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Of Maria Antonia Photo Challenge – Sleepy

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to Fandango’s FOWC with Fandango — word prompt Compromise.

Anti-gun lobbyists and pro-gun lobbyists stood face to face, nose to nose outside the White House where President Biden watched with half-hearted, feigned community interest.

Taunts were yelled back and forth. Threats made. Slurs slung. Anti-lobbyists held up peace sign symbols. The pro-lobbyists, being more organized and well-funded, held up petition signs worthy of any protest petitioner.

The crowds appeared evenly matched, no give in any quarter. A small man hobbled out of the angry, milling crowd. Staff in one hand,
long flowing, weather-worn robes blowing in the perpetual breeze swirling around his thin, muscle-less legs.

Raising both hands, the Dalai Lama squatted and stated softly, “Now we shall compromise.”

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS June 4, 2022 by Linda G. Hill Prompt word IRONY

She had always wondered what it must feel like to be “the other woman.” She had been cheated on by both of her two ex-husbands. Their cheating had in fact, torn the marriages apart when she had discovered the truth of their infidelities.

So, without malice, forethought and certainly without intent; she had met, gone out with and eventually fallen in love with a very sexy, very married man, long after it was too late to just walk away.

There were extenuating circumstances, she thought; but then there always were. There was always a reason the man (or woman) strayed and always a reason the other woman (or man) stayed. The irony of the whole complicated, hurtful, tear jerking mess was how very similar both or all of the reasons always seemed to be.

A knock on the hotel door started her out of her philosophical contemplations. Room service she presumed. She was wrong. Upon opening the door, she found a short, stout woman standing on the other side, her face a fiery mask of fury.

There was a loud noise, she thought she heard someone scream. Was it her or him? She couldn’t be sure.

She’d always wondered what it would feel like to get shot. No pain at all, she pondered, just a warm feeling of fading away. Ironically, she puzzled over why she’d never contemplated buying a gun herself.

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By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

the world was gone
her world was gone
ripped away by a madman
not even a man but a boy
a boy with a gun out
for some demented fun

falling to her knees she begged
her God please it can not be
black tears coursed down
her high cheekbones smudging
her face to mock her grief
the baby of her body ripped to shreds

they led her down a long hallway
cold and blindingly sterile
the quiet pounding
achingly into her skull
she stumbled as she crossed
the threshold into a massive freezer

silver drawers lined the walls
eighteen long and three feet tall
eighteen and three eighteen and three
the boy was eighteen years old
her little girl was three feet tall
the man pulled out a drawer

her babies drawer her babies drawer
be careful she screamed
loudly within her mind
white sheet drawn back
reveals porcelain skin eyes closed
lips turned down in pain

she looks like nothings wrong
she just needs to wake up
wake up baby wake up
momma’s here now
she began to sing a lullaby
reached to lift her child

the men reached to stop her
too late she saw her babies
body torn apart by bullets
firing too fast to hide no where
to hide was her last thought
as she slid to the floor

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

I don’t know how long I’ve been afloat. Days, a week, more. I stopped counting at seven. Well, I couldn’t remember what came after seven and it didn’t seem to matter anyway. Seven dwarfs, seven seas, seven wonders of the world, lucky seven, seemed a good place to stop.

My life raft was nearly deflated, it wouldn’t hold me up for much longer. My emergency food had run out days ago, I don’t remember when; maybe seven days ago. My fresh water was almost gone too.

I had a really good tan now, I think. I had burned, blistered, peeled then burned, blistered and peeled so many times. The first time I cried and screamed in agony. The second time I cried and wailed. The third and forth time I whimpered softly and then, somehow, it didn’t hurt anymore. I think I’m on my seventh peel now, and I barely even noticed; my skin becoming so tough and thick.

My feet became uncomfortable. I looked down to see they were covered in sea water, dark and gray. They were neither cold nor hot but, had that unpleasant pruning feeling you get when you stay in the bath too long. I wondered how long my feet had been under water.

An orange glow in the distance caught my attention. Hallucinating again I was sure. So far I’d sung Puff The Magic Dragon with Puff himself floating along beside me. When I asked him if he would carry me home, he disappeared.

Another time, the Angel Gabriel hovered just above me. I was cold and he wrapped his wings around my shivering wet body and warmed me. I fell asleep in his arms and when I awoke, he had disappeared too.

I made out luscious, tall palm trees; seven large ones right on the point. Breakers lapped lazily on what looked to be, a pink sand beach. It was dusk, the sky turned creamy orange marbled with the blackness of the coming night. The Island seemed to be moving closer to me, beckoning me.
The rhythm of the soft roiling sea, broken into short breaths of ascending and descending waves, sounded real. Perhaps the Island was real. Perhaps I had not imagined it after all.

Bump! Something knocked into my rapidly sinking raft. Bump! Bump! My raft spun in a circle, taking on more salty ocean water. Bump! Bump! Bump!

Sharks circled me and what was left of my raft. I gazed longingly at the magnificence and promise of all the Island offered; as my raft succumbed and slipped beneath the clear, blue, pristine water.

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

The chamber was not far away, but seemed an eternity away as we walked the rugged path to where it sat on sacred ground, deep in the evergreen forest. My feet ached, were cut and bleeding but I closed my mind to the sensations that were not useful to me at the moment, and walked on fiercely serene with humility and reverence for those who had gone before me. This was the ultimate test.

Seven days without food or water. The days temperatures could reach one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit and the night temperatures dropped severely due to the high mountain range that surrounded us.

There were no blankets to use at all, no toilet and no water. Others have gone before me and made it. Others had not.

By Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris

In response to Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing Prompt #261 in 65 words exactly.

Far below a noise began
slight and distant and
barely discernible

Moons circled their planets
and black holes grew
Millenniums passed by

Sound rose in volume
a shattering crescendo
Past eons of galaxies

Darkness fades to black
black to purple to blue and red
Blood red obscures the sound

The outcry surged forth carried
by fear grief anger and angst
Unheard in the heavenly mix

Hi everyone! I am deeply humbled and feel extremely honored that my poem, “I Am Not A Man” has been accepted by Spillwords.com for publication in their June issue. Thank you to Dagmara K. – Director of Development | Editing Department of Spillwords.com for accepting new authors and having the courage and forethought to promote growth, diversity and excitement within the realm of poetry.

Also thank you to Bartholomew Barker for sharing his published poetry from Spillwords.com, which introduced me to this publication.

I wrote this poem in response to the recent and very upsetting efforts of those in political “elected” positions to overturn Roe vs Wade.