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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

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

By Gypsie~Ami Offenbacher~Ferris

In response to Brenda Warren
our hostess for The Sunday Whirl.
You can join in here.

The words are: sliver, breath, sent, plans, hours, minutes, chime, drive, write, light, crime, match.

Hour after hour
the minutes pass
Labored breath matches
a drive chimed only
by the agonizing light
Slivers of sunrise
write of my crime
upon a canvas of black
Matched only by plans
sent by the glow
of a disapproving moon