About Red Tales

Here's an evolving electronic collection of short prose pieces, with a poem contributed occasionally. Brevity guides. Although sometimes a piece will run to 900 words, most pieces are much shorter. Here one may find erotica, flash fiction, brief observations, and modest improvisations. Another rule is that each piece must have something to do with"red"; at least the word has to appear in each piece functionally. . . . All pieces are numbered and titled, so there's a de facto table of contents running down the rail below, under "Labels" (scroll down a bit). Browse for titles that look interesting, if you like. Thank you for stopping by. Look for some red today, tonight.

"Flaming June," by Frederick Lord Leighton

"Flaming June," by Frederick Lord Leighton

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

79. Blues In Three Paragraphs

Once there was a woman. A woman once was. Her name was given to her, oh yes, and she kept it. Here though she is She. She grew up into bewilderment, love, enthusiasm, disappointment, heartache, hard work, shame, loss, and affliction--in her specific life's, however, particular ways. Sorrow filled her days, her spirit, as darkness fills a lake at twilight--heavy but untouchable, deep and complete. And so she sang.

The Blues, her blues. Crudely, freely, authentically, often, and finally well. She didn't put her heart into the blues. The blues came out of her heart-so-to-speak like trout leaping out of a dark lake and shined on by moonlight. She sang of it all in a line, that line repeated, and a third line rhyming with the two.

One of her songs was about a red dress given to her by a lover; oh yes, a lover. Lover left. Dress remained. Impulsively she sold the dress for a lot of nothing because it hurt too much to wear the dress, and/or to keep it and not wear it would hurt, too. Yes, indeed. Red, red, said. Broke, broke, joke. Cry, cry, why? Confess, confess, red dress. She had the blues, and they had her. She sang those Red Dress Blues--well, well; and those blues and the singing made her feel good, let light into the lake. The blue lake.

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