"The only redeeming quality about this story is that the good die and the stupid suffer." ~ Anonymous
A young man stood
His head to a wall
Pulled back
Swung forward
And crushing his skull
Passerby cried
At this pitiful whelp
Folks tried to stop
To impede
Hell, just to help
He just smiled at them
His teeth a grisly mess
“Oh don’t mind me
I’m just an artist
And this painting, my best”
He mused “just a bit more
Then it will be done
Wait no
Not quite
I’ll erase this last one”
Featured image source: http://davidmoody.net/2014/04/18/hitting-head-brick-wall/#.XAVnORZMGEc
I was just tagged by the Twister Lit Contest hosted by High Tensile UK and found out this morning that I won! The winning tweet is the featured photo for this post~ The goal was to write a complete feeling piece of psychological thriller fiction within one tweet.
As part of this I am going to receive a signed copy of A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne who is also well known for writing The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
The other part is that I’ll be featured on their website hightensilelit.com when it goes live on December 9th!
I am so freaking excited!!! If you’ve found me through their website I do hope you enjoy my writing and decide to hang around~
This is the first writing contest I’ve ever won so this is also VERY EXCITING!
Wanderer dragged forward
Ever onward past dry land
Through downy soft crystal fields
Stopping briefly for water
In the midst of a silent pasture
Stream burbling pleasantly
Some distance away
The Wanderer saw another
Dressed in garb
So far removed
As his was also
This one in wrapped layers
All but eyes hidden
The Wanderer himself
Dressed in crimson cape
With deep grey and black swirled rags
The Wanderer drew his blade
A humming biting thing
Which brought death swift
The Stranger drew his
Curves wicked and barbed
Its every facet to bring agony
The Stranger gave a guttural call
Challenge in tone
The Wanderer met it in kind
With swift leap the Wanderer landed
Across the lolling stream
Slowly they approached
Blades ready
A careful dance
Not too close
But ever closer
Until
The Stranger lashed out
Flecked with something muddy
Unseen from afar
The Wanderer dodged all
But one barb
Which sliced his arm
As he too swung
The edge cut azure blur
Clear through
A pause
Breath
The Stranger collapsed
Felled in two
Victory
Surely
But
The Wanderer felt a burn
Of something insidious
Crawling through his veins
He knew what this was
And spat on the body of his foe
For the honorless poison he used
He walked to the stream
Dipping in his toes
Laid down his blade
And laid back in the grass
The wind whispered
The grass murmuring
And in them a reminder
He will not be remembered
Nor the trials he faced
All that he accomplished
Was to feed this beauteous place
Cards are dealt
Quick flash to each on the table
I tip my Stetson back
With a broad smile as I eye my hand
One man meets my gaze
Grumbles something crass and crude
Eyes his own cards
And folds quickly on the first round of bets
The next ups the ante
And growls surly for my decision then
I ease back puzzling quietly
Then push forth my pile with simple “all in”
The man beside me whistles
Taps his own chips with a reticent pace
Before he shakes head
And quietly folds as the first did
Then just one and me
He meets me with a sinister grin
Shows his cards
A straight flush three to seven of clubs
I nod solemnly
Set down my own hand with defeat
And show him
A glorious spades royal flush
The table is flipped
The man draws iron and cries
“Cheatin’ dog!”
With cards still fluttering down
I leap from my chair
A hard tackle sends him sprawling
I force back his hand
And with a deafening boom
Little is left of his head
His boot heels dragged
Through the lone dry grass
Sparse and brown from the wilting heat
.
His Planter’s hat
Wide brimmed and flat
Hid his eyes from the muddled hues
.
Above him cried
A vulture who eyed
The gait of a thing soon dead
.
How long he’d gone
Or what he had done
Few knew and yet fewer would tell
.
He did not curse his plight
As another man might
But prayed it be enough to atone
.
As the sun then set
And a pale man was met
He welcomed the stranger into his arms
.
He gasped a last breath
And walked calmly to Death
He fell down to the hard packed earth
.
The only witnesses here
Are two who men fear
The reaper and his malodorous bird
This is so true of writing verse and prose also. You have to allow for time away from the keyboard/ pencil/ typewriter to live and understand those fickle things you want to write and capture, cradled in simple words. Please take the time to enjoy Tony’s words and give him some love.
Wagon wheel rocks and jolts
I cough the road’s rough dust
And ‘neath my jackets folds
Hides a tool of pain and rust
What used I to take a life
Of one held dear to most
A good and lovely wife
Of my deed I will not boast
A town rolls by beyond my right
Beside my path of troubled woes
With not an end in sight
And arrayed with endless foes
The path or town matters not
Pray forgiveness would I
For all the men I’ve fought
And left behind to die
One day I know from now not long
That I will surely fall
And with no tale left to song
I will curse you all
On the horizon you spot it
A gathering darkness
Like so many swarming buzzing corpse flies
The sun died behind it
Yet the sky before you
Still seems a simple sunset
But there
Bulging
Is that blackness
That badness
Quickly growing
Ravenously consuming
Your nails claw at your cheeks
Ragged strips of flesh fall away
A scream
Ragged
Tears from your throat
Your mind fumbles for reason
Some order
Some cause for all of this
But finds none
The walls scream too
And as the world dies
You glimpse behind the encroaching gloom
Something bright
And new
Dried Ink Ribbon 