Logo, MacQueen's Quinterly
Listed at Duotrope
MacQueen’s Quinterly: Knock-your-socks-off Art and Literature
Issue 18: 29 Apr. 2023
Prose Poem: 140 words
By Dave Alcock

Lorikeets

 

Look up and you may see it. A screen of brightly coloured birds that flushes through the treetops like a psychedelic wind. Here, where the sky is grey and the leaves fall thin and yellow; where wet mud slips beneath a worn-out shoe-sole and a toe squeaks inside a water-logged sock. Where a foot aches and a body is powerless; where a neck creaks and stiffens and rebels. Beyond the high-street, beyond the traffic, the pavements. Beyond the markets, the arcades, the stalls. Beyond the people, beyond the gate, beyond the entrance. Beyond the memories. Beyond the grief and despair. Where hope fails and vision is flightless. Look up. Lorikeets may be there. With bibs red as volcanic lava. With faces purple and frosted as plums. With feathered wings green as ripe avocados. Look up. Lorikeets may be there.

Dave Alcock
Issue 18 (29 April 2023)

has been interested in flash fiction ever since 2016 when he received Flash Fiction Forward (ed. James Thomas and Robert Shapard) as a surprise gift. He read the first page and was hooked and he has been ever since. His work has been published by Every Day Fiction and Flash Frontier, as well as some other excellent lit-zines, and can also be found in two books published by Ad Hoc Fiction. He works as an editor and lives with his wife and two children in Devon, England.

 
 
Copyright © 2019-2024 by MacQueen’s Quinterly and by those whose works appear here.
Logo and website designed and built by Clare MacQueen; copyrighted © 2019-2024.
⚡   Please report broken links to: MacQuinterly [at] gmail [dot] com   ⚡

At MacQ, we take your privacy seriously. We do not collect, sell, rent, or exchange your name and email address, or any other information about you, to third parties for marketing purposes. When you contact us, we will use your name and email address only in order to respond to your questions, comments, etc.