Tag: Musings

Dante Bill and Mark Twain Take A Walk

Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.
Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt © LIsa Fox
and limit our words to 100 or less. 
Click on the frog to read more stories.

Note on the players: Dante Bill is an allusion to his namesake from the Inferno; Mark Twain acts as Virgil, his writer-guide through hell. Neither has been consigned there.

Genre: Partial Epic
Word Count: 99

Dante Bill (colorful rapper): Dude, where’s the fire and brimstone? It’s freezing cold here.

Mark Twain (dead white male): Hell’s different from place to place.

What’s with the shrines there?

Shrines? Oh, toilets. That’s for . . . .

Yeah, why the big deal?

They’re the only ones in this area.

That stinks, man! Crowds of woke politicians and their virtue-signaling kool-aid drinkers jumping up and down like yo-yo’s. They could just go in the woods.

Problem is, it’s against the rules. Their punishment is that they have to follow the sign.

Where does it point?

To Satan’s toilet.

Now I Know

Photo by Merlin lightpainting from Pexels

Now I know that poetry
is a razor blade
slipped into a caramel
dipped apple of
eve’s desire
sharp and tangy . . .

is as love’s wounding
rigor mortis of bites
ennui-soaked
languid post-mortem
of shamanic rites . . .

is a coroner’s tableau of victims
bodies stretched out on gurneys
for the inquest after the serial killer
slips free of the electric chair
because the judge knew his brother cain
at harvard law . . .

is hummingbirds and bats
dandelions, a lover’s hand
broken stalks, memories . . .

is my heart laid out across the sky
a constellation charted out of unknown
algorithms multiplied
to infinity
dove’s wings
rapidly beating
now.

Today Victoria is guest-hosting at dVerse: Meeting the Bar and asks us to write a "Solilo-Quoi?", paying extra attention to form or other poetic devices in our self-talk. Click Mr. Linky for more and join in.

Flower and Seed

flowers
from seeds, and seeds
from flowers, the ground tills
itself as the seasons
roll forward in
time’s span

the wind
cannot hold back
the changes, no matter
when changes make beauty
shine brighter in
being

Written in Badger Hexastitch (2-4-6-6-4-2) for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday (prompt: use synonyms for “life” and “move”);
photo challenge entry for Cee’s Flower of the Day (FOTD)

Garden Retreat

I’ve dotted my ‘i’s
and crossed my ‘t’s
restless
for a spot of afternoon tea
in my garden retreat

Disclaimer: This photo’s from my neighbor’s garden. So many of my neighbors are dedicated gardeners and it’s a pleasure to admire their lovely gardens on my walks. I have no garden, but a lovely balcony. It’s good for a spot of tea too!

For Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge: “Don’t forget that my FOTD challenge accepts leaves and berries as well as flowers.“ And Sammi’s 19-words-only challenge using “restless.”

It’s Not a Mystery

“Why does hope spring after tragedy?

Is it weakness in sorrow, a failure of grief?

What makes us look up and watch for the dawn?”

Wiping away his tears, his Teacher softly answered,

“‘It’s elementary, my dear Watson,’

We were made for eternity

Not this life alone.”

Cee’s FOTD
Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt #199: prose or poem in 47 words exactly using the word “element” or its forms.

Van Gogh’s Yellow

Mish at dVerse’s “Poetics” asks us to take on the persona of a color, “imagine what they see . . . . slip out of our human bodies and become nothing but a color.” So it is written, so it is done, but in the voice of one particular color, Vincent van Gogh’s yellow.

Van Gogh died in July 1890 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield with Crows (July 1890)

When you turn to me away from Rachel
For whom you sheared your face of an ear
Isn’t the world brighter, like sunflowers?
And the walls of your house in Arles
Lavishly canvased, as the awnings
As cafés, bedframes, straw hats, sunsets
I am the light running before you
Swirling you up to starry nights and moons
Away from the blackness of eyes
That never see you like I have seen you
Radiant in the waving fields of wheat
Until the day you clasp your hands
Round the ochred skin of despair.

Vincent Van Gogh, Sorrowing Old Man (‘At Eternity’s Gate’), 1890

Click on Mr. Linky to read more dVerse poems.

Dream Waves

Lisa at dVerse asks us to write a quadrille (poem of 44 words) using the word “way.” Here’s my drowsy offering as midnight creeps closer. Click on Mr. Linky to join in!


Photo by Steve Johnson from Pexels

When sleep comes my way
darkness warm like mother’s milk
lulls my hungry wakeful eyes,
I sink at last in ocean light
to caverns deep where you await
a Prospero’s Ariel caught betwixt
reflections of the world above
and the mirrors of my mind.

 

A Common-Place Jotting: “A low dishonest decade”

Auden in 1939

Common-Place or “Locus Communis” — a place to remember

Anglo-American poet W. H. Auden wrote “September 1, 1939” at the outbreak of World War II in Europe. It’s a poem that’s often quoted during times of crises such as ours, and only seems to highlight the recurring cycles of political dissimulation and media exacerbated fury that escalates into tragedy. While battling a virus, we’ve “cancelled” each other and branded each other racists and bigots. We’ve listened to politicians and oligopolies wildly denounce opponents of their agendas as terrorists. We’ve been witness to unchecked brutality this past year as our cities burned with mob violence during which thirty people were murdered, and neighborhoods and livelihoods went up in smoke while governors and mayors watched.

Auden began the poem with these words:

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

In the penultimate stanza he cautions: “We must love one another or die.” The same holds true today.

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

excerpt from W. H. Auden’s September 1, 1939

Read the complete poem at poets.org. And hear the poet Dylan Thomas read it below.

Reverie

Seated Woman, 1915 by Rik Wouters (1882-1916)

Time rebounds in dabs of paint
Watery sun soaks through space
Sensations blur
Colors seep
Diminishing lines
Reflections slur
Your hands, your face
Gaze untendered
Unbristled, still
A warm attention
Encompassing all
Formidable will
Probing memory
Dark sublime
Time rebounds in dabs of paint.

Written for D'verse, WhimsyGizmo's Quadrille (44 words)
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