Faith · poetry

In Church

Sally11 Comments

Praying in a pew on well worn kneeler
Darkness flickers while light streams
Sinner. Beloved. Which?

That shadow in the back — did I see something?
Tiny glimpse of disquiet
Lurking, lurking, lurking

Yet, there is light casting rainbow colors
Through tow’ring stained glass windows
Overwhelming peace

Praying in a pew on well worn kneeler
Tiny glimpse of disquiet
Overwhelming peace

This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge — to write a Garland Kimo on the theme of good vs evil.

The ‘Kimo’ is a short syllabic poetic form of three lines. The syllable count per line is 10/7/6.

Also, the kimo is focused on a single frozen image (kind of like a snapshot). So it’s uncommon to have any movement happening in kimo poems.

The ‘Garland Kimo’ is a series of four ‘Kimo’ verses, in which the fourth Kimo verse is composed of lines taken from the previous three Kimo verses, using the 1st line from the 1st Kimo, the 2nd line from the 2nd Kimo, and the 3rd (last) line from the 3rd Kimo.

    fiction

    The Ultimate Exile

    Sally12 Comments

    She noticed the token on the platform and picked it up, slipping it into her pocket before boarding the train.

    Once seated, she closed her eyes and replayed her day. God, she needed to get away. Glasgow may be one of the world’s friendliest cities but today she needed to get far away.

    She felt a vibration in her pocket and pulled out the token. It was glowing, an eerie pearly white. She tried to read the words but the characters weren’t familiar.

    The train ticked, hummed, click-clacked. She closed her eyes, holding the token, and thought, I should just go to London.

    She opened her eyes at the squeal of brakes as the train eased to another stop. Her brow furrowed at the symbol outside her window: a red circle with a blue line. The Roundel.

    Wait — what? London?! No-no-no-no-no-no!

    If she really wanted to start over, she needed to go to a new continent.

    The token vibrated. The doors swooshed shut and the train left the station, plunging into darkness. Clackety-clackety-clackety. Again she closed her eyes. Again she opened them at the squeal of the brakes.

    Times Square — 42 Street Station.

    New York. No, she thought, farther. The train unexpectedly lurched out of the station. The token flew from her hand. Darkness.

    When it stopped again, she had no token. She looked at the other passengers. Their green skin tone and oddly-shaped heads told her. She WAS far away — and now with no way back.

    This is my rather tardy response to this week’s Unicorn Challenge. The Unicorn Challenge seems so simple, just 250 words based on the photo. Yeah. Right. I whittled out so many words that this may no longer make sense.

    For another ultimate exile, here’s the Kingston Trio singing about poor old Charlie, riding forever ‘neath the streets of Boston.

    And all of this grew out of a quote I read the other morning about meteorites. Go figure.

    “From above and outside the earth, there come the meteorites. These are debris from other galaxies in the cosmos. They were stones falling through the universe and the earth got in the way. This is the ultimate exile. Stones that fell out of their own story, fell onto a foreign planet. They are now total exiles here. They will never be able to leave.“

    John O’Donohue, The Four Elements. “Fire in the Earth”

    Earliest Memories · family · poetry

    One fish, two fish

    Sally21 Comments

    You may have tangible wealth untold;
    Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
    Richer than I you can never be–
    I had a Mother who read to me.

    ~~ Strickland Gillilan

    My mother read to me.
    She read and read and read.
    She taught me to read, maybe so I would stop the pestering.
    One memory, small but big, was a time I asked her to read One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish
    For the 729th time
    And she sighed, like she didn’t really want to read it, but she did.
    I loved this book.
    It wasn’t the intricate plot.
    It was rhyming words, silliness, and a mother who read it to me over and over.

    One fish
    Two fish
    Red fish
    Blue fish

    Love to look (fish)
    In a book (fish)

    Love to read (fish)
    “MORE!” I plead (fish)

    Snuggle, snuggle next to Mom
    Dr. Seuss? He is the BOMB!

    Reading ’til my eyes grow bleary
    Marguerite Henry, Beverly Cleary
    Jim Kjelgaard, H. A. Rey
    I think I could read books all day

    Late at night, late at night
    I get out my big flashlight
    Hiding underneath bedsheets
    I wander down literary streets

    Mixed Up Files,
    Desert isles,
    Big Red, Misty
    Bring me smiles

    It all began with
    One fish, two fish
    My love for reading
    Grew and grew (fish)

    The W3 prompt this week is to base your piece, a mix of prose and poem, on a childhood memory. I remember my mom reading to me.

    SCN_0276
    Peter, Mom, and me
    fiction

    Fairy Tales

    Sally16 Comments

    “Here’s my idea for a story,” Jakob said. “A girl with long hair gets locked in the tower.”

    Wilhelm scoffed. “That sounds dumb.”

    “No, listen! She’s locked up there and she lets her hair down for people to climb up.”

    “Climbing up hair? That’s ridiculous!”

    “It’s magical hair.”

    “That’s even dumber. Magic hair. Besides, there’s a stairwell right there.” Wilhelm pointed to the door at street level.

    “What if,” Jacob said, “she was locked up there with a bunch of straw and spinning wheel? What if she had to spin the straw into gold?”

    “What if she pricked her finger on the spindle and fell asleep?”

    “What if the whole country fell asleep?”

    “What if a frog hopped up and kissed her?”

    “No, no — it should be a prince.”

    “The frog could turn into a prince!” Wilhelm suggested.

    “You thought magic hair sounded dumb. Listen to your ideas. Frogs kissing people and turning into princes! Pshaw!”

    The two boys walked slowly out of the city in silence.

    Suddenly they both stopped.

    “What if…” they said at exactly the same time, and then both started laughing.

    “What if it was just a story about kids walking in the woods?” Jacob suggested.

    “Yeah! And they find a house made of gingerbread with icing and all?”

    “How about walking to Grandma’s house and meeting a wolf?” Jacob said.

    “That could be scary,” said Wilhelm.

    “Really scary,” said Jacob. “Let’s try to write that one.”

    With that, the Grimm brothers headed for home.

    A struggle — but it’s done!

    Unicorn Challenge — no more than 250 words launched from the photo prompt


    poetry

    Garden Fresh

    Sally18 Comments

    Summer foods
    Summer eats
    Fresh wholesome
    Tasty treats

    Green beans – yum!
    Dangling down
    Pick and eat
    Best all ’round

    Cucumber
    Love to munch
    Garden yield
    Fresh raw [crunch]

    Yellow squash
    Sliced, sauteed
    Seasoned well
    Makes the grade

    Corn on cob
    Freshly picked
    Butter, salt
    So perfect

    Summer foods
    Summer eats
    Fresh wholesome
    Tasty treats

    This poem is a Cethramtu Rannaigechta Moire.  I can’t pronounce it, but I can tell you that it’s an Irish poetic form that requires 3 syllable lines in quatrains. The second and fourth lines rhyme.

    The W3 prompt this week is to write a food-related poem in any form. Okay, I thought, I’ll just write down everything I eat for the day and make a poem about it. Here was my first verse:

    Farmstand egg
    Whole wheat toast
    Smoked Gouda
    It’s the most

    But I realized that almost everything else I ate was garden-related, so I nixed my egg sandwich and just put verses in that involved fresh produce.

    fiction · poetry

    Cloudy Gray Dullness

    Sally11 Comments

    The sky was a cloudy gray dullness making dreary the town.   
    The sun in that nondescript dismal wore no smiley face but a frown   
    The road was a convoy of autos over the drab green moor,   
    And the snake oil man came driving—
    Driving—driving—
    The snake oil man came driving, up to Hotel Moderne door.

    He’d a cowboy hat on his forehead, a bolo below his chin,   
    A coat of angus leather, and Levis of blue denim.
    They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots had those pointy toes.   
    And he drove his Lexus Hybrid,
    His shiny red Lexus Hybrid,
    His brand new Lexus Hybrid, thus none could admire his clothes.

    Through the streets he piloted and steered his pretentious wheels.
    He waved out the window and honked his horn, but no one fell head over heels.   
    He parked his car at the hotel, and who should be waiting there –  
    But the town’s lone policeman,
    Jeff, the only policeman,
    Ready to write a citation and do it with quite a flair.

    The con artist’s brow – it furrowed – as he looked at the cloudy sky
    Then looked at the Jeff, the policeman. “I’ve got something you want to buy. 
    It’ll make the sky turn sunny on such a dismal day.”  
    But Jeff wrote out a citation
    A rather costly citation
    Yes, Jeff wrote out a citation that the shyster had to pay.

    What’s the citation for, you ask? Could be a bunch of different things. You know the type.

    Honestly, I don’t know though. I write not knowing where I’m going. Then that dang 250 word limits bites. I hit 227 words and knew I couldn’t squeeze another Highwayman verse in with only 23 words remaining.

    Yes, this is my contribution to the Unicorn Challenge. Write no more than 250 words using the photo prompt.

    My apologies to Alfred Noyes who wrote the amazing melodramatic poem, “The Highwayman,” the first long story poem I fell in love with and memorized.

    poetry

    Hip Pain Sucks

    Sally11 Comments

    When I rise up from sitting down to standing
    My hip protests, “No! No! You can’t do that!”
    But I’m active — and I’m sick of where I’ve sat
    I actually love the physically demanding!
    My hip protests, “No! No! You can’t do that”
    When I rise up from sitting down to standing

    This was a tough challenge for me! The W3 challenge this week is to write a biolet. A biolet is a six line poem in which the first two lines are repeated as the last two lines, however in reverse. The rhyme scheme can be expressed as ABbaBA (with the capital letters representing the repeated lines).

    Additionally, Sadje challenged us to use the theme of love/hate. I love being physically active. I hate the way this stupid hip pain is keeping me from being as active as I usually am.

    fiction

    Homonyms

    Sally9 Comments

    “What makes shadows?”

    “The sun is blocked by something and that makes the shadow.”

    “There’s no sun inside and there are still shadows.”

    “Okay — light is blocked, and that makes shadows.”

    [quiet thinking]

    “Light is a funny word, isn’t it, Mom?”

    “Why do you say that?”

    “Light is like a light bulb and shines, but it’s also like something that’s not heavy.”

    “Those are called homonyms. Like ‘I’ [points to herself] and ‘eye’ [points to her eye].”

    “But those aren’t spelled the same.”

    “No, homonyms just have to sound the same. Sometimes they are spelled exactly the same – like a bat that flies and a bat that’s used in baseball. They are two very different things.”

    [laughing] “It would be funny if I played baseball with a bat bat.” [flaps arms] “I found one yesterday.”

    “Don’t touch bats if you find one.”

    “Not even a baseball bat?”

    “What kind of bat did you find?”

    “A bat bat.”

    “Don’t touch them. They carry rabies.”

    “What’s rabies?”

    “It’s a really bad sickness.”

    “Like the flu?”

    “Kind of, but –“

    “WAIT! That’s a homo-thing! ‘Flu’ – like when I was sick, and ‘flew’ like the bat did.”

    “The bat flew away? Did you touch it?”

    “Dickie did.”

    “Dickie?”

    “The new kid. Richard. He wants to be called Dick.”

    “I need to talk to his par–“

    “WAIT! That’s a homo-thing, too! Dick, like his name and dick, like Mr. Dinkleheimer sometimes says about his –“

    “Enough. Let’s talk about the shadows some more, okay?”

    My contribution to this week’s Unicorn Challenge. The Unicorn Challenge is no more that 250 words based on the photo prompt.

    I rather strayed from that photo prompt and tried to make my way back to it, but dog-gone these kids!

    Of course, I didn’t get homonym-homophone right either. Don’t judge me.

    poetry

    Kittens?

    Sally9 Comments

    It hit me when I saw them play
    That fuzzy tumbling adorable ballet
    Of baby animals. I was smitten
    But — they’re just a kittens!

    Okay — not kittens. Tiny webbed feet
    Downy feathers, little bills, complete
    The picture — Gosh! I’m smitten!
    They COULD be a kittens

    Actually, I could call them a litter
    But they’re a brood, all a-skitter
    In the lake. I’m smitten
    But no — not kittens!

    These ducklings make me laugh and smile
    No agenda. No politics. No guile.
    Just joyful play. I was as smitten
    As if they were kittens.

    I’ve been swimming in the lake. Of course, I can’t take pictures of the ducklings while I’m swimming, but sometimes when I see them, all I think is that they’re just like kittens — except they don’t have fur and claws and whiskers. Instead they have fuzzy feathers, webbed feet and bills. Other than that they’re pretty much exactly the same.

    This is in response to David’s W3 prompt to write a poem about something that amuses you. Ducklings amuse me. So do kittens.

    fiction

    Spawning

    Sally12 Comments

    “Do fish have mothers and fathers?”

    “Yes. All animals have both mothers and fathers.”

    “Dogs?”

    “Yes.”

    “Elephants?”

    “Yes.”

    “Frogs?”

    “Yes.”

    “Caterpillars?”

    “Yes, but a caterpillar is a stage in the life of a butterfly.”

    “Butterflies aren’t born from other butterflies?”

    “Not exactly. The mother lays eggs and a little tiny caterpillar hatches out.”

    “Oh, yeah! The Very Hungry Caterpillar! You used to read that book to me!”

    “Right! Remember the caterpillar eats and eats and eats, then makes a chrysallis. Then a butterfly hatches out of the chrysallis.”

    “How does that happen?”

    “Magic.”

    “Where’s the dad?”

    “What do you mean?”

    “The mother lays eggs, but where’s the dad?”

    “Hmmm…. well…. I think the mother butterfly and the father butterfly meet each other before the eggs are laid.”

    “Like a date?”

    “Kind of.”

    “Does he get to meet them after they become butterflies?”

    “Caterpillars and butterflies don’t meet their parents.”

    “That’s sad.”

    “Yes, life is sometimes sad.”

    “How about fish? Do fish get to meet their fathers?” [pointing to a sign on a food truck that say “The Codfather.”]

    “I don’t know.”

    “Do fish have a caterpillar stage?”

    “Fish hatch out of eggs.”

    “As fish?”

    “As larva. I suppose kind of like swimming caterpillars.”

    “What about the mother and father. Do they visit each other first?”

    “It’s called spawning. The mother lays a bunch of eggs that the dad visits.”

    “That’s weird. Does the mother fish ever meet the dad?”

    “You’re wearing me out.”

    “What about people? How does that work?”

    This is my response to this week’s Unicorn Challenge. The Unicorn Challenge is simple — no more than 250 words based on the photo prompt.

    Here you get to eavesdrop on another mother-son conversation.