alphabetsoup314

1. Pond Water Orange scales against a shadowed sky; autumn's koi leaves. 2. Autumn Settling A spiderweb stretches across shivering branches-- a tree's last scarf. 3. Forest's Canopy On rusting leaves the season's last ladybug opens her wings. 4. Scarab Clouds A flash of curve-- beetle-back clouds crowding out a harvest moon. 5. Hunkering Pines Grandfather pines hunker, bowing to winter as fall's embers fade. 6. Etched Promises Etched into gnarled trees: Spring's promise to return again next year. 7. Dew Crystals Late-season bloomer: morning dew crystallized on a shivering sunflower. 8. Blooming Flames August blooming: green leaves rust

by Stephen R. Smith with excerpts by Kathy Kachelries In order to improve as a writer, you need feedback. It's difficult to write something the size of a novel, and equally difficult to carve out the time required to read one and provide any sort of meaningful critique on it. This severely handicaps the feedback loop so important for the aspiring writer. Flash Fiction on the other hand allows you to exercise all of your story writing and editing skills while creating works that can be read in a few minutes. This makes it ideal for examining ideas, developing writing skills and getting the feedback needed to help elevate you in your craft. N

hands solving buttons; abacus arithmetic calculating pi(e). when reduced to simplest terms reciprocity is best.

the boy called spineless has a backbone lost in the rubble of hiroshima, his unfettered hands pulling at maps and photographs. with worn and radioactive identity, he knows that the world is a veteran, sick of empathy & can look massacre in the eye without blinking. hastily, people will cleanse themselves of alpha particles and corpses they did not touch. history classrooms will suck the marrow of tragedy unafflicted, passing nagasaki as another word in a textbook, pointing at pictures, saying that’s what you get when you fuck with america. he does not blame them. they have not seen for themselves the crimson cloud inhaling his o

Glimmering brighter than the sun, Dancing down in a storm, Turning the world to grays and blues, There`s nothing like a winter`s hue! Nipping cold and singing breeze, Bring me back that melody! Here and There and Everywhere, Upside down all over town, Laugh and play another day! Grab some hands and join a dance, Sing along and stamp the ground, Round and round and round we`ll go Making our own merry go round! Jump over the fire with your lover, And hope good luck will play it`s tune in the coming year, For now we laugh, For now we play, And tonight we will live again.