Storyteller’s Note

Periodically, the Key West writers guild conducts a word flash writing exercise. Usually, words written on ragged pieces of paper are tossed into a straw hat. Three prompts are selected. All three must be used in either a poetic or prose form (no longer than 750 words). The object to write, write, write.

Due to the constraints of writing the nonfiction, Fish on a Leash, I refrained from participating but in June of 2019 while baking my infamous five chocolate-chocolate chip cookies for the prompt night’s revelries, my thoughts wandered to the week’s three little words and I began composing a little ditty, Since poetic forms have taken a different tack from my high school and college days, I took the liberty of massaging the popularly employed free-verse form with poetic elements: a form, a sound, a rhythm, an image, a voice and an intention. Thanks to the KWWG’s inspiring prompt words this poignant poem has taken on a life of its own. Presently it appears in the Guild’s newest anthology More Words from the End of the Road, available on Amazon.com.

Post anthology production the Guild has returned to hosting prompt sessions with a new library of miscellaneous words. The poem has been reconfigured and is headed to the press.

Coming soon for the 2023 holidays. A sophisticated adult pictorial prose poem in two acts!

Prompt words in bold and order of appearance: Act I: escargot, pheromones’, ridiculous, concatenation, spiral, mimosa, scoundrel, salsa, bight, anonymous, sex, tintinnabulation, music, manic, salutary, kiss, and obituary.

Act II: invisible, iguana, calculating, therapist, bougainvillea, naked, truth, madness, icy, vesper (evening star), sandstone, scrumptious, crepuscular (twilight), museum, and gold.

Like my five chocolate chocolate chips, I offer you a vanilla iced mignardise tickle.

The Ridiculous Horny Snail

Madame Escargot’s pheromones raged,
at a snail’s pace.
“C’est ridicule,” rasped Monsieur,
whose visceral hump always screamed for more.

“A free-wheelin’ conch I’m not,” she yelped,
“Unlike my cousin, the whimpering whelk.”
Monsieur excreted comeuppance.
“Bien sur, vous n’êtes pas, Madame!”
(of course, you’re not!)
You my escargot, are a slug!”

Her femininity insulted, Madame flipped over,
clammed her foot, head, neck and tail beneath her sheath,
vociferously declaring,
“Pas ce soir, pas ce soir Joseph!”
(Not tonight, not tonight, Joseph!)

Concatenating, they spiraled,
Riding the king tide through deadened mimosa leaves.
To Cayo Hueso’s blackened watery depths, they plunged.
Madame, a nervously grousing limpet, pedal-waved first.
Monsieur, a scoundrel at heart, passionately pursued.

Sliming homeward,
they salsaed to the bight’s sandy bed.
She skipped agin her slippered shell, and juddered, alone.
Retreating to dreams alive in the darkness,
silent murmurings of mysterious anonymous sex.

Monsieur’s amorous tintinnabulations
and soulful music implored,
                                        “Mais, mon Cherie, maintenant. Maintenant, mon Cherie?                                      (but, my dear, now.. Now , my dear?)
Madame’s reverie broke,
freeing a refrained frisson of desire.

She manically crawled closer and feigned a salutary kiss.
“Peut-etrê, peut-etrê demain soir, Joseph, mon amour!”
(Perhaps, perhaps tomorrow night, Joseph, my love!)
His hope, a complexity of confusion and climactic renewal.
Tomorrow never came.

Monsieur, the weaker of the two, had a premature demise.
His skeletal remains crumbled to a salty grave.
Sketched in the sand, Monsieur Mollusque’s obituary read:
“To a hermaphroditic finale”
Oui, Joseph, ce soir, ce soir!
(Yes, Joseph, tonight, tonight!)

Copyright June 6, 2019 Judith D. Winters
content may not be used without express permission of the author