prosery

I Can’t Believe It

lillian18 Comments

I have no skills for flight or wings. To skim the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself, I’d much rather do that.

I grew up next door to Amelia and her sister, Pidge. We climbed so many trees together. I’ll never forget the day Amelia said she was sure I could fly. So convincing was she, that I lept from an apple tree with arms outstretched. I held a grudge against her for a long time after that debacle.

All these years later, here I am, happily married, still in Atchison. I follow Amelia’s adventures and marvel at her courage. She’s world famous while I’m best known for my prize-winning apple pies. In summers, I always enjoy canoeing on Lake Warnock. Sometimes I stop to stare up at the sky and think about her. Imagine my shock today, when I heard the awful news.


Written for Monday Prosery at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe.

EXPLANATION. I’ve inserted myself into history in my flash fiction, pretending to be a neighbor of Amelia Earhart in her early childhood days.

HISTORY: Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1939) and her sister, Muriel (nicknamed Pidge; 1899 – 1998) were born and raised in Atchison, Kansas. There is indeed a Lake Warnock in the town. In 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane. In 1932, she became the first woman to make a nonstop solo transatlantic flight and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. On July 24, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world. She was declared dead on January 5, 1939.

WHAT IS PROSERY? For this form, we take a line of poetry and place it into a prose piece. The prose can be fiction or non-fiction, but it must be a piece of prose, not poetry. It can be no longer than 144 words, sans title. We are not permitted to insert words into the given line, but we may punctuate it. We must acknowledge the line, the work, and the poet.

THE LINE WE MUST INCLUDE: “I have no skills for flight or wings to skim, the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself” The line is from The Magnificent Frigatebird by Ada Limon.

IMAGES of Amelia and her sister, Pidge; Amelia as a pilot; and Amelia as a young girl.

Let’s Talk Today

lillian16 Comments

ME: Want to know the fourcast? As in f-o-u-r?

YOU: The forecast? Don’t you mean as in f-o-r-e?

ME: No, the four year fourcast.

YOU: How can meterologists do that?

ME: Well, they can do it now. They watch the gulf-stream pattern, from the Gulf of America and the blow-hard-wind data from Mount McKinley. They even have access to X-rated data.

YOU: So what’s their prediction?

ME: A four year blizzard! Be prepared!

YOU: How?

ME: Just head to a fabric store.

YOU: Do those exist anymore?

ME: Go to the one on Blue Avenue and head to the left side of the store. They have a good supply of outerwear patterns. Get plenty of heavy fabric. Take it to a seamstress and tell her to make of it a parka. For your soul then, wear it outside every day and resist the storm!


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Prosery Monday and Lisa is our pubtender. She provides us with the lines
“Make of it a parka
For your soul.”
from Before you know you owned it by Alice Walker. We are to include these exact words, in this exact order, in a 144 word piece of prose/flash fiction. We are however, allowed to add punctuation or change the punctuation. Image made on Bing Create.

Birthday Week with Gramps

lillian13 Comments

She’d lived with her widowed grandfather since she was orphaned at twelve. He proudly walked her down the aisle when she married. Every year since, she’d returned to the cabin to spend his birthday week with him. They watched movies on VHS tapes. His favorites were the old ones starring Cary Grant, Spencer Tracey, or John Wayne.

This year, she’d brought the Harry Potter series on VHS tapes. They were twenty minutes into the first one when he complained loudly. “Wizards? This is ridiculous!”

She started to ask, “What does it matter that . . .”

“The stars we see are already dead. The ones we always watch. They’re in plots you can understand,” he harrumphed. “I’m gettin’ a beer and goin’ out to watch the moon. Seein’ a man up there is more real than this!”

She smiled, “Okay, Gramps. You win. I’m coming too.”


Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Dora is hosting and introduces us to Amy Woolard. She asks us to include the line “What does it matter that the stars we see are already dead” from Woolard’s poem, Laura Palmer Graduates, in our post.

Prosery was invented by dVerse: one line of poetry is provided and we must include that line, word for word, within a piece of prose/flash fiction that is 144 words or less (sans title). It’s the one type of prompt on dVesre, that does not involve writing poetry.

Image created in Bing Create.

After All These Years . . .

lillian14 Comments

They were so young. Grins on their faces more often than not. Dressed in wool caps, fuzzy mittens, and brightly colored scarves. The backs of their snowsuits still showed evidence of the snow angels they’d just completed. An annual tradition at the first deep snow. Jill’s yard was always the scene. More often than not, they’d be in the midst of a wild dance to the blizzard gods when Mrs. Cranston called out to them, one by one. All of the names swallowed up by the cold, but loud enough so they knew her homemade hot chocolate was ready.

All these years later, Jill looking so beautiful in her wedding gown, they sat looking expectantly at Mrs. Cranston. Snow falling outside the church fellowship hall’s window, she held up her champagne flute: “To lasting friendship, my dears. You will always be my cold-nosed angels!”

It’s Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe. Today Bjorn is hosting from Stockholm, Sweden. He asks us to include the line All of the names swallowed up by the cold in our piece of prose/flash fiction that is 144 words or less in length, sans title. The line is from the poem “After Someone’s Death” by the late Swedish Nobel Laureate, Tomas Tranströmer.

A Dancer’s Tale

lillian39 Comments

I was where I am when the snow began: back row in the corps de ballet. My first professional performance with a prestigious company. My first performance in The Nutcracker.

We’d practiced Act I’s ending snow scene many times. Dress rehearsal was a joy as soft snow fell all around us. As a newbie, nobody warned me about the two three-hundred pound fabric bags of confetti snow in the rafters. Nor did they tell me in the real performance, the snow would increase in intensity until we ended up in a veritable blizzard!

I was afraid I’d fall. It stuck to my eyelashes. I warned myself: don’t breathe through your mouth! But I did. With my back to the audience, I coughed like a cat hurling a furball. The curtain dropped to tumultuous applause and I’d survived. “Welcome to the real world of ballet!”

Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. I didn’t have time to write to Merril’s Prosery prompt for Monday, so did it late and am posting here. The prompt was to use the line “I was where I am when the snow began” from the poem The Dead of Winter by Samuel Menashe. Prosery is a piece of prose that is 144 words or less in length and includes a specific line of poetry given in a prompt.

A Dancer’s Tale was motivated by an article in the December 5th, Boston Globe, “The Snow Must Go On.” It actually quotes ballerina, Seo Hye Han who plays the Snow Queen in the Nutcracker about how the snow sticks to everything and tastes terrible because of the flame retardant on it. Boston Ballet actually does have two 300-pound fabric bags of confetti snow in the rafters for each performance of the Nutcracker. The bags are rotated and the snow slowly falls at first and does indeed, end up in a blizzard at the end of the scene. After the curtain comes down, stage hands immediately use machines similar to leaf blowers to clear the stage and save all the snow. They put the used snow through a machine to “sift out” false eyelashes, feathers, sequins etc. so there is just “pure” confetti snow left to reuse. According to the article, Boston Ballet goes through over 2,000 pounds of confetti snow in each season’s performances of the Nutcracker. Fascinating article to read! A Dancer’s Tale is purely fictional.

Image was created by me in Bing Creative! Thank you Bjorn for showing us how to use this AI!

Hope Grows in Beneficence

lillian18 Comments

Violet was born after a spring storm. She emerged from between the rainbow’s green and blue arcs. I am a centenarian angel, called to witness her birth. I’d been handmaiden to Death through all my years, grief skewing my existence. I was granted this new assignment, my aging wish. To assist non-humans within a species immersed in flights of fancy and joy.

I nudged Violet’s tiny fairy wings, guiding her through the sun’s rays toward the Land of Beneficence. Here she would learn to interact with the young offspring of humans when she journeyed to their earth. To spark their imaginations before ideas of difference and negativity took root. The hope of humankind lies within Violet and all her pixie kin, born every time a rainbow appears. My task, your very livelihood, is within the rainbow. Everything I do is stitched with its color.

Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe.

Today we are to include the line “Everything I do is stitched with its color” in a piece of flash fiction, composed of 144 words, sans title. The required line is from a poem written by William Stanley Merwin, 17th Poet Laureate of the United States.

Image from Pixabay.com

For the Love of Harold

lillian24 Comments

Widowed at eighty-three, she didn’t cry until they closed the lid on Harold. Never to see him again in that beautiful dark blue suit, worn on so many of their date nights over many years. The love of her life, resting in the Peters-Carmody Funeral Home, before the hearse would take him away.

Five years later, Maud Smith noticed an elderly woman sitting in the front row of mourners patiently waiting for Father David to begin the rosary. She approached the funeral director and quietly asked “Who is that old woman in the front row? Why is she sitting with my family?”

“That’s Mrs. Crowley, ma’am. She often comes to our viewings if the decedent is male. Her husband Harold’s service was here five years ago. I think she imagines him lying there, near her again. You see, to her, death is quite romantic.”

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Bjorn is hosting Prosery Monday, where a line from poetry is given and then must be used, word for word, in a piece of prose that is 144 words or less, sans title. Today the line is from Bob Dylan, “To her, death is quite romantic.”
Image from Pixabay.com

Psychotic Break

lillian39 Comments

And so I wandered. Lonely as a cloud, seeking some break in the darkness you left behind. How did I get to this point?

Your proposal caught me off guard. I craved love for so long, my heart could not believe your words. We spent those next weeks in pure bliss. I asked to meet your family. “Soon enough,” you said. Then one day I came home to an empty apartment. Your clothes were gone. Your side of the bathroom, pristine. You’d stood there that morning, shaving off your beard until a fresh unfamiliar face looked out from the mirror. “I’ll have to get used to that,” I said. Did you want me to? They found me, wandering through the house. Incoherent. The darkness was everywhere.

I’ve spent years in this institution now, wondering if you were real.

Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. EXCEPT, today, we’re not writing poetry. We’re writing PROSERY! This is a form of creative writing, developed at dVerse. The prompter (today it’s me) gives a line or two from a poem of her/his choosing as the prompt. Writers must then write a piece of prose, think flash fiction, that contains the given line(s) word for word, within the body of prose. The punctuation may change….but the word order must be the same and it must be word for word. The prose must not exceed 144 words in length (sans title). As the pub tender/prompter today, I’ve selected the line “I wandered lonely as a cloud” from Wordsworth’s poem I Wander Lonely as a Cloud. The line must be used word for word within the body of prose (punctuation may vary), and the prose must be 144 words or less in length, sans title. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

Go Forth, Multiply – Mandate of the Deities

lillian33 Comments

She was born in the fortieth century. Her lineage could be traced to earth, before it succumbed to supreme neglect. It is her wedding day. Carrying a bouquet of hybrid plumeria fertilized by star dust and carnage from deteriorated communication satellites, she slides between Ursa and its latest shard, to meet her chosen mate.

“Where is the payment I required for my body to wed your being?”

Handing her a package vibrating with energy he mouths “It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. As you mandated.”

Once unwrapped, it floats toward her three breasts illuminating them, and then seemingly melts into her circuitry. She smiles, knowing she is now impregnated. Her kind will continue. No longer needing this other being, her eyes turn iridescent green and devour him. She fades into the celestial skies, content to know she will multiply.

Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Bjorn is tending the pub and asks us to include the line “It is a moon wrapped in brown paper” in a piece of fiction that is 144 words or less, sans title. The line is from the poem Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy, a Scottish Poet who was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 2009-2019.

Prosery: a form created by dVerse. A line from a poem is given for the prompt. Writers must include the line exactly word for word (punctuation may be changed) within a piece of prose (not poetry) that is 144 words or less, sans title.

Image from Pixabay.com

The Return

lillian24 Comments

Namrah soared high. Twenty years after the Peabody children wished him live, he decided to return. Would they want to travel on his golden wings again? He’d taken so many children across the globe on secret midnight rides. Sometimes circling the full moon, chasing shooting stars across the skies. He’d not been above American shores in all these years. Would Allen and Susan consider themselves too old to climb aboard his teal feathered back?

Closer to their city now, but why so dark? Hovering over their yard, he stared in disbelief. Piles of bricks, uprooted trees, scattered roof tiles, shattered glass. Fear seized his heart. What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this rubbish? A solitary tear escaped one azure sequined eye. Has time destroyed the home, the town of his origins? Are Allen and Susan alive?

Written for prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Mish is pub tender and asks us to include the line “What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this rubbish?” from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in our flash fiction of 144 words or less, sans title. I’ve written of imaginary friend Namrah in years past. Here we visit him twenty years after he was wished alive.

Prosery is a genre created by dVerse. Pub tenders choose one line of poetry and writers must use that exact line (only the punctuation may be changed; word order must be the same) in a piece of prose, 144 words or less in length, sans title.