I scream "It's Halloween!"

 Today's freeXpressions prompt was Scream

which led to these haikus:

cleaning nightmare

hard water stains on the glass

preventable

my face during

my annual health screening

prostate cancer check

that feeling

when someone eats

the last slice

your teeth

they’re so white

nice

the vacant eye scream

of a bursting bladder and

nowhere to pull off

lexicon contest

synonyms of “doom”

I won

I pulled a muscle

in the middle of the night

stretching

scream after “it

was a dark and stormy night”

not before

And then I wrote this microfiction:

Knight terrors. I know them well. Bad years bring midnight visits from his lordship’s retinue to all the surrounding farms to “encourage us” to do better. Horrors inflicted on my family don’t make crops grow better or keep insects away. The endless cycle of collecting taxes to keep the collectors fed thus enabling future levies - it’s a bitter pill for a man of the earth. But I can turn philosophical later; right now I’m forced to witness this latest knight terror. 

Wedding Writing

 Today's freeXpression prompt was Wedding

This particular prompt was chosen for this week because our oldest son is getting married this weekend (on a mountain top, no less!) So all that went into this week's haikus:

newlywed bliss

celebrate from mountain top

or empty highway

the limo dropped us

then blocked eight lanes of traffic

Instagram selfie

our YouTube channel

we’re going to off-grid right here

we’ll start building soon

starting a new life

delayed with no cabs to hail

and no Ubers 

Monday 8am

you can’t hear angry honking

in a photo

domino towers

collapsing into the next

still can’t upstage us

And because I've also started writing prose poetry weekly, I decided to write one thinking about my relationship with Aleesha:

I logged in that day, not expecting anything special to happen. The list of potential matches, always there, lifeless, inert. The daily online dating doom scroll. Habit, not hope, kept bringing me back.

A flaming urn, vibrant, new. Relationship pursued. Swept up by a whirlwind of changes. Chiang Mai is our Oz.

A whole bunch of freeXpressions writing!

 Today's freeXpression prompt was Harvest

I first wrote some haikus:

oak leaf before shrooms

autumn colors of plant rest

no chlorophyll here

fungus umbrellas

shade from autumnal sun

and tasty too

if mushrooms dream

of being massive trees

let them dream

up springs the green new

supplant the older

generation

oak leaf oak leaf

from where did you blow in?

enjoying your visit?

this life nearly done

stalks fading to compost

plant cemetery

And then I thought I'd give a new form a try - a prose poem:

Rise up, rise up, tiny fungal wonders of nature. Persephone makes ready for her journey to her cold and drear house; this is your time to thrive. Gaia casts off her foliage coat and you feast.

Still haikus

 Last week's freeXpressions prompt was Still:

Which prompted these hiakus:

chlorophyll covered

nestled still within nature

serene within self

expressive figure

settled on prefab slab

she seems satisfied

solitarily

nothingness is everything

and all within

clothed in foliage

draped in greenery

comfortably reclined

eyes closed

mind open

Haikus from a blue landscape

 The latest freeXpressions prompt was Blue and the picture was this:

Which prompted these haikus!

seventeen thoughts

all wanting to be expressed

the first one is…

ground and clouds are blue

sky whispers of orange moon

total opposites

moon tries to outshine

comes into the Sun’s ‘hood

scrappy fighter

are the smaller peaks

jealous of the bigger peaks?

they get names

the moon, smooth and round

while the Earth is so bumpy

my view, anyway

the man on the moon

got there before space flight

how?

the whole Earth is blue

and the moon is orange

extrapolation

the moon in orbit

gravity and inertia

falling and missing

lunar vacation?

travel time deal-breaker

the beach is closer

wispy blue cloud

can the moon smell it?

intoxicating

giant fake mustache

across the moon’s face

incognito

health advisory

cyanobacteria

everything’s covered

blue dust from above

carried in the atmosphere

it stains the clouds

the deep blue sea

and above is sky blue

ground wants to play too

rosy glow of dusk?

the early blush of dawn?

which way’s East?

all in shadow

and the Shadow knows

supercomputer

the Earth seems sad

while Moon looks cheery

toxic relationship

glowing substitute

it’s just not the real deal

saccharine shine

dolphin-like leaps

but no hoops to jump through

and no tricks

dark moon splotches

I thought it was cold in space

lunar mold