hear the soft loving murmur of men, wrapping their arms protectively around their women as they slip into bed. Other sounds are heard, signaling my leaving time.
This colony is full. I sigh. I move on.
By Gypsie Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
In response to weekly #writephoto prompt KITES by KL Caley
To fly up high
In the sky like a kite
Would be sublime
Higher and higher
I would go until barely
my tail would show
Up up into a sky so blue
Leaving my birth land
far below
Within fluffy white clouds above
Kites of every size like me
Waited patiently to be set free
By Gypsie Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
In response to the picture prompt provided by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
for Friday Fictioneers
Six Sentence Count Requirement
Click here to join
I had to go, I really had to go and headed for the chair doing the worst impression of a duck walk there ever was.
Oh the chair, that glorious chair with the magic hole beneath it; we all love you so, all the more since we don’t have to squat our bare butts down on a bush full of thorns or worse, a log full of chiggers!
Sweet relief once I take that seat and let nature flow but, day of all days, my zipper is stuck and my jeans are lodged half way down my hips.
The sound of that zzzzzip is sweet music to my ass-urance that an accident I will not make.
I turn and sit down and discover within a cloud of foul smelling mess, that something is sorely amiss!
“Dad,” I yell at the top of my lungs waiting for him to appear, “you forgot to make a HOLE in this here chair!”
By Gypsie Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
In response to April’s Batch of Virtual Poetorium Poetry Prompt Photo Provided by Paul Szlosek
There is a house
way down that hill
People live there still
In that house
you were born
While I was shucking corn
You came to me
and stayed with me
Like fruit upon the tree
Your pa and me
on bended knee
Worked late into the eve
We did not know
how could we know
The hand that God would show
At ten years old
you were deemed a man
The foreman with cuffs he clad
Your wrists behind your back
pa fought to get you free – I cried
We’ll get you back some day my son
I didn’t know then
that I lied.
FLASH FICTION FOR THE PURPOSEFUL PRACTITIONER: 2022: WEEK #16
by rogershipp
It was almost over. All the heartache. All the strife. All the pain. One step onto that bridge and it would all be left behind.
No more ugly words and recriminations. No more accusations, half-truths, slights and outright verbal attacks.
One small step and the bitterness of loneliness would disappear, swallowed into a great black void of nothingness; or whatever was on the other side of this bridge. Heaven or Armageddon?
Others passed her by, bumping into her, jostling her in their scramble to get to the other side.
Another jerk and a long, hard pull found her at the very threshold of the bridge. Shadows moved on the other side. Mist undulated over the landscape. A mighty roar rang out, then three loud gongs signaling the closing of the bridge.
Take a step, just take a step. Something tugged harder. She wavered. Across the bridge was nearly everyone she loved and cared for. Lifting a small, frail foot above the glistening cedar of the long foot-bridge, she leaned forward then stopped.
A noise, coming from a distance far away rang familiar. There it was again! Turning away from the bridge, she did not see it dissipate.
The voice was closer now, distinguishable.“Grandma? Grandma are you awake?”
By (Gypsie) Ami Offenbacher-Ferris
In Response to the NaPoWriMon challenge via Bartholomew Barker to write a poem about a very large thing.
Massive it is
with talons sharp
Play with it some try
those that do often die
Words are not made
to describe this thing
The hearts it has broken
never again will sing
A monstrous thing
Entrapping our world
completely
Unequivocally without compare
Decimating families
with ferocity and strength
Ripping lovers apart
Inciting hatred between friends
Knowing not how to tame
or slay it
Father’s lose sons
Mother’s lose daughters
Mighty beast! Greedy beast!
Sacrifice not one more child
Take not another mother
or father away –
Addiction
Gypsie’s Wonderful World of Words