Please read and enjoy, and follow, this story by Jackie of an independent woman finding herself and taking on the world. Beep, beep, beep, BEEP, BEEP the alarm resounded. Ugh. Make it stop. The bed was comfortable and warm and I didn’t want to get up. Ten more minutes; I’ll just lie here ten more minutes. I sat up and swung my legs over the … Continue reading Paris in Pearls – Chapter Four. A Novel by Jackie
Beautiful writing from a beautiful voice. I find myself anxiously awaiting blacqbook’s next work. Please read, enjoy, and follow blacqbook. Continue reading Silence, by blacqbook
Please read and enjoy this wonderful continuing story of a woman realizing her lifelong dream of starting a new life in Paris. The romance is palpable ❤ By the time Renée returned, it was the height of lunch and the café was teeming with hungry Parisians. All the chairs were occupied, so she squeezed into the space beside me on the bench. “I’m sorry, … Continue reading Paris in Pearls – Chapter Three. A Novel by Jackie
I grew up with Zebco 202’s and caught quite a few bluegill, shiner, and catfish with Billy and Eddie in the pond next door. I even snagged a gator once but that was nothing compared to the nasty snapping turtle that tried to take his wrath out on my fingers. But I always preferred my bamboo fishing pole with the line tied to the tip, … Continue reading The Bamboo Fishing Pole
There is an intensity behind this writing that pulls me in. Maybe I identify with the writer’s honesty or with the topics. Whatever it is, I can’t stop reading and want to read more. I think you will too. Please read and share this writing and the thought that makes it possible. Add this site to your list of sites followed; you won’t be disappointed … Continue reading Reblog: Infinity Undone — The Birth Of Love
I love ramen. I could eat it every day. My wife is Japanese but that isn’t why I love ramen. Her mother was a wonderful cook, but she isn’t the reason I love ramen either. Her dad was born in Honolulu to immigrant parents. Nor he or they. They worked in the pineapple fields and later cut sugar cane. Mr. Ono was a WWII hero … Continue reading Ramen
Curled up in ringlets Electric parts of you, Shoulder length distractions Thoughts are all askew, Hope for sleep abandoned Your pillow’s made for two, Nose to nose connection Our favored point of view. Random touches, random whispers, Fingers playing finders keepers, Hidden fragrance in your smile, Let me breathe you for a while. Chastened by your virtue Encouraged by your sighs Midnight flame rekindled My … Continue reading Curled Up In You
Get up, get out, go back to him Do it now it’s sink or swim I am not the one you want You’re just tired of the hunt It was all a mistake, I see it clear What looked like love was only fear Of going out on my own, alone, I let you put me on a throne You stick to me like dried … Continue reading Get Up, Get Out, Go Back To Him
Susanna Avila, my Catalan beauty, woman of Spain. Coy smile held mystery, Unknowable history, Too briefly our souls entwined; This beauteous love, my destiny. Soulful gaze, emerald eyes piercing, Black hair dancing with night, Skin purest translucent white, Slender and graceful, slim elfin form, Delicate, raven-haired sprite. Ivory shoulders, smooth marble breast, Face fairer than Venus’ race, Spirit virgin, chaste, Ethereal, supernal essence; Tender, enchanting … Continue reading My Catalan Love
From my amniotic nest I emerge untainted into the cold metallic light and harsh steel voices disconnected from the comforting lullabies that whispered through my forming bones; with the cast of a stone I become a changeling and tremble wailing before those who will taint me with their jealous love and solemn oaths. Some things we learn and some we’re taught, others are innate; defenseless … Continue reading Cast the First Stone
🙂 This should be hummed to a happy tune 🙂 (but I didn’t need to tell you that ❤ ) When I was a young boy, I wished for the world When I grew up I found such a beautiful girl She loved me and I loved her And our love made the world a wonderful blur Around and around and around we danced Oh, … Continue reading She Loves Me and I Love Her
Love arrives breathing, warming love that develops, pulses from your heart, love beating keeping time, love’s symphony surrounds us, Love. Love before death, soothing love that envelops, light dimming in your eyes, love cherished and remembered, love’s eyes closed forever, Love. Continue reading Love, Ten Times Over
I wish I could ride a skipping stone far and far across the sea And skip ashore that distant land where flew the dreams I’d dreamed I’d follow my dreams to where she lay dreaming my dreams of her And wake her from deep slumber and gather her into me To tell her how I’d longed for her but feared she were a dream A … Continue reading Skipping Stones
Feeding me shrimp from a paper cone Throwing french fries at me across the table Drinking my sangria Picking green peas from my plate of fried rice. Taking my hand as we stroll through town Humming when words just won’t do Caressing my stubble; Leaning on me when cold seeps through her sweater. Gazing at me with a quizzical look Peering side-wise with that special … Continue reading Little Things
You left me in darkness when you went away. Even now, light dims when I think of you. I’m left with the nearly eternal absence of light because my thoughts are of you between the dawn and dusk of day. I am most alive when I dream of you for dreams are of what we were and what we should have been. The sun rises and shares … Continue reading One
I’m feeling my way through this “dabbling” in experimental writing. The last time he visited Barcelona, he was alone. I was dead. He returned to our beloved city knowing he would find pain but hoped the numbness would lift as he remembered me in the neighborhoods of my youth. Instead, he found the city also in mourning. The warm glow of Gaudi’s lanterns had … Continue reading Dancing With Orange Blossoms, Alternating POV / Reality
Thank you so much for reading along and supporting my effort. This novel is thirty years in the making and has been a journey of remembrance, blood, sweat, and tears. Most of the characters are based on real people. Tom’s and Sam’s Susanna was my girlfriend when I was stationed in Spain; yes, she died. Aida was a girlfriend in the Philippines. Lek was an acquaintance in … Continue reading Status: A Wished-For Love
What is the color of my skin when you are hidden beyond the horizon? What is the color of your skin when my heart swells with joy at the sight of you? What is the color of your touch when I clasp your hand in mine? What is the color of my touch when we embrace? What is the color of my mind when you … Continue reading The Color of Her Skin – Poetry by Will
Love isn’t cheap, although love can be cheapened. Love at any cost exacts an incalculable toll on the human soul. A five-dollar short time will get you love in Olongapo City, but what kind of love is that? Even a ten-dollar long time, an all-nighter, gets you nothing but relief, one more conquest to secure your manhood, and another sea story for the guys at work. Where’s the love? Where’s the … Continue reading On Love: Its Toll and Reward
I remember the night I fell for you, our romance and a lifetime of nightlong dreams. The dreams where you whisper so close to me, seeding memories inside my mind. And when I awake I think you are there and reach up to touch you but clutch empty air, then flinch from the gut punch when I know you’re a spirit and gone. I fall … Continue reading Of Love and Moonsweat
Your fragrance often wafts into my head guided by the metaphysical pinings of two souls and the bond between spirits not tethered to temporal moorings. Mortal boundaries span six feet of earthly separation but the heavenly plane exists within our senses. Comforting, that thought, and breathing your scent brings thoughts of your heaven wafting through my mind. For heaven is where you took me taking … Continue reading Of Love and Fragrance
I wish there were more moments to recall, the ones that show us naked and afraid. Instead, I recall our time together as projections of idealized portraits, retouched and photo-shopped by minds unable to bear the sharp edges and blunt-force trauma that lovers stumble through along the boulder-strewn road of romance. I don’t want to recall only the good moments but the ungood moments too, but maybe it’s better that … Continue reading Of Love and Memories
No boy is raised by only one mom. He’s raised by his friends’ moms too. Happy Mother’s Day to all of my second moms. Continue reading Second Moms
I wondered for a moment if she were kneeling, perhaps stocking the shelves, she barely peeked over the bar, but her Spanish green eyes were bright when she smiled and she told me she didn’t live far; she reached to my shoulders in her bare feet, not much higher in heels, and from my towering perch I never mentioned the few stray, white hairs she couldn’t … Continue reading My Spanish Love
What a beautiful story. The end surprised me. He remained warm a long time. Warm and still. I lay with my head on his chest, straining to hear the heartbeat that had lulled me to sleep so many times before. Only this time, I wasn’t trying to sleep. I wasn’t tired. I was engulfed: drowning in the tide of arrangements I’d have to make … Continue reading Strings, by J. A. Allen, Scribbles on Cocktail Napkins
Such a lovely work I will read again and again. Enjoy! There will come a time when flowers bloom in the corner of minds and earth springs from fingertips as new life forms and the old withers away what a world what a beautiful today. Reblogged from Earth Eyes — G. de Suys Continue reading On Poetry; Earth Eyes, by G. de Suys
I’ve held the sparrow and I’ve held You Like a wastrel I squandered what You gave me Your hair trimmed in gold like leaves of the Bible Your breath like the cooing of the dove. I wasn’t looking for adventure When I stumbled onto You In my faltering way of seeking The things I had no idea I needed. I remember Your touch, Your first … Continue reading But Darling
When the magic dies and the fruit skin dries and curls; When one face looks like another, and you stop calling your lover; When you look for answers but your lips can’t voice the questions; And the one you loved leaves you to fight yourself without Her; And you wander in the desert of temptation not noticing the pleasures; And numbness covers you in a … Continue reading Eve, In The Garden Of Desire
I praise you I praise you Let me lie beside you Let me lie beside you I hear the song of your spirit in the wind soughing past my ear; I smell the scent that fills me in the rose that is the vessel and the blessed fragrance in your smile. Your hair is trimmed in golden like the leaves within the Bible, and I … Continue reading I Praise You
Enchanted by the stars, like smelling roses, Anticipating the rush of a meteor flash Or Saturn’s rings in full-on view and Europa, Like Andromeda’s spiral, in ageless lights of time, And my heart pumps a million times a minute When sun bids day adieu amidst a host of glory, And that spinning dance and flash of white That reveals your teeth in brilliant, ecstatic smile … Continue reading Every Night With You
absolution hmmm hhuhhh hmmm hhuhhh bundled and warm cold crisp air stings with each inbreath hmmm hhuhhh tears drawn away by the cold or are they hmmm hhuhhh hmmm hhuhhh muffled but heightened as within the confessional silence descends as Nature dons her alb hmmm hhuhhh a puff of warm air echoing as through a long narrow cylinder … Continue reading Absolution
Spurned When Spring’s hope fills the air, the rose opens with grace and a fragrant sigh. Warm flesh greets ice-cold metal and gives way to metal’s pointed sting. The space between heartbeats is silent but my ears ring with a terrible din. Crystal speckles dot the space between my eyes and the hardness before me. In Winter, the rose retreats into itself to await the … Continue reading Spurned
Myth. Time is a myth. There is no time. When I’m with you Time stands still. Time with you is timeless. But how to communicate The absence of time, The fact of us? I. You. We. One. You are my life, My forever, My sun. I am your moon. You hold me in your orbit. You are my Center. My Universe. My Infinity. You are … Continue reading Your Breath Revive Me
I feel so much satisfaction watching the word count grow in the little story flowing from my pen. This joyful enterprise, this crafting of a universe built from memories of a lifetime. This imaginary world I have peopled with those I’ve grown up with, played, schooled, worshiped, worked, and served with. Decorated with scenes that have thrilled my eyes and my mind and lifted my … Continue reading My Little Story
I knew you had something on your mind When you had nothing much to say; When you spoke I could feel the worry, You nearly lost your way; I read the breath between your words For what I hoped I wouldn’t find; There’s always something left unsaid When we’re trying not to be unkind. I searched the places in your head Where you run from … Continue reading The Breath Between Her Words
An attempt at light, airy lyrics. Hum it to any tune you please, then let me know if it makes you smile 🙂 I was passing by O’Grady’s When you saw me in your glass You smiled without turning And I skipped a little dance You pretended not to notice But you still laughed anyway And I made myself a promise To pass there every … Continue reading My Better Half
In the middle of the beginning of the days of my youth I found you In the moments of the hours of my days when time didn’t matter You took me In the space between the time when caught breath was a whisper I came alive Just a sigh Just a cry Just a why Is all I have of you Nothing mattered then for … Continue reading When Breath Was a Whisper
Your heart is a sheet of cold, thin ice; Spider cracks zigzag among open veins; Eggshells scatter before my footsteps; On my toes, I step between the cracks and crush the eggshells with my heels. I peel away onionskin layers of you; Vaporous particles explode into my eyes; They stick to fingers and leave them numb; With steel razor taut in my fist, I scrape … Continue reading Mornings, A Halloween Tale
The rain is come, the day is drear, I must be dreaming of you dear; It’s days like this, I treasure most, Floating echoes of my restless host. When we met, I found my muse, Sheltered by whispered I love you’s; Shrinking from, the spilling clouds, I pulled you from the phobic crowds. Purposeless, and aimless thought, In my arms your love is caught; Your … Continue reading My Restless Muse
She’s the girl with the curls, And a face with a sneer on her lips, And when she comes near, You tremble in fear Of the threat in the swing of her hips. She’s the fun in the sun, With trouble in the song on her tongue, And when she comes along, You feel so wrong, When you notice how pretty and young. She’s that … Continue reading She’s that Girl
In the café, two tables away sat the woman Of my dreams, occupied reading a book; Silhouette in black, turning dog-eared leaves; I noted the dip of Cupid’s Bow, The gentle curve of her nose; The graceful line of her neck made My pulse beat double-quick; Leaning in, one elbow on the table, She lifted her coffee cup. I felt his eyes as I sipped … Continue reading Café of Nerves
Maine Street, and the town gazebo sits empty in the dark; The tower of the old parish church rises like my heart Above the ancient pines that line the lone road home; The college, whose yellow light-filled windows reflect The yearning of the young for the wisdom of the old, is quiet; Bowdoin Chapel tolls the hour and my watch softly chimes The same as … Continue reading The Gazebo
Swish, swish, swish, her tail sweeps the air, Shining eyes, she crouches there. Arcing high, the ball flies up, Leaping now, my flying pup. She takes the ball, prances ‘round, Twinkle toes, not earthbound. Come here, girl! but, oh, not she, Away, away, chase after me! Faster, farther, prancing still, She smiles at me, such a pill. Lets me near, then lies down, I come … Continue reading Mai Lee
I thought until death do us part meant one of us would cry At the loneliness we’d feel when our lover had just died; I never thought it meant that the love we shared might fly, That you’d run away from me instead of walking by my side. I thought that love and marriage meant forever and a day; How could I have known your … Continue reading Love Lost
Playfully, we spoke the words, “until death do us part,” She laughed, and her smile tugged at my heart, Will you love me in sickness and in health, she asked, Yes, my love, will you love me in poverty and in wealth? Of course, she said, her head tilted to one side, I’ll love you, you know, beyond the end of time; She turned her … Continue reading Susanna XI
I lose hope when I spend too much time reading the news. I despair of mankind living in peace and harmony. I despair of the world we are leaving our grandchildren. I gain hope and confidence when I turn off the news. I walk outside and see a world bigger than our differences. My spirits lift and soar when I walk among people and the … Continue reading Apples
Aida was the one all along, Susanna. Yes, Tomás. She has given me the half of my heart I buried with you. Yes, Tomás. I knew love would come to you again. I grieved so long for you, Susanna. Yes, Tomás. Too long. Aida makes me feel like you and I are together again. I know, Tomás. I can’t bring you back, Susanna, so I … Continue reading Susanna X
Writer’s dilemmas are a part of writing. They occur with every well-thought out novel. If you don’t find yourself boxed in somehow, then you probably have not written a plot complex enough to grab the reader and hold her attention. Plots should resemble life in its complexities. They need twists and turns, unexpected outcomes, surprises, and falls from cliffs with protagonists clinging by fingertips to … Continue reading Write Tight
This is so beautifully written that my hand turned warm from the touch of Kris’s heart. If I am ever in need of loving care at the end of my days, I hope someone like Kris is there to see me through. I’m tired today. Tonight. Whatever. It is 4 am and I just woke mum to empty her waste bag. I stared at … Continue reading Ribbons, by Kris
The Writings of William C. Pennington 