Wherein a certain blogger (me) reprints some samples of authors whose work deserves More. More readers, More accolades, and, I fervently hope, More excellent works from the authors!

First up, perfectly catching at least one goal of an author, is LiDe Castro (@QueenofCastoria):
"Look at the all," he said, staring straight ahead. "Each and every one of them lured me in, and it was all nothing but make-believe. Manipulative bastards!"
His friend looked at the bookshelf, and turned to him, confused, "Who are you talking about?"
"Writers."

A second flash fiction, more sinister showing the darker potential, from Cheyenne Bramwell (@PoemsbyCheyenne):
She kept her desiccated dreams in the box at the foot of her bed. They would make low moans, calling to her from inside. They smelled like paper flowers made of old notebook pages. They reeked of kerosene ready to light.

​And then two poems who touch the very center of the heart.

From Shell McClendon (@shellandjeff) - I especially love the last line:
I wrote a poem of you today
pulled it from my soul
about the very last day
when I knew I had to go
I remember recalling that look in your eyes
It broke me and bled my heart dry
I walked away as if on shards of glass
Cutting-edge emotions
embedded forever in me of our past

From Alan (@alanlovespoetry) The sadness with an edge of hope:
Hymn

In every instrument
a genius song
in each pen a perfect poem

I stopped trying
to make sense of rivers
though I know they run dry

I notice
we no longer build arches
but find new ways to knock down
children & old factories

why I need our
embrace-
in each, an atom healed.

A very good poet whom I follow on Twitter who goes by the handle @alanlovespoetry posted the below recently:

Resume

Once I am dead
will it matter
if it was a stabbing or a stroke

at 53
does it matter
that only mom saw me graduate

that at 18
I made so many nice people cry

no math in it
it adds up exactly to nothing

no alphabet
not even enough for one good poem.

Before I plunge any further let me say first off that I love this poem. Second I have no idea if my Twitter "followee" is writing any grain of truth either in the events or in his philosophy (Alan, if you want to weigh in, please be my guest, if not we'll leave the mystery!). However, as a point of comparison it is excellent!

My grandmother worried about this as long as I knew her - the adding up after her death. She tried to do everything she could so that the math added to something greater than zero. I think it does, but not in the way she presented her hopes.

The sum is what is left and that is the memories the "survivors" carry with them. It may end up being transient, a generation, two, maybe three, but it does, in my mind, add up to something greater than nothing. And it does matter, each of those pieces, because each affected others to a greater or lesser extent which caused a ripple through time that would not have been there, Alan, Grandma, unless you were there.

​