In the heat of the afternoon
Standing on the headland
Taking in the northeasterly breeze
As it brushes across the ocean
Cooling, reviving, re-energizing.
Without it the oppression of the summer
Would be unbearable.
Written for: https://areadingwritr.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/word-high-july-amihan/
“Hope is believing my dreams will come true
For without them I will die sooner than I’d like…” (adapted from Chicken Soup for the College Soul…Dan Clarke
As Mary aged the desire to complete her schooling became such an urge that she went out and found out what she would have to do to achieve this.
As she’d gone through life she had read extensively but always for pleasure and in recent times she had dabbled in writing poetry. Starting a blog had opened not only her eyes but so many doors to learning but to the process of writing. Her blogging friends were accepting and forever giving her hope that she might achieve her lifelong goal despite her age.
So she began her course at the Community College and from the first day loved everything about it. Some novels she had read years earlier were on the course and it was refreshing, she discovered, to learn new perspectives about them.
But it was the writing course she loved most. Her teacher was a man of vision, as far as she was concerned, who immediately saw Mary as a woman of talent and so encouraged her in the pursuit of words on the page.
The teacher had promised that if their writing was good enough he would publish a class anthology of their collected works as a graduation gift.
So Mary was chuffed beyond words to discover at years end four of her poems gracing the pages of the anthology.
Before her was a dream come true and even though the publication was for the class only and would probably only be read by a few, for her what she had always hoped for was there in black and white for her to see.
Needless to say she purchased four copies, one for each of her children who had doubted their mother’s sanity in going back to school at her age but who could now, if they were so moved, feel their mother’s pride in her achievement.
Hope she thought to herself, I’m glad I hung onto mine.
Written for: https://silverthreading.com/2016/07/20/writers-quote-wednesday-writing-challenge-theme-hope-wqwwc/
It was all about symbols.
When you went to his house everything was some sort of symbol. The paper bird in the cage a symbol of his attitude to pets. He’d say: “It’s the best bird I ever had. Never needs feeding, doesn’t shit in the cage, and its represents so many possibilities.”
He’d say: “Depending on the angle you view it you can see it could be about to take off, land, sing, the possibilities are endless and I like to think of them all.”
That’s where his reality ended sadly. It was like talking to a vacuum, there was endless possibility but no reality.
You could never draw him into any discussion about his real world. I think he found himself much like his paper bird. Stuck in a limbo from which he couldn’t extract himself and so it was ok to stay that way, after all he didn’t need to think beyond the possibility, did he?
Written for: https://tobreatheistowrite.com/2016/07/19/its-tuesday-another-challenge-day/
Songs of love are easy
She loves me yeah yeah yeah,
We rattle them off
Trite and cliché ridden.
Some words matter
Chords resonating
Memories fueling lyrics
To mark that one wet day
We watched the rainbow
Wondering where ours might end.
Written for: https://areadingwritr.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/word-high-july-kundiman/
Greedy Girl fondled her new credit card, took another bite from her chocolate biscuit and thought if I shift this and delay that I can buy this. We can do without this and they can get that next week. I just have to get this. The kids will understand. They always do.
In the next room the children sat around the table wondering if dinner was going to appear. They had been banned from the kitchen as Greedy Girl maintained control of the pantry.
Greedy Girl took another bite and flicked on the on-line shopping channel.
Written for: https://moralmondays.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/moral-mondays-money-is-the-root-of-all-evil/
I found you behind a poem one day.
I gladly gave you my heart.
Entrusted you with my truth.
My very soul you know,
You keep me safe
I am nurtured and caressed
Loved for who I am.
Written for: https://areadingwritr.wordpress.com/2016/07/19/word-high-july-habilin/
This week’s words: Antlers Evil Evasive Residual Barkeep Struggle Dahlia (a type of flower, can also be a name) Transfuse Methuselah (a patriarch who lived 969 years. Gen. 5:27. an extremely old man. a very large wine bottle holding 6½ quarts (6 liters). Pluck Presentiment (a feeling or impression that something is about to happen, especially something evil; foreboding.) Fourth Rule (There’s an exception to every rule.)
The Flower Family were eccentric. Evidenced by naming their girls Rose, Camellia and Dahlia. This story is about Dahlia Flower the youngest and most eccentric of the girls.
Life had been a struggle for Dahlia. From an early age she had been told her dad was a barkeep when in actual fact he kept the bar more upright than he should have. So after consuming the evil of the drink for most of the evening Mr. Flower, whose nickname was Petal by the way, would come home staggering down the street evading the traffic in itself a miracle no one ever attempted to explain.
Petal’s one claim to fame was that he drank in one evening a Methuselah bottle of shiraz, a very fine shiraz at that and Petal’s consumption was considered a waste of a good wine as it literally went in one end and out the other muddling his brain along the way.
It didn’t take Dahlia many years to figure her dad out. Over the years his brain had been eaten away and what residual remained allowed him to function in very basic ways. He loved his wife, he loved his daughters but Dahlia always had this sense of presentiment about her dad. Any minute now she knew something bad was going to happen and it did.
It happened one night when Mrs. Flower, known as Cactus, entered the local hotel talent quest. Cactus was known as a prickly sort of woman but underneath the harsh exterior there was a woman who loved a good laugh. She had practiced for weeks her entry and on the night she, Petal and their three girls were there in the pub. Dahlia dreaded what was going to happen as she had been her mother’s sounding board during her lengthy rehearsals. Petal was proud his wife was participating and urged her to every success.
Her entry was the Pheasant Pluckers song. It went really well until she got to the bit about having a pheasant pluck before they went to bed and that pheasant plucking was a pheasant plucking life. The crowd went crazy and Petal thinking his wife was being too risqué for the local pub attempted to pull her from the stage only Cactus wasn’t having a bar of his attentions and pushed him away which sent him careering into multiple tables, beer went flying and in the mass transfusion that occurred Petal crashed into the far wall and the elk antlers that adorned the wall come crashing down on him.
Now normally an event of that kind would have resulted in instant death but Petal and Cactus knew about the fourth rule. That rule being that in an inebriated state falling antlers are more likely to bounce of your head especially one that was as hollow as Petal’s. Sure enough they did and Petal lived to see another day. But he and Cactus had to find another watering hole to drown their sorrows in. Needless to say neither Cactus nor Petal had much pluck left in them after that night. But they did go home feeling like very pleasant pluckers after all Cactus did win the talent quest prize for best performance.
Dahlia went home thinking she’s never again show her face in the town, her sense of family presentiment now heightened beyond belief.
Here is the Pheasant Plucker’s song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m09eEgy2Zhk
Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/wordle-118-july-18th-2016/
Somedays they argue
Like children with a single toy.
I can do it better says one over the other.
It’s the curse, or advantage of having
A male and female muse.
Either way there’s a part of me that decides
Today she will win over him.
I am blessed I can work with either
But I couldn’t exist with neither.
Written for: https://areadingwritr.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/word-high-july-paraluman/
Image: Tom Scholes
The Tower is commonly interpreted as meaning danger, crisis, destruction, and liberation.
This is a card of warning and possibility – create something new from something that ends in the will and limits of time alone. A change that must be, but should be for the good, with our power.
Everyone said you were nice
A good family
Right and proper
Always attending every occasion
Where one should be seen and noticed.
I was naïve amid smiles and curtsies
Appearances grand and proper
To know reality was all
Sticks and stones and broken bones.
Societies role models
Living atop your tower
Your castle on the hill
Where evil bred and festered
Like rats upon a dung heap.
You were the shylock of my fears
Nothing was for nothing
You made that so clear
You extracted every pound of flesh
As painfully as you could
But always with a smile
Always ‘well intentioned’
And always to your advantage.
You found a patsy, a stupid vassal
Whom you nurtured in that role.
Crush and ruin was your mantra
Leaving me shredded staring down
From a top the life you treasured so.
Escape seemed easy
Just a step, then a jump
To take away the pain.
But that pleasure I’ll never afford you
I walked away, head up high,
Pretense I would do no more.
Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/writing-prompt-july-17th-arcana-in-the-tower/
You arrived in confusion
A stranger in a strange land
Held my hand, I was comfort
The only comfort you wanted.
Already I loved you for you.
On cool evenings
We watch sunset’s
Blaze of colour highlight
The distant trees.
We wrap our arms
Around one another
Professing our love.
We are pleasant and intimate companions.
Written for: https://areadingwritr.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/word-high-july-kaulayaw/
Morpethroad 