Almost at the finish line. I’m pleased. So pleased I’m going to continue right along and go for 100 in 100 and the first 30 are done so I have a running start.
I am again offering a prose poem because I’m sort of beginning to understand them vs flash fiction: the poem must have poetics devices (alliteration, repetition, rhythm, etc) and flash fiction much follow conventional fiction in that there is a plot and apparently often a twist at the end (I just learned that). Since this has a good deal of alliteration and some rhyme and a snippet of life, not a plot, I therefore christen it prose poem. Enjoy!
UNICORNS
Inside the cover lay a magic land and, with coffee in hand, she meant to inhabit it until the unicorns frolicked in her library and the mermaids sang siren songs in the tub. Was it real or just enchantment brought on by too much coffee and too little sleep? No one could say and if they had they would not have been heard over storms of locusts flying laps around the lounger where she reclined declining any attention to their drone or to the noise of breaking dishes brought on by dinosaurs too large for the kitchen. Not all her kin thought her crazy and many joined the general chaos content with bound pages of their own. The neighbors, long used to pirates parading out the front door accompanied by pilots and penguins and priestesses smelling of patchouli, smiled with pleasant patience. Meanwhile, a forest grew all around so grand that even Max was impressed and sailed his boat over to explore the river running aross the floor of the living room filled with impossible cairns and turquoise fish who spoke a language only the dog she never had understood. Alas, all things must end, even reveries and journeys into possibilities. The cover closed as she fell into dreams with tales of their own and only the unicorns remained.
I can almost see this as a children’s book, can you? If you don’t know Max, who intruded while I was writing , let me know. I’ll introduce you.
2 Comments
Max – “Where the Wild Things Are” – a book I memorized from reading so much that I could tell it to my 3 year old daughter (now 42) while we rode in the car. Maurice Sendak. One of my all time favorite children’s books. They made it into a movie but of course it wasn’t as good. When “a forest grew all around” Max appeared because the words are
The night Max wore is wolf suit and mad mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him “wild thing” and he said, “I’ll eat you up” so he was put to bed without any supper. That night in Max’s room a forest grew and an ocean tumbled by….”
So it makes sense that this reminds me of a children’s book. 😊
I also love “Tuesday” (or Tuesday Afternoon – I can’t remember). It has no words, just pictures, frogs on lilypads. Wonderful
Max?
Yes. It sounds like the kind of imagination children live with and we should tr to retain. 😉 I could see this as a children’s book–yes–with wild and colorful illustrations. 🙂