Falling Through The Cracks
Who are the tiny dancers afloat in this strange grain?
Killer Dessert
Killer Dessert
Honorable Mention – Flash 405, February 2018: “Greed”, Exposition Review
Poetry
The cheesecake looked sublime as it made its way across the kitchen floor on the backs
of two ant columns. The cat watched it pass. The dog noticed too and made his move
wiping out the ants and one black spider, but not before the spider bit the dog who fell
dead across the cat, causing a heart attack to the pensioner who’d held off dying knowing
her greedy nephew was already measuring for furniture, himself 82, that old buzzard
Judge’s Comments:
Have you ever considered the life cycle of greed, and how by nature it flits from one person to the next? Once you read this darkly funny piece, you will.
Guy Biederman is a SoCal expat who lives afloat on a houseboat in the San Francisco Bay where he teaches Floating Groove and Writing On The Dock of The Bay workshops. He and his wife Phyllis host Anonymous Pie Salons every New Year’s Day.
Floating house with rainbow
enhanced by my friend Dennis Bayer (whose house it is by the way)
If Salvador Dali Shopped Here
Life on the docks involves shopping carts. They can be a mysterious thing. At times we have an absolute bevy of them. At times, none can be found. Sometimes, shopping carts from Toys R Us appear - there isn't a Toy R Us for miles! Shopping carts help with moving groceries and furniture and and trash and recycle form the houseboats to the parking lot, which depending on where you live on the dock can be quite a stretch. And some people call them the South Forty Walker. Our previous neighbor and friend Adele had a small cart that stayed near her gate which no one touched - so it would always be available for her to lean on, to balance with, to use to carry things to and from her houseboat, the Dandelion - where we now live.
The Green Sweater
In the picture it’s 1997. I’m 39, with my family, posing in the ’76 mg midget that never would pass smog. I’m two months removed from my own cancer diagnosis and surgery. My mom has just succumbed to her own 5-year battle. We all had one last Christmas together. She loved to order from LL Bean. The forest green sweater was a gift that hadn’t arrived in time for Christmas day. Maybe it was on back order. But a few days before my March 3 birthday, a few days after she passed, it came in the mail. Literally a gift from the grave. I still have the sweater; still wear it once or twice a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s lost a little shape, so have I. The color has faded in places and a white spot mysteriously appeared which I colored in with a green felt pen. Neruda always wrote in green the color of hope. I do when I can. I was reading Thich Nhat Hanh this morning. He talked about how he grieved after losing his mother. One night he had a dream and she was alive and well and smiling and her hair was flowing and they laughed and had wonderful conversations. And when he awoke he realized that the idea that he had lost his mother was only an idea. That she was alive inside him and always would be. I'll think about this each time I wear the sweater. Each time I take it to the dry cleaner and carefully fold it for another day. The way I think of mom and smile when I see a hummingbird; when I eat Mexican food, her favorite; when I see my kids, now grown, and my daughter and sister who love to craft like she did; and the sweetness of my son and his wife, and the smile of my sweetheart Phylly B, so generous and kind . . . I see mom's smile too and feel her love. Now as I approach 60, I understand that the gift was not from the grave. It is here now, from her, always ~
Stepping Out
I've often thought writing fiction is like turning on the lights in your house at night and walking across the street to see how you live. The other day we went to our neighbor's houseboat, had some scotch, and checked out their view. Short story.
The Great Blue Owl
Returning from Noir City Film Fest one midnight last week, we heard a who-who-who-ing on The Owl, our neighbor's houseboat, answered by a call coming from some bobbing mast in the channel. I put my hands together and responded with a whistle. Silence. I snapped a Hail Mary photo in the dark and sent it to Dennis B., a photo magician, to sort it all out. Who knew?? The iPhone wasn't talking. Neither was it's pocket pal, iFlask. And neither, was cagey Dennis B.
Out for A Talk
"Nature’s particular gift to the walker, through the semi-mechanical act of walking — a gift no other form of exercise seems to transmit in the same high degree — is to set the mind jogging, to make it garrulous, exalted, a little mad maybe — certainly creative and suprasensitive, until at last it really seems to be outside of you and as if it were talking to you whilst you are talking back to it." - Kenneth Grahame
Low Tide Enlightenment
Low tide reminds me of fiction, how things under the surface get revealed, and what may pass for unpleasant, ugly, or even disgusting by some, can be rather amazing upon closer consideration. Chekov said include everything in the stories, even stuff from the compost heap ~
The Story I'll Remember
After a cafe reading last week, having heard many fine stories and poems, and feeling juiced from the night, I walked to my car, looked up, and saw this on a wall. A graff writer, a sign of the times, a story I'll remember.
Afloat On The Bay of Wonder
"Every human person is inevitably involved with two worlds: the world they carry within them and the world that is out there. All thinking, all writing, all action, all creation and all destruction is about that bridge between the two worlds. All thought is about putting a face on experience… One of the most exciting and energetic forms of thought is the question. I always think that the question is like a lantern. It illuminates new landscapes and new areas as it moves. Therefore, the question always assumes that there are many different dimensions to a thought that you are either blind to or that are not available to you. So a question is really one of the forms in which wonder expresses itself. One of the reasons that we wonder is because we are limited, and that limitation is one of the great gateways to wonder." - John O'Donohue