The
best
THE MICRO-FICTION SHOWCASE 2008
The Micro-Fiction Showcase is a three month long celebration
of the shortest literary form. These micro-fiction competitions run
monthly through-out the summer of 2008 and are for very, very short
stories and short poems. The winners will appear in the 2009 Fish Anthology!
Below you will find the winners and runners-up
in the 2008 Micro-Fiction Showcase competitions. And, as with last year
you get to help us decide on the final winners!
Tell us which is your favourite micro-poem and very, very short story and tell us why. All your votes will be compiled and used to decide the ultimate winner of this year's Micro-Fiction Showcase.
The top ten most interesting votes will receive a copy of the 2009 Fish Anthology: Harlem River Blues. But remember, you only get to vote ONCE, so make it count!
Winners - July Micro-Fiction Showcase 2008
Each winner receives €25 and a copy of the Fish Anthology 2008 and goes forward to the grand final to win €500 in each category.
The July winners are:
08:15
A beautiful flower
Blooms in the East beneath the
Rising Sun, brutal and terrible in its
.Beauty.
It is
.Eight
.Fif-
Teen
Richard Watkins - Manchester, England
Homeless By Choice
I could have stayed. Put up with the beatings and rape. I could have finished school, on a sink estate with only a bad name to live up to. I could have kept off the drink and drugs that stopped me being too scared to sleep. I could get up from this pavement. It was my choice. So I’m told.
Chris Fyles - Angus, Scotland
Bottle
From a million grains of sand, I poured.
In a fiery blasted womb, I froze.
On slithering metal lines, I danced.
Across jaded gilded throats, I bled.
On a rippled moonlit shore, I rest:
A prodigal return.
Angela Carr - Dublin, Ireland
But it pours
I saw the doctor earlier today.
He took a good look at me and, 'Hypochondria!' he said.
I wailed: 'Not on top of everything else!'
Sarah Hilary - Gloucestershire, UK
Mourning Walk
One for sorrow
two for sorrow
three for sorrow
four for sorrow
five for sorrow
six for sorrow
seven for sorrow.
Brigid O'Connor, Meath, Ireland
A Shaken Belief
One day I decided to see if everything
I read was true.
I held a group of teenagers upside down and shook them,
expecting knives to fall from every pocket.
What actually came out were broken dreams and shattered illusions,
as sharp and dangerous as any blade.
Clare Doran - Liverpool, UK
The Bitter Dregs
The creases on his careworn face seem somehow smoothed away,
While now and then upon his lips a gentle smile will play.
A glint of recognition is the Holy Grail I seek;
Or just to hear him laugh again. Or just to hear him speak.
All those things I left undone. All those words unsaid.
Those words of love and gratitude now knotted in my head.
They jeer and mock and scoff at me for wasting all that time,
For never saying how I cared – my soul-destroying crime.
Jeff Ferguson - Upper Mount Gravatt, Australia
Shopping list - For a new mum
..... Jeannie, Please can
you get me:
Hat (45cm)
Extra thick sanitary towels
Large muslin squares
Pacifier (o+ mths)
Milk powder (HIPP organic)
Emollient (Vaseline?)
Ice cream (Double chocolate)
Cabbage (Savoy)
Arnica cream
Nursing Pads
Teats (Avent 0+ mths)
Camomile cream (eg Kamillosan)
Organic cotton vests (newborn)
Pampers Mini 6 – 13lbs)
E45 Junior foaming bath milk
.......Thanks,
...............Em xx
Caroline England - UK
VOTE NOW
Those who made it on to the short list but didn't quite make it into the final placings are:
The Scream
You’re back. I can come again to Stockholm to sit and not look at you, as I used not to look before the big steal, eyes fast shut, listening.
Your sound is a wide hot swallow, water bruised by a drain, without end.
I see it bursting the eardrums of the crooks who took you, howling blood down their necks.
Sarah Hilary - Gloucestershire, UK
Frau Schubert’s Lament
"Trouble with men is, they've got no commitment. If I'd written an unfinished symphony, I'd never have heard the last of it."
Michael Greenhough - Cardiff, Wales
History
Time moves on and forgets us
As we forget time and move on.
Geraldine Walsh, Dublin, Ireland
Bowel Movements Occur
A fragment of a passing comet pierced the atmosphere
and made rubble of an Irish church. Muslims called it God’s will.
Later, a second fragment made mincemeat of a British mosque.
Jews called it God’s wrath.
Then the whole comet came down and made mincemeat of Jamaica.
What the hell did the Rastas ever do to anyone?
Alan Murphy, Dublin, Ireland
you must be completely midwich cuckoo
john wyndham gave us triffid plants
he also gave us kraken
if you think i'll rhyme with triffid plants
your blooming well mistaken
gabi macewan - devon, uk
Wet Dreams
It was raining. It had been raining
for three days and nights now.
To Michael, aged four, it felt like it had been raining forever.
He wondered if he would ever be able to play football with his friends
again. He looked out at his father and several other men from their
Ethiopian village, laughing and dancing with delight.
Mike Nealon Co. Sligo, Ireland
Winners - June Micro-Fiction Showcase 2008
Each winner receives €25 and a copy of the Fish Anthology 2008 and goes forward to the grand final to win €500 in each category.
The June winners are:
I Wish
I sit looking out at the weeds.
I need a new mower - get on a bus, go to a shop, see people.
I cannot.
Others climb mountains, fight fires, beat cancer.
I fight the terror of everything beyond my door.
I sit watching my life ebb.
I wish I could get on that bus, be my own hero.
I cannot.
Chris Fyles - Angus, Scotland
Country House Murder Mystery
Lord Percy, dead in the library,
stabbed through the heart.
His fiancée faints into the arms of her lover, the under-footman.
Her father, the Earl, eyes the gamekeeper.
Now Percy, the blackmailing blighter, can't expose their shame.
Her Ladyship, indiscretions dead with her paramour, shrieks,
"For God's sake! Someone call the police."
No one moved, so the butler did it.
Sally-Anne Thomas - Harrow, England
What am I?
The moving ballpoint writes and leaves behind
my blue-black patterns of alternate stress;
the strong succeeds the weak, as you will find,
and medium and message coalesce.
Self-reference is postmodernism’s curse
And I am what I am - I am Bic verse.
Michael Greenhough - Cardiff, Wales
Games to be played when nobody comes to your party
Musical Chair
Hold the Parcel
Sardine
Suicide in the Dark
Michael Greenhough - Cardiff, Wales
The Passage West
At the Captain’s table
We dine off dishes piled with mussels and diamonds,
lick the salt from each other’s eyes.
Down in the hold
bodies piled fifteen deep,
writhe and whisper.
Dawn breaks as we creak towards the promised land,
clutching remnants of the night,
To cover our tattered souls.
Liz Turner - Montmagny, France
Disclaimer
All characters appearing in this work are entirely one-dimensional.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is most unlikely.
Máire T. Robinson - Galway, Ireland
LAUGHTER
Lazy, light-hearted, ladylike, lively,
Amused, abandoned, abundant, airy,
Unbridled, uproarious, ugly, ululating,
Giddy, good-natured, guttural, gurgling,
Hearty, high-spirited, hollow, hysterical,
Ticklish, throaty, tuneful, theatrical,
Earthy, excited, eerie, echoing,
Riotous, rueful, rumbustious, rippling.
Mary O'Keeffe - Cork, Ireland
Going Out
Chris had spent ages preparing.
Everything had to be just right for this very special outing.
A trim hairstyle that befitted fifty years.
Understated make-up carefully applied.
Thoughtfully chosen summer dress and jacket.
A swirl of silken scarf.
Heels high but not excessive.
Turning the key and stepping outside, Chris breathed in deeply.
At last, he was coming out.
John Fewings - Yorkshire, England
VOTE NOW
Those who made it on to the short list but didn't quite make it into the final placings are:
The Polemics of Predatory Economics
“While the appetite for short-term gains
may encourage the consumer to embrace a culture
of instant gratification, modern sustainability models
extol the numerous long-range benefits of limiting
mass consumption in order to protect infrastructure
and allow future development and productivity of
desired resources,” propounded the market analyst,
frantically treading water.
The ‘gator was not impressed.
G.S. Westfield - Florida, USA
Coffee
You keep touching my hand; I don’t
know what it means. Your smile says
‘pick a card’, but I’ve put away
childish things; so we skirt around
the boiling pot as if you want a
slice of me - and if it was just today
I’d take the coffee and your hand on mine.
John Irving - Gloucester, England
An Artist's Prison
I must always create
If I stop even for a moment
A unique thought may be lost forever
This is my tormented fate!
Canice Butler - Chicago, USA
Still Life
Elbows on the bar, supping Irish,
tastes last night,
the girls – the carnage:
limp clothes in silhouette,
wallet, mobile, memory stick, loose change
like a blood splat,
and the broken things he lies with
only hinted in his pose.
John Irving - Gloucester, England
Like Father Like ...
“There’s something in your eyes,” said her client as he dressed, “reminds me of a love I lost years ago.”
Trudi listened to his tale of teenage love and separation and persuaded him to seek her again.
“But where should I look to find my lost Justina?”
“But that’s my mother’s name!” she cried, as she recognised that same thing in his tear-filled eyes.
John Fewings - Yorkshire, England
The Drum Thing
This instance of dissonance.
Smacks of roots and cats, sharps and snaps,
As he thwacks those mushrooms, the high-hat schnapps,
Hollering a human-made hum.
With the thwump and snip of the drum.
Smoke shoes abloom, hammering symbols,
He pulls pink rose petals from cymbals,
His sticks whirring like galloping horses across the boom.
David Winston Lee - Luxemburg
That Perpetual Nightmare of Travel
A woman appeared in Spaceport Four, where no civ should be.
Antiquated clothes and voice.
"I've lost my bags."
Only space-marine transports had landed for weeks.
“Come with us, ma’am.”
She nodded, walked forward, faded, and disappeared.
“What the hell…?”
“I’ve seen her before,” my boss said. "Always looking for her luggage.”
“Ghost?”
“A thousand years ago, this place was called Heathrow.”
Sally-Anne Thomas - Harrow, England
Winners - May Micro-Fiction Showcase 2008
Each winner receives €25 and a copy of the Fish Anthology 2008 and goes forward to the grand final to win €500 in each category.
The May winners are:
Rhapsody
Close your eyes that you may hear.
Listen not, that you may see.
Closer now ... let not your silken cheek
stir ardent barbs
to mar tranquillity.
But open your senses
to the taste of heaven
in the rose.
Pat O'Shea, Co. Cork, Ireland
The High Art of Conversation
Here he comes.
‘Can I talk to you Hank?’
There he goes. Here he comes.
‘It’s a young man’s game, you know?’
There he goes. Here he comes.
‘To be honest, I’m scared of heights.’
There he goes. Here he comes.
'Trapeze just doesn’t float my boat anymore’.
There he goes.
It’s going to be a long night.
Alan Murphy, Dublin, Ireland
Blown Away
There is nothing like the feeling of a child sleeping on you;
Like a paperweight, it keeps you from blowing away.
As they laid down his little body in that ghastly pine box,
she was thousands of loose pages in a storm.
Janine M Milicich, Busselton, Western Australia
Big School
On the first morning, he takes ages to knot his tie.
“So! Clever! Got your sandwiches? And pencils?”
He grimaces, patting his rucksack.
In the car, he slumps in the passenger seat.
They arrive. She ruffles his hair.
“Bye, sweetheart. Have fun!”
She pulls away. Turning, he spots a small boy.
“Hey, kid – where’s the staff room?”
Julia Emery, Bath, England
The Affair
After lust, we shake in sleep,
Dreams of storms, white water, rain,
Chained by ugliness,
Suspicion whispers beneath our skin.
Helen Fletcher, Wellington, New Zealand
Urban Jungle
I stand. I wait for my turn. The words tumbling in my mind.
Beads of sweat form on my brow.
Slowly I step forward.
"Tall decaf skinny caramel macchiato with extra foam . . to go. . Please?"
Orla Donoghue, Dublin, Ireland
Inside I'm The Girl
Inside I'm the girl in the sixties mini-skirt
A baby on each hip, radiant youth, shining proud
Outside, a greedy illness takes its grip
Stealing, deleting, hurting..............
A label on my pill bottle tells a bleached-white medical name
An illness that doesn't quite permeate the heart,
the spirit that is still me
Outside, the disease.........
...Inside I'm the girl.
Brigid O'Connor, Meath, Ireland
WALKING OUT
I felt like Huck Finn when I left.
So hot was the day, so blessed hot, sweat kissing the slightest passing breeze.
It was a Sacrament of an afternoon. travelling with my black woven bag. And, of all the wonder among things, a frosty bottle of summer drink.
Walking out.
Walking out beyond the crossroads as if I were free
John McCabe, Philadelphia, USA
Those who made it on to the short list but didn't quite make it into the final placings are:
Exactly
“How do you feel about that?” my therapist asked.
“That?” I responded., “Which that? I have feelings about everything. Which feeling do you want to know about?"
He looked over his glasses, directly at me, and said: “The same one I’m feeling about you.”
“How do I know what you’re feeling,” I said.
“Exactly,” he answered.
Eric Miller, Philadelphia, USA
Tutankhamun
I was only ever an object to them.
They opened my tomb without ceremony.
‘Wonderful things!’ they said.
They did not hear the whisper
of my soul,
knew nothing of miasma in the air.
My miasma.
They butchered me and stripped me of my gold.
Now my treasures and I rest in glass cases through this eternity
while they rot in the endless dark.
Sarah Ann Watts, Hull, England
The Elliot Chronicles I (excerpt)
Maple leaves had the smoothest taste:
Sweet – like a cross between honey and
wood. But dark wood, like mahogany.
These were the leaves for when he needed to come back to himself.
Oak leaves were a bit drier and mustier.
These were a rarity in Elliott’s menu;
good, but not to be overdone.
These were for the slow-witted days.
Caitlin Doyle, London, England
The Second Stage of Grief
He was buff, the guy Amy had pencilled in for her holiday fling, but clueless at playing the game.
She finally lost her patience one night and pressed fast forward.
"What's the sodding problem? Never seen a girl naked before?"
He stretched for the most precise answer. "No. Not quite," he finally murmured, weeping soundlessly into Amy's hands.
James Kelly, Cumbernauld, Scotland
Trial and Error
I had to stand to hear the verdict. I had to!
The wait! The waiting! I needed an answer immediately. Could he not see what he was doing to me? Was he doing it on purpose? Creating tension?
I couldn't wait any longer. I had to know, I had to ask.
"Well?“
"Delicious", he said.
John Smee, Kilkenny, Ireland
Aches and Paints
Can my aching bones,
that are trailing the last of the green paint
over my knuckles, missing the bareness of your canvas,
hide deep inside your cloak?
Geraldine Walsh, Dublin, Ireland
What Survives
Newly arrived from Poland , the strange envelope liberates their grandfather’s only surviving papers. Amy alone can read Yiddish.
“So?” asks Jonathan. “What does it say?”
Amy brings one of the pages close, as if to smell it.
Grandfather’s life before Auschwitz hovers a few inches from her nose.
“It says, I never loved her. It was a mistake. Forgive me. ”
Kenneth L Schneyer, Rhode Island, USA
The Lady
Blue lights on my bare walls, and on the floor my last ever fix.
The bed where tricks were turned, time after time.
After time left me behind.
Cameras flash, white suits scrub my life away, no mementos left.
Across the street is the Magdelene Hospital . But they’ll take me from here to some other place.
No redemption for me.
Chris Fyles, Angus, Scotland
Logical Concept
It will surely be the death of them. They continue to act as if oblivious to the consequences, despite our explicit warnings. If they are to survive, control over their fate must be taken out of their hands.
The logic cannot be faulted, yet still they resist our intervention.
They value their freedom too highly.
How very human of them.
Matthew James Clifford, Maryland USA
Sibling Rivalry
Here lies Larry Columbus, husband, father, explorer, adventurer; discoverer of the island of Guam . Sadly missed by his mother, father, sisters, and most of his brothers.
Christopher, the self-publicist, can rot in hell.
Alan Murphy, Dublin, Ireland
Writing Short Stories
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Fish Publishing offers an Editorial Consultancy and Critique Service. designed to provide writers thinking of entering writing competitions with constructive feedback on their work, whether it is a complete novel or just the beginnings. The Service is available to writers prior to entering the Fish writing competitions.