This Tanka is for Colleen Chesebro’s weekly challenge.
Photos by @LucciaGray
Long ago once more
Chocolate eggs and treasure hunts
Cast a childhood spell
Life cycles into seasons
My turn to hide sweets for you!
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Would you like to take part? The rules are simple.
Use synonyms of Colleen’s two-word prompt, this week, charm and time, write blog post using one of the following poetic forms: haiku, tanka, Haibun, cinquaine or senryu.
Add a picture if you like. Pingback to Colleen’s blog post.
This post was written in response to this weeks’ Three Line Thursday prompt. Three lines, 30 words maximum.
Photo by Boris
The Clown’s Trunk
Lipstick smeared on bruised lips. Blackened tears.
‘Let’s play,’ He said, then pointed.
‘Would you unlock the trunk, my dear?’
Clowns are such sinister characters, and well, their trunks, they’re just the most sinister objects on earth!
I can’t remember exactly, but I’m sure I was afraid of clowns as a child, and I still find them spooky to say the least. Who doesn’t?
I’m really curious about this trunk, ‘though. What’s inside? Funny tricks or more scary props?
In yesterday’s post it was Eve haunting my subconscious, and today it’s Pandora’s Box stalking me. Quite by chance (I suppose), I also received a message from an unknown admirer who compared me to Eve! Is there a message for me there?
Like life itself, we never know what’s in store, good or bad, and we can bank on having our share of both, sooner or later!
At the moment things are good. No serious health problems for anyone in the family. Work’s fine. Book one and two are doing well, and book three’s on the way (my expectations are modest).
I can’t complain, but I’m not ready to open the trunk and look inside…
Are you?
Check out today’s other poems, or join in yourself, here.
I’m the proud winner of this edition! Here’s my badge to prove it 🙂
Year Two Week Five Winner: Luccia Gray
I Won a print copy of Light Lines!
“This was terrifying. Well done to the author. I can see the creepy face and feel the panic. A perfect tale for the picture…and now I can’t sleep. ” Judge’s Thoughts.
This post was written in response to this weeks’ Three Line Thursday prompt. Three lines, 30 words maximum.
Picture by David
Waiting
You told me once, ‘move on, never return.’ I obeyed
Til last night, when I dreamt I slipped back
Inside and you were still there, weathered yet waiting.
Entwined
Leaves trembling witnessed our promises.
Reverent stems watched over
your flesh and mine entwined.
Three Line Thursday: Three lines, maximum thirty words, in response to a weekly photo prompt.
Have a look at the rules, admire the photo prompt, read the other entries, and why not take part?
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The end of the winter and coming of spring reminds us of nature’s new cycle of rebirth, hope, and love.
There’s another chance; we can begin again, as we move forward.
This reminds me of Jane and Rochester’s passionate reunion after their traumatic separation. It is found in the last pages of Jane Eyre.
I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine.
‘Her very fingers!’ he cried; ‘her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her.’
The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder—neck—waist—I was entwined and gathered to him.
‘Is it Jane? WHAT is it? This is her shape—this is her size—‘
‘And this her voice,’ I added. ‘She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again.’
‘Jane Eyre!—Jane Eyre,’ was all he said.
‘My dear master,’ I answered, ‘I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out—I am come back to you.’
Although my portrayal of Edward Rochester is not favourable in All Hallows at Eyre Hall, there is no doubt in my mind of the sincerity of their love and passion in Jane Eyre.
However, Rochester’s obsession with Jane, as well as her excessive admiration of and submission to such an egocentric and ruthless character stand in the way of any chance of a positive development in their relationship in the long-term.
Love, like nature, must move on: eppure si muove.
The direction of the movement belongs to the seed of creativity.
Dark Side of the Moon, by NASA, Apollo 16. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
The moon has fascinated both poets and scientists since the first human spotted it in the sky.We do not know for sure how the earth and the moon came into being, but there are two main theories proposed by the scientific community.
The first theory, called the ‘giant impact hypothesis’, which was developed by the Planetary Science Institute in the 1970s, claims that the Earth’s moon formed as the result of a colossal impact of a hypothetical planetary embryo, named Theia, with Earth, early in our Solar System’s history. More information on this theory.
The most recent theory, funded by the NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI), and published in 2012, proposes that the Earth and moon were both created together in a giant collision of two similar-sized bodies, which collided a second time forming an early Earth surrounded by a disk of material that combined to form the moon. More information on this theory.
An artist’s concept shows a celestial body about the size of our moon slamming at great speed into a body the size of Mercury.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In any case, both poets and scientists have acknowledge the intimate relationship between the Earth and our Moon, and are searching for ways of either explaining our fascination, or providing proof of our common origin and mutual dependency.
For last Friday’s Flash! Fiction contest, our prompts were the word moon and the following sculpture.
Liverpool — Hope Street. CC photo by Harshil Shah. Sculpture “A Case History” by John King.
The idea instantly came to my mind to combine the poetic symbolism of the moon and the scientific notion that both planets had a common origin.
In my flash fiction, the moon has become the lover who has been traumatically separated from his beloved. He cannot come close to her, but he can stalk her from a distance, because he still loves her and misses her, while he is patiently waiting for a longed for reunion.
The stalker
Let me watch over you.
I see you searching for my torch in the night, in wonder, in awe, perhaps even in fear.
Please don’t fear me. I’d never harm you.
You know I’ll always be there, faithful to you alone.
I can’t live with you, but neither can I live without you, so I have to stalk you.
You have understood and forgiven me.
I look forward to seeing your flashing eyes and hearing the murmur of your breathing.
Your beauty is stunning. I admire your patchwork dress and your flowing waves.
I love you.
I miss you.
I wish I were still with you, still part of you, as I used to be, as I was meant to be.
I cannot come to you yet, although you have visited me, on occasions.
You think little of me, because you consider me ugly and barren, and I am, compared to you.
But remember this; we were together once and you loved me, until we were torn apart.
I long for the day you will take up your suitcases, renew your hope in me, and bring life to my lonely planet.
You will come and I will be waiting, Earthlings.
I’m back again! I’ve taken part in most Flash Friday Contests since last summer, but this is my first one this year!
What do Flash Friday Contest and King Sisyphus have in common?
Basically the recurrent and repetitive nature of the challenge they face. So, is that a good thing or not? Isn’t everything we do repeated periodically… incessantly? What’s new in our lives? in the history of humanity?
Life often seems monotonous and disheartening. We do essentially the same things day after day, endlessly. We have the illusion of moving forward, and then we have to start all over again.
Winter with its leafless trees and barren fields reminds us of death, and the inevitable cycle of life, and long cold evenings invite our minds to search for impossible answers to eternal questions…
Sisyphus by Titian (1548–49) by Titian, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
The repetitive nature of life reminded me, once again, of what happened to the avaricious, deceitful, and murderous King Sisyphus. Zeus condemned him to roll a huge enchanted boulder up a steep hill, and once he reached the top the boulder rolled downhill again. Sisyphus followed it back down and resumed his useless task, time and time again.
Albert Camus, became my favourite writer when I read La Chute for my French ‘A’ level, as a teenager, and my appreciation grew when I was studying French, at College. In his 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd, comparing the absurdity of man’s life with Sisyphus’s futile occupation.
On his way down, burdenless, Sisyphus searches for meaning in an incomprehensible world devoid of God and eternal truths or values, while on his way up he is occupied with the unachievable task: the boulder will never stay at the top.
In spite of this, according to Camus, Sisyphus is finally happy because he has understood and accepted his absurd fate. In other words, the knowledge and acceptance that life is a meaningless task with no hope of completion, is our only chance of happiness. Or is it?
I still admire Camus’s insatiable search for the meaning of life, however, I used to think I wasn’t so pessimistic or critical, any more. Perhaps because I have children and grandchildren, who have given my life another perspective, or perhaps because over thirty years have passed, and my rebellious search for a rational explanation to the ‘meaning of life’, has been dulled.
Yet last Friday, something happened. I saw a picture and wrote a story, and I realized that Camus’ ‘absurd’ is more ingrained in my subconscious, than I thought.
Photo prompt Flash Friday Fiction Challenge 6th February
Dragons bidding
My entry: North and South.
I looked over the barren fields, dry wells, famished cattle, and dug my blackened nails into the thick, crumbly earth. My parched lips made a last feeble effort to cry for mercy.
I remembered how just before the meteor struck our planet, she had appeared and walked through me. I felt a shudder and my body froze for less than an instant.
“Ask and it shall be given,” she said.
“I want to live,” I begged.
“Go south,” she whispered and was gone.
That’s why I was there, dying in the waterless south.
Once again, I sensed the shadow of the spectre approach.
“Ask and it shall be given,” she teased.
“Water,” I implored. “My people need water.”
“Go north,” she whispered and left.
I turned to my people and said, “We must go north.”
They followed hopefully.
When we arrived, the streets were wet. We rejoiced and drank, and thanked the Gods.
The next day, the flooding started. Within days we were living in boats, frantically searching for dry land.
The fleeting ghost returned once more.
“Ask and it shall be given,” she smiled.
“Will it always be like this?” I cried.
She nodded and left.
@LucciaGray (200 words).
Want to To read some of the other stories? You’ll find them here
I’d like to finish on a more optimistic note. I’m sure we can be happy, but only Today.
Today is all we have, so make the most of it.
Have a wonderful day!
Or not, depending on my mood
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Walks the night in her silver shoon;
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Walter de la Mare (1873 – 1958 England)