Frank J. Tassone

Tag: Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads

  • Joan of Arc’s lost Confession

    A shimmer of sunlight remains. Rippling water, stirred by an evening breeze, carries it away. The gathered clouds filter the setting sun; a pale disk descends behind an enshadowed ridge. You may ask why I recant. Why I subject myself to the stake decreed by your English court, the machination of my enemy–who can’t fathom…

  • Weathering Storms: my latest .@ImageCurve #TBT #haibun

    A cool breeze rustles the topmost leaves in the backyard. It spreads the white and gray cumulus clouds that enshroud the sky in a mass of growing darkness. It feels so much cooler than yesterday. I sit on the chaise as Mira prepares an early dinner and Frankie does whatever he wants. The crease on…

  • NOLA Gemini Moments: a #haibun

    What must Mardi Gras be like? Is it revelers pursuing yet another Krew’s ostentacious float? Is it music pouring out of every open door and window? Or crowds of tourists casting down or tossing up sets of beads? Is it influencers drawing onlookers with the lure of lavish costumes? It it a mysterious alchemy of…

  • Metanoia

    Mardi Gras arrives again. The revelers gather to embrace the excess that precedes the abstinance. There is a time to feast and a time to fast. But there are no parades for us: no thrown beads, no expositions, no chanting crowds of tourists. Our celebration is a simple fried chicken filete dinner with broccoli rabe…

  • Racehorse Dreams: my latest .@ImageCurve #haibun

    “It was one of his many ‘get rich quick’ schemes,” Mom says. She and Dad bought a racehorse with some thoroughbred blood in it. They hired a trainer and jockey, and rented stables. They planned to train the horse as a pacer for the trot car races: popular at Yonkers Raceway, Monticello and the like.…

  • Emergent Compassion: a #TankaProse #TBT (on a Wednesday) #haibun

    memorial stone a genesis of ruin in every sip all their raised fists and voices all of my paralysis A night so long ago. Her absolute enabled-tongue lashing you to mindless rage. Her slumped on the stairs, you above her, fists clenched, driving down. I, a boy of twelve, headlocking you off her. You, a…

  • Snow Follies: a #TBT #TankaProse

    nightime snowfall the lethargic movement of snowplows Where will I park tomorrow with glaciers filling the lot? A fine layer of snow covers the driveway. Frank and I would have shovelled it clear, but the forecast calls for more tomorrow. Why waste the effort? And yet, come tomorrow, I will walk across the iced-over snow.…

  • A Forgotten Sentry

    Deep emerald maple leaves blossom on my neighbor’s tree. The trunk—in shadow—looks almost black. It casts little shade over the aging, clubhouse-swing set that my neighbor worked so hard to erect. The one no one has played on in so long. empty backyardleaves flutter in a passingsummer breeze Photo by Yonan Farah first published in Image…