There is a cloud today.
Hangs shimmer silver
above the corner of the convent roof.
Says to me
Look up
Feel the hearts beating.
Tomorrow is Christmas
And the women who every morning hang their white robes out to dry
Will give food away in the lane behind my house.
Dave lives in Sydney, Australia and works across various creative disciplines.
“I want a mug from the plant pot stories contest,” Nick says. “Join me?”
He’s a devil. He knows I’m a gambler.
I haven’t grown plants since I rubbed my eyes after harvesting chili in the flat I’ll probably never return to.
None of us needs another reason to cry.
Elena Shakhnovsky is a Tel Aviv-based writer, currently in the Creative Writing Program at Bar-Ilan University.
Mary knows the night will eat her. She walks the streets, the smog like a marinade.
She hears children laugh, remembers the smell of their hair and feel of their hands.
Outside McDonald’s a man stands awkwardly. She knows him, knows his lack of agility. And the night watches, salivating.
Dominic is looking for employment as well as a way to describe the world around him. He writes poetry among other things and has been published online and in print in Driftwood Press, Poetry Birmingham and Kallisto Gaia magazines. He hopes he has something to say. He’s sure everyone does.
I was disappointed, discouraged and sad to miss out on last weeks Black Friday Bonanza at the Oxford Comma shop. However, my brothers friends mother said theres a closing down sale at Berts Apostrophe Store. Apparently its going into administration, but Im not that bothered; I never go there anyway.
John has recently had stories published in People’s Friend, 101 words, Paragraph Planet, Westword and FFF. He’s the author of ‘Rough Rides’ and ‘Short and Sweet and Sour’. Previous winner of The Times short story competition.
The story of the week for December 16 to 20 is…
My Mother Dreams of Christmas Past by Jennifer L. Freed
History: so much of it. All day in the ship’s library, she archives dates, names, places. Overwhelming at times, yes, storing the collective past in data files on the small, boxy tablet she holds. But someone, she says, will need it some day: the world’s story rests in her hands.
Rachel is a tricenarian Cultural Studies PhD candidate who researches historical preservation.
On the evening of the twelfth day of Christmas, I lit a candle at our bedroom window, curtains open so that, framed by the darkness and the ice-rimed glass, the flame would seem to burn the brighter. A fitting first remembrance, my love.
Sometimes, even grief can be a gift.
Thomas Malloch is retired. Always a reader. Fancied writing. Sometimes gets published.
I hold my tongue as I listen to my mother spin
more festive plans. No point reminding her
that she hasn’t decorated the house for years,
that no one expects a woman with a walker
to prepare a party for twenty,
that this is her last winter in her home.
Jennifer L Freed is author of When Light Shifts, a memoir-in-poems about the aftermath of her mother’s cerebral hemorrhage. Please visit jfreed.weebly.com to learn more.
The drapes of dusk
descend across the forest.
Four thin daggers of sunset
pierce the dark fabric,
shining through tightly woven wood.
Bright needles, burning orange
and red, glowing hotly.
The last shouts of daylight
in the slumbering wildwood,
quietly succumbing beneath
the gloaming’s weight.
Charles C Gaines is a recently retired former gunfighter, school teacher and coach, general dentist living in Fort Worth, Texas. At 73 years of age, he has begun to take seriously a life-long love of poetry, writing on a wide variety of subjects that capture his attention.
I freeze, listening to the curious tinkling.
Hugo taps my shoulder and signs, What is it?
A… noise? I reply with my hands.
Eyebrows raised, he gestures to his ears—as useless as mine—and awaits the punchline.
I’m too busy watching the angels descend, one by one, to respond.
Jenny Mattern is a poet, a crafter of stories, and a cake-for-breakfast enthusiast who lives with her family in Montana. She is represented by Nicole Eisenbraun at Ginger Clark Literary Agency.