Good Monday morning to you. Here's hoping for a good week ahead but in the meantime, your prompt for the day is ....
17
If I have to kiss another frog, I'll scream. I don't even want a prince. I want a girl on a bicycle and a picnic wrapped in a red handkerchief.
32 comments:
Add Your Own Message Here
If you want to take part - great. All you need to do is add your response to our message here as a comment, but remember it has to be exactly 30 or 300 words, and it needs to be posted before 8am GMT the morning after the original post for each day. Please also remember to add your Name and Email Address to the end of your message, so that we can get in touch if your work is selected.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
When I told them I was leaving France they all wanted a spot in my suitcase. They came in wheelchairs and with crutches. Frog legs ain't no dish in Austria.
ReplyDeleteThe picnic basket, all red-checked lining and glittering cutlery, has never been used. We need spontaneity: a baguette from the bakery, or chips, and licking mayonnaise from each other’s fingers.
ReplyDeleteThey lay on the moist sand, devouring each other, tasting the kisses, wrapped up in each other’s bodies, ignoring the occasional jogger or dog walker. That’s how they understood picnics.
ReplyDeleteOur picnic would be cold chicken, yellow wine and strawberries, overlooking the green, shining sea in Mrs Silk's terraced garden in Lerici and I would kiss your eyelids, sweet man.
ReplyDeleteYou demand too much. I wish your kiss would make me a frog, a picnic basket, a champagne glass, a bicycle, a girl, your friend, a handkerchief for your tears.
ReplyDeleteMartin
Funny how the princesses kiss
ReplyDeleteFrogs, the beauties their beasts,
While princes have their go
At princesses. Admittedly though,
The hundred year coffin sleep
Could cause some bad breath issues.
How about a hot air balloon? Freedom, randomness and breezes on our faces. Absolutely no princes. Just cold champagne to celebrate when we come down to earth with a bump.
ReplyDeleteThe girl raised by frogs knew how to jump clear of situations, also her singing brought the rain. She gave up her job as management consultant to work for Oxfam.
ReplyDeleteIt must be red with scattered bone white spots. Why is that so important? if you need to ask, you will never know nor fully understand the joy of cycling.
ReplyDeleteI kissed a frog and liked it. It tasted of dark, secret places and acne and introduced me to Ratty and Mole. I found out later it was a toad.
ReplyDeleteIn the unhealthy winter of
ReplyDeletethis , wet and grass intertwine,
I view frogs croak in rings
of prolonged beat, I sing my
summer , not chariot,
girl with a jolly ride.
Why shouldn’t it all be about me? You forge my desire with spurious promise but fail to reckon what your artifice yields. I spy the slit in the veil. And?
ReplyDeleteI picked him up, kissed his beautiful body, instantly replaced with a stupid guy wearing a crown. I pushed him into the pond, mourning my darling frog as I ran.
ReplyDeleteMary Rose.
Every day she rides her bicycle wildly towards the pond, a red handkerchief flying like a pennant from the basket. They say she goes in search of frogs or princes.
ReplyDeleteI bet he thought I'd dropped the handkerchief on purpose. Girls did that kind of stuff, didn't they? If I was that sort of person – and I'm not, I have a life – I wouldn't pick one soaked in blood.
ReplyDeleteHe'd had to get off and push his bicycle up the hill, the weed, so if he was hoping to come across all macho then he was even more of an idiot than I thought. And, he was wearing bicycle clips. How uncool is that?
Anyway, he came up behind me. He made me jump because we were having a laugh about our biology teacher and Carys was doing an impression of her. She's so good at that kind of thing. I wish I could be like that. She can sing too. So, I got this tap on my shoulder and I turned round. I couldn't believe it. It's not like I could've said it was someone else's. It was one of those ones my granny gave me with E.R. Like I was the Queen or something. Except she isn't Eve Robertson and I bet no one thinks anything when she drops her handkerchief except that she's getting on a bit and old people are always dropping things and if anyone can afford to chuck proper handkerchiefs on the ground then she can.
'Oh my God' I said. I was so embarrassed. I snatched it from his hand.
'I had a nosebleed at lunch' and I looked down so they wouldn't see my face as I stuffed it in my pocket.
'No you didn't, you were with us in the library, remember?'
I never wanted to be a girl. I never asked for this. I jumped on his bicycle and went as fast as I could. I haven't seen Carys since.
The girl
ReplyDeleteon the green bicycle
follows the cats eyes
in her red handkerchief
she carries
dream stones
blue whispers
and two leftover kisses
from a picnic in the dunes.
echulme@hotmail.com
Lynne and Sarah
repost due to typos, sorry could you delete the other, that'll teach me to rush to do it at work with at least three conversations going on!
Our old Cortina car.
ReplyDeletePond dipping in the stream.Catching tadpoles in a jar.
Screaming with delight and horror as they flew all over the car when Daddy braked suddenly.
The girl spent the night under his air-tight beer smell. She twisted the tin ring pull on her wedding finger. 'Take it off,' he said. But she would not.
ReplyDeletedebbiemrgn123@yahoo.co.uk
On midsummer’s day in Rainy Day Park, we pledged undying love by the banks of the River Disappointment. We feasted on red ant sandwiches, crusts off, and savoured every bite.
ReplyDeleteMaria sat in the coffee bar watching the rain stream down the windows. She had just seen The Sound of Music for the hundredth time. She always wondered why life wasn’t like that. Why, when she was sixteen and confused hadn’t she met somebody offering courteous respect and guidance. Her boyfriends had grown six hands and a tongue determined to get down her throat.
ReplyDeleteAdult men were even more trouble. If you looked, it showed in the film. Once the retired sea captain returned, it all had to revolve around him. The picnics and bike rides stopped and they had to start doing what he wanted to do.
Something pulled her thoughts back into the coffee shop. Close by, a shy looking man stole a glance towards her. He was dark and good looking. He smiled and then dropped his eyes back to the book in his hand, the same book that lay on her bedside table.
His face merged with the sea captain. Yes, they would go for a picnic. Their children would be dressed in matching outfits and have shining bright faces. On the morning of the picnic, she and the children would fill a hamper with their favourite things. Part way through the preparations, he would emerge, look into it and demand they got rid of the quiche and put in pies. The children would complain they didn’t like the jelly in the pies, but she knew he would insist.
That’s the trouble with men! They always have to get their own way. She drained her coffee and started to walk out of the coffee shop. The stranger’s eyes lifted and his face radiated shy hope at her approach.
“And you can stick your pie where the sun never shines,” she shouted at him as she passed.
Monkey@monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk
Pedalling through time to find her prince, all she saw when she stopped was her brother's baby teeth, like a string of bridal pearls. No man would ever be truer.
ReplyDeleteIt wrapped blackberries,
ReplyDeletesailed boats,
mopped grazed knees,
became a mask, a hat
with knotted corners,
wiped my tears at his funeral.
Unfolding
his red handkerchief
covered me
in memories.
With my shiney axe I cut this tall tower down. I shaved my head with metal clippers and wove myself a delicate flying carpet, made from my flowing golden locks.
ReplyDeleteTrudy hadn’t told me about her new secretary. Nor about that business trip together nor the Christmas Day invite, either.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I’m spending this weekend alone, to mull over things.
Colleen
coll @ literaryspot.com
You people, it’s always the same. Princesses are the worse. You never take the frog’s point of view. Give me a lillypad and a decent fly to eat any day.
ReplyDeleteFrog,
ReplyDeletea leap in the dark,
in my headlights
can't avoid them,
I am alone.
Girl,
a red handkerchief,
bicycle wheels spinning free,
picnic on the hill,
a lifetimes love.
redjim99
jimbarron@walkauvergne.co.uk
Why does it have to be frogs? I hate frogs. Slimy, slithery, squirmy creatures. Why can't it be kittens or puppies or bunnies? I could easily kiss one of those.
ReplyDeleteI want to cartwheel across sunsets, unwrap rainbows with my lips, kiss the stars on my way to the moon. If I have to make another cold call, I’ll scream.
ReplyDeleteConsider the frog’s perspective. He suffers the expectant ritual: slobbered over; blamed for lost enchantments; cursed for remaining true; perpetual source of disappointment. Guess what? The prince has warts, too.
ReplyDeleteI watched the red balloon float lazily into the air. I wondered whether it was filled with soft wishes or sweet dreams and hoped that it would reach its destination.
ReplyDeleteJamieson Wolf
jamiesonwolf@gmail.com
And a bottle of weak vinegar and water. And some soft leather slippers. Also, a vivarium with newts in it and a pet monkey that really answers to its name.
ReplyDeleteIn the departing wheels:
ReplyDeletethe taste of summer, scarlet
of sun through eyelids,
the breeze we waited for
that never came.
I thought I saw you turn:
spinning, spinning away.