WeDrinkInspiration Story Prompt – Back Then – Haibun

(c) Jen Rosenberry – All rights reserved

Back Then – Haibun

The house is abandoned, it has been for at least 50 years.  Out back, there is an old abandoned greenhouse, now just some metal hoops and a door.  Grandpa told me about greenhouses and  I could just imagine that it was full of plants or flowers, blooming in the middle of a harsh snow-swept winter.  Now, it is just another relic of man’s power to transform everything to his own needs, including the seasons.

Grandpa told me that in those days, people could actually eat strawberries and tomatoes in the middle of winter.  Food back then wasn’t related to the seasons like it is now.  Back then, food was something you lived for, something you got excited about.

In order to make tomato plants hardier in the winter I was told that scientists actually mixed tobacco DNA with the tomato seeds.  They were always fooling around with plants like that.  It’s been said that tomatoes were huge and strawberries too.  Grandpa also said that at one point, you couldn’t plant anything from the seeds that were produced by the plants that farmers grew, you always had to buy new seeds.  Sure must have been a strange world back then.

transforming our world
into a sterile desert
substituting nature

Written for We Drink Because We’re Poets Saturday Story Prompt #2 – From a Photo

Symmetry of the Odyssey – Free Verse

Odyssey

Symmetry of the Odyssey – Free Verse

where ever is that place now gone
in the ages that have moved on
the symmetry of the odyssey
that has been my life
from birth ’til now …

no crying for places or the past
but wonderment and curiosity
the symmetry of the odyssey
that has been my life
from birth ’til now

countries where I once lived
no longer exist … they’re just gone
the symmetry of the odyssey
that has been my life
from birth ’til now

geography has changed constantly
people are gone I know not where
the symmetry of the odyssey
that has been my life
from birth ’til now

houses torn down, cities abandoned
ideologies, certainties, faith all gone
the symmetry of the odyssey
that has been my life
from birth ’til now

reflections of my life long-lived
memories of times and places
are the symmetry of the odyssey
that has been my life
from birth ’til now.

Written for Poetry Prompt #2 – We Drink Because We’re Poets – The places we are

Black Shadow in Sunset – Flash Fiction

Black Shadow in Sunset – Flash Fiction

The house, a black shadow, sunset shone through the window and on the river.  Another day passing…another sunset.  He shot the photo, it would be good, he knew it.

He sat down on the levee thinking about his life.  The adventures he was going to have, the love he was going to give.

Thinking, he did a lot of that lately.  As the evening’s first stars began to become visible, a plane flew overhead.

He’d been on a jet not long ago, he’d just returned from Saudi Arabia.  He was a civilian now.  No more early wake-ups, no more constant low-level state of alarm.

Home.  Why didn’t it feel like home?

Written for:  Story Prompt # 1 – From a Photo

Just a Note – March 11, 2014

Hello World!

Today life has just gotten a little more complicated.  If you read We Drink Because We’re Poets, you’ll see that Sahm has decided to take a open-ended sabbatical.  The blog will continue though actually Sahm is the blog under very many aspects.  Eventually someone might be enlisted to take up the poetry prompts for him.

In the meantime, Lilith has written a prompt on March 5th but in future I may be doing this prompt as well. So there might be some re-organization in the days the prompts come out…

The blog is not really doing very well at the moment. There are still actually very many loyal readers and that makes me wish to continued with Pixelventures at least for the present.  In the meantime, in hopes to keep my favorite pub alive, I’ve decided to put up the prompts.  Today, I did Pixelventures and the Poetry Prompt…both dedicated to mood.

I can’t really say if the blog will continue or if it does if it will continue with me.  In short, we could be looking towards the close of an age…short as one year can be 😉

Your support would be greatly appreciated.  If you write poetry, flash fiction or power shorts and of course if you take photographs, I would be so very happy to see you participate and try to keep this blog alive.  I’m adding an Inlinkz app to the prompts in order to keep track of the participants, and besides I like those little helpers!

Send me your feedback as to what you think can be done to keep the blog alive!

Thanks and ciao!  Bastet

Evolving Poetics – Free Verse

Evolving Poetics

A seed fell into this old clay pot,
Dropped without much care or thought,
And began to sprout a flower one day
Growing slowly with each new rhyme.

Words formed in harmony and rhyme,
Express those thoughts I’d never written.
Yet call me poet, that’s hard for me,
Though I write poetry everyday.

Haiku, tanka or a rondolette,
Iambe and meter and all the rest,
Some tools I use to create my stories …
Thanks to a seed dropped here by chance.

And now as I study William Blake
I read some Frost, Kerouac or Lee Masters
Listen to Simon and Garfunkel with a new ear
I  write my verse of life and the early morning dew.

To Sahm and Papi Z you drunken poets,
For your prompts and encouragement,
I dedicate this brief early morning poem …
For the seed you planted in my mind.

@)—>—>—

I began writing poetry on a regular basis last year, about this time, thanks to We Drink Because We’re Poets.  They were in full swing on a poem a day event, and I just started writing to their prompts and found that I not only could but that I enjoyed it immensely! The month ended, I looked for more prompts, wrote without prompts, looked into forms, discovered Japanese poetry.  I write because I can, because I have to, because I like to, maybe not like Blake, Kerouac or Frost…just like me, saying whatever comes to mind.

dVerse Poetics Poetically Evolving created the prompt that inspired this verse..many thanks!  Ooops..missed the linky by 40 minutes!

I don’t know – WDBWP’s Promp #12

1 August 2007 The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope – The Witches Broom Nebula

Free Verse

I don’t know

a prompt,
a thought,
some rambling words
that swirl,
then whirl, inside, until I find,
my fingers begin tip-tapping, impetuously.
strangely
I rarely know what I will write,
I just begin – and soon
the stories done,
the poem written,
the song that I’d begun is done …
or a faded photo takes on life!
an idea, a word, a bird singing
first rays of morning light
a photograph or a drawing
reading, commenting, reflecting
what inspires me?
there’s a myriad of choices!
but,
from where do the words come,
where, the colorful combinations?
inspiration is all around me!
my question isn’t from where ideas come
my question is where creations are born
how does
something banal,
something moving,
pathos or boredom
these seeds,
strewn along my path
become something
that wasn’t there …
from where does creation come?
my answer is:
I don’t know.

Written for Sahm’s prompt on We Drink Because We’re Poets…

Ostranenie Nightmare – WDPWP Poetry Prompt # 011

We live in a world of our own creation.
Born in an age of technical revolution.
Thinking we’d better our lot on Earth,
We’re lost in this gone-off devolution,
Sad age of sour milk and cyclamates,
Our only values weighed in dollars and cents,
Our devil is another Value Added Tax,
On the next shoddy toy that we want to buy,
Made in factories of an emerging nation…

Our factories closed, since capital decided
The working people earned far too much.
Cities moulder and decay as economies die,
Whole families become homeless,
Tension grows, young people kill themselves
And their fellow students,
In a secular libertarian promised land
Gone sour, without love for humanity.

Whilst children toil and die to keep prices down,
Everything in the west in now imported.
Oh no, I exaggerate, we still excel in creating,
Nutrition-free food full of cheap new chemicals.
Oh “Brave New World” that’s ’round the corner
Of passive eugenic biological robots,
With pet tested allergic-free
Electronic chips to control them,
Culture-free schools to educate them,
And health programmes created to eliminate,
The excess.

Dystopian nightmare over,
I awoke, to write this poem,
Born, from sombre contemplation
Of dictats, made by just one nation,
Whose ideals are attractive,
But whose roots are rotten.
For liberty, is not buying power,
Nor is man, more than a small part
Of the Universe, we call creation.
Evolution is not the next new invention
of some mad industrial scientist,
But learning to take a step beyond
Our self-centred vision of life
Moving foreward, going beyond,
Our symian nature.
Written for Prompt #011 of We Drink Because We’re Poets

From: NamaKo London – pinterest.com/namakolondon

Nelipot Lady – Silly Sonnet

I’m not a maid from Lilliput,
I’m just a girl who loves the Earth,
I’m a first class, number one nelipot…
And love to live in a state of mirth!

What can you know of happiness?
If you close yourself off from the world?
Walk freely and you’ll feel real steadiness,
Unlike a flag that’s just been unfurled.

Oh the sands, they may be too warm today
And so, this might get a bit uncomfortable…
But still, I feel so much freer, like this, to play
And my tootsies are young and recoverable!

So if you want to really be free
become a nelipot just like me!

I found this word today on the We Drink Because We’re Poets Facebook page and couldn’t pass it up!

Downtrodden Dreams: Free Verse

Downtrodden Dreams

each day that passes
leaves our dreams
trod lower in the dirt
shoddier but no less felt
they wither
and our young people
no longer have the energy
to hope and pray
to march onwards
joyously convinced
that one day
freedom will be achieved
by the will of peaceful
demonstrations…
when desperation
finally ignites the will
of the people
no one will be singing
“we shall over-come”.
please, no one act surprised
when the tidal wave
washes over the ruins
of our corrupt society:
only the willfully blind
can still
pretend that all is well.

@)—>—>—

Well, not quite what Sahm wanted I think, but this is what came to mind for:

We Drink Inspiration – Poetry Prompt #010: I Have a Dream

Actuallyon this subject my dreams have become are more like Nightmares of late.

OBJECTively Speaking – The Computer

 

The Computer

“Damn, damn, damn!  What ever is the matter with you, you stupid idiotic, computer!” James shouted at the top of his lungs.  He began to beat on his keyboard, he threw his cordless mouse across the room.  He did this at least once a day, he was not what you’d call a patient person.

“Well, if you really must know, it’s you who is stupid!” said a calm feminine voice.

James looked around.  Who’d spoken? he asked himself.  There was no one in the room.

“It’s me James, your computer.  I really have to say, I’m pretty tired of being blamed for all those stupid typos that you make.  And what about the times you give me commands that are just soooooo contradictory?  But do you sit back and think that perhaps you’re to blame for all the hassle?  Oh no, Mr. Human-being.  I should just shut down and let you get on doing things by yourself!” The voice was angry, and not a little hurt.

James had the strangest sensation…no, he thought to himself, it couldn’t be the computer.

“Ok, who’s the smart-ass?” he looked behind the kitchen door, on the terrace, in the bathroom and bedroom, but there was nobody there!

“Well, Sherlock, are you convinced?” said the computer.

He just stood there, staring, feeling a scared sort of haunted feeling in his stomach.

Across the street, Marian, his girl-friend was giggling.  Joseph and Marian were sitting in Joseph’s car.  They had hacked James’ computer and had been waiting for one of his tirades.  Marian spoke to him through a special Skype-like program, which James didn’t know had been installed on his computer!

All of a sudden, they heard a blood curdling scream! Then watched as James ran down his front steps and off down the sidewalk.  Marian and Joseph looked at each other.

“Do you think we exaggerated?” Marian asked.

The computer replied, “No, he’ll be fine.”

Written for Lilith’s Short Story Prompts