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Kathleen March

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jan, 2020

Stories (402)

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1494 Followers

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402 Stories

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In my secret life (homage to Leonard Cohen)

Dan blew out the candles on his birthday cake, made by his wife, sat back in his chair at the head of the table, and smiled. He had just turned sixty, which meant enough years had passed so that nobody was ever going to know. He sighed loudly. “Is it hard turning sixty?” Asked his wife, who was about five, maybe six years younger. She had made the cake, which was lemon with cream cheese frosting, his favorite. She thought he was perfect. In all their years of marriage, which were more than thirty, he had been the best husband she could have...

4 likes

Readers Beware

It was getting late, too late to read poetry at least, better for sitting with a good mystery. Even when there might be more murders than necessary, a mystery keeps the reader alert and interested in finding the motives for the crime. Val couldn't stomach the cozy style, which is essentially a lack of blood and guts and an absence of police or detectives. Solving the crime is in the hands of an untrained individual who feels entitled to jump in and find the murderer. The amateur sleuth is often, but not always, a woman who happens onto a cri...

5 likes

Muses 1

I’ve read books with muses in them. Poems, too.  I’ve studied ancient mythology, so I know the supposed origins of the muses, near Mount Helicon and Mount Olympus. Also their names, although I can’t recite them all, but the group of nine are the source of inspiration for the liberal arts, including poetry, and for the sciences. It’s not necessary to list their names and all the times they’re cited through the ages, but since we still refer - laughingly - to them today, they deserve a thought or two. A muse brings ideas to the human who ...

4 likes

Crying over you

I was alright for awhileI could smile for awhileBut I saw you last nightYou held my hand so tightAs you stopped to say hello Oh, you wished me wellYou, you couldn't tellThat I'd been crying over youCrying over you When you said, "So long"Left me standing all aloneAlone and crying, cryingCrying, crying ~ Roy Orbison, “Crying” (1961) I love the music from the late fifties and the whole decade of the sixties. Most of the songs they sing nowadays don’t say a thing to me; I feel nothing when I hear them. Must be there’s something about the nat...

6 likes

Speak Easy

I have to write a speech and give it. This can’t be just any old speech, because I’ve won a drawing for everyday people who want to participate in the national convention for the Democratic party. Only one name was selected - mine. Oddly enough, there was no requirement to belong to the party; my friends submitted my name as a joke. Everybody who knows me is aware of how I have a very hard time speaking in public. I stammer and stutter, break out in a sweat that gives me a shiny face and drenches the back of my shirt. I look flustered and I ...

6 likes

Been broken

Excerpt 1, from article in a magazine on feminist issues: Been there, been broken. I identify, before woman, before heterosexual (just a little), as Broken. A broken person who is also a woman, which is adding to the impression of brokenness.  Excerpt number 2 Also, an inclination, one the opposite of suicide, consciously or unconsciously, tries to utilize breakage as an event or action that leads to new connections. Heals, guides, strengthens the phoenix.  I had been reading the magazine and got to thinking about how we are h...

6 likes

Akrasia, a story for everyone

I don’t recall when I first heard this story, and in fact I can’t even say for sure who told me it, but most likely it was my father or my mother. My grandmother wasn’t much for stories, unless they were about putting flowers in the urns on Memorial day. Nobody else ever took the time to tell me stories. That gives you an idea of my childhood. If I wanted stories, pretty or otherwise, I had to make them up for myself. Maybe that’s why I decided to become a writer. That also means that my stories are for me, so I write for myself. That’s not ...

6 likes

Thanks, but…

I’m in a communications group (yes, it’s a pretty vague name, but it works) at our local library and this month and next we’re discussing letter writing and whether it will disappear soon. This is a fascinating topic, and more than a little complex. We couldn’t get our heads around it for days, until we made up our minds to do something instead of just complaining. We decided to try to write letters ourselves and see what we discovered. To make success more likely, we agreed that notes, as in the note cards one purchases to send a short comm...

6 likes

The Last Shot

Sweet dreams are made of thisWho am I to disagree?I travel the world and the seven seasEverybody's looking for something Some of them want to use youSome of them want to get used by youSome of them want to abuse youSome of them want to be abused ~ Eurythmics Look, I won’t take up much of your time. What I want to say isn’t all that important, but I feel like I need to get it off my chest. Time is running out and I just have to say it. I’m just sitting here on my very comfortable couch, going through all the photos I’ve taken over time. Wel...

7 likes

Go Fish

Part 1The photographer captured an image that had something unexplainable about it. There was nothing special about the people (two of them) who were the focus of the camera’s eye. They were neither attractive nor unattractive and were in an outdoor space that had nothing spectacular about it. However, the photograph took on meanings nobody at the time could define. Maybe if we back up and take this step by step we can figure out what makes the people and the place so unique, so inexplicable. Inexplicable because it had survived threats to i...

6 likes

Ashes to Ashes

My homework was to do an analysis - any trusted literary theory was acceptable - of a poem or short story about either being an underdog or making a comeback. I didn’t think these two themes were all that related. Think about it. Underdog refers to a sports match or athletic event of some sort, where one side is thought to be a long shot for winning the competition. A comeback can refer to a performer - actor, musician - who is successful in returning to the limelight after a period of absence. The underdog is constantly competing with a sup...

5 likes

Words hurt

She was starting to feel desperate. Not only was she running out of time, but nobody would believe her. That was the reason she was running out of time: she'd put too much faith in the opinions of others and those opinions had undermined her own reasoning. Nevertheless, every time someone had objected to her ideas, some with minor reticence and others laughing out loud at her, she had gone back to the drawing board. She was not going to let a little rejection get the best of her, but it was so, so hard. Now there was only a week left to...

4 likes

The Walrus

I am he As you are he As you are me And we are all togetherSee how they run, Like pigs from a gun, See how they fly. I'm crying.~ The BeatlesRough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles. ~ Thomas Browne Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken. ~ Jane Austen Lavinia knew there was trouble ahead for her in Compostela. She had tried so hard to fit in, to keep from speaking when it wasn't necessary, and to refra...

5 likes

Home Is

"I wish we could stay here forever." ~ AnonymousHmmm. Wonder who wrote that? Wonder where 'here' is? Wonder who 'we' are? Are they lovers, an old married couple - who could also be lovers, when you think about it, and they must have been lovers once or they wouldn't have gotten married. Are they more than a couple, say, a family? All the same sex or a mixture? The same age or far apart in years? Something else puzzles me about these seven words, but I can't quite figure it out.This was the land's end: the last fingers, knuckled and rheumatic...

3 likes

Hot time (L2.18)

Lavinia looked up from the screen of her laptop, moved her head from side to side as she rubbed it with her right hand, leaving her left hand still an inch above the keyboard, as if she intended to go on writing with it. After she had massaged her neck enough, she lowered her right hand, shifted her weight slightly, then sighed, renewed the look of concentration on her face, then continued typing, slowly, one word at a time, as if determined to finish her task. It could have been me there in Lavinia’s place, and in a way it was, because I’m ...

4 likes