Līgo Haibun Challenge – Word Prompt – Childhood

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Michael

This week’s prompts: childhood or deluded.

Childhood

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The 7am news blasts out from the old Bakelite wireless, our way of staying touch with the outside world. Mum has it playing loud for two reasons, so she can hear it and to remind us kids that its time to be getting up and readying for school.

It’s part of our education, One November morning a President is assassinated, on a cold winters morning my mother greets me with the news the Pope has died.

My environment is the street I live in, the backyard where serious cricket matches are held, where solo test matches are conducted up against the stairs, an old oiled bat, a pair of ill fitting pads on my shins and a ball that has been struck to many parts of my yard, a dog eared score book records each game played as much in my head as on the pages.

Easter arrives and dad’s sisters arrive, we wait for them in the cool April evening, the train puffs in, they alight, we are keen for their visit.

Childhood was radio, newspapers, neighbours, school days and bikes. Made up games and friends a bike ride across town.

We never wanted for what we didn’t know, a neighbour had a phone, a three-digit number was all it took. We managed in our own ignorance of so much that today we take for granted.

gathered at the stove

winter evenings spent toasting

it was what we knew

Written for: http://esengasvoice.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/ligo-haibun-challenge-word-prompt-10/

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Prompt #79 Surprise!

Posted on November 2, 2014 by Michael

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You thought and said I was inept.

Such a nice quiet man

I heard you call me

To friends, family

Anyone who’d listen.

Too busy with the children

To preoccupied with the house

The renovations,

The kid’s commitments

The need to be good at my job

The hours of prep

Far to absorbed

To look sideways.

The harassed husband

The man who’d make some woman a good wife one day

I was derided as

But you didn’t know

Why would you?

Where you thought I was tied up all day every day
I knew you were

That ever wanting need

To be the best

To walk over anyone in your way

Including me.

The abuse and terror

When things weren’t your way

When being at home

Meant being at war.

I don’t regret my actions

I don’t regret stepping out

I enjoyed every moment

Thrilled and loaded with expectation

She listened and then loved.

Ours was a marriage

Where I didn’t matter

A glorified housekeeper and baby sitter

Apart from my innate use as a whipping post.

Upon discovery years later

You expressed an embarrassed surprise.

The stunned silence shattered in a way only you could contrive

‘So who was it found you so attractive?’

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/prompt-79-surprise/

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Prompt for SoCS November 1/14 – Memory

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Michael

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This week’s prompt is ‘memory’

What is memory? It’s something we all have and we all like to exercise.

Some people treasure their memories because they live in them so much.

Others want to forget and expunge memory from their minds.

For some of my life I lived in a ‘remember when’ sort of family. It was remarked upon once and I’ve never forgotten the remark.

At first I was chuffed that such a label could be put upon us and then later, some years later I realised how destructive living in the past can be.

To do so often stymies moving forward. Sometimes the memories are so vivid and such a part of your life that to move forward will mean giving up on some memory as if it didn’t matter any more and for some folk their memories are who they are.

It does come in handy when you speak to your children about what it was like when you grew up.

“What was it like in the olden days? I was once asked. To my horror I must admit, as I never considered myself to be old. More like from another age.

I remember once there was a task in a class I was teaching about what made you the person you are and most of the students wrote about the life they had, their connections with family and their ambitions for the future.

When it was my turn they were fascinated to learn about my life as a teenager, how ‘deprived’ they thought I was as there was no technology, as they know it, the phone was on the street corner, we read newspapers and listened to the radio.

Your friends were the people you went to school with and your entire social life centred around the school and the street you lived in. Not everybody had a car and public transport was the only was to go.

Memory has afford me with a plethora of story, a bank of experiences that I can draw on from time to time and hopefully continue to embellish.

Written for: http://lindaghill.com/2014/10/31/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-november-114/

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Fairytale Prompt #32 – Creepus Deepus

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Michael

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BEWARE CREEPS FROM THE DEEP!!!

That sign marks the start of the road to our place. The deep refers to the deep forest where we live.

Once we lived in town until great grandmother had a dispute with the Wicked Witch over the supply of Exuberance essence. Seems the Wicked Witch wanted more than grandmother was prepared to deliver as it is a very potent essence and in the wrong hands, primarily the Wicked Witches it could be lethal to all concerned.

The result was the creep spell she cast on our family. It’s our scaly skin and pusulating pores and I am told pungent odour that have placed us in the persona non grata category of society.

Even so we still carry on our business the same one which got us into this spot of bother, sorry about the pun.

We are magic herbalists. We are in great demand and we bring a lot of secondary business to the local community.

From a back room in which my grandmother then my mother brewed the potions to cure a myriad of ailments we have grown to have now a very attractive service area, a shop if you like displaying the wares, the potions, the spells in a well, a novelty item my dad thought of to attract children as the spells you can draw from the well are all fairly non life changing.

We are in ourselves quite a curiosity to all who visit us. Recently we were awarded our own genus type, Creepus Deepus.

We were not so taken by the formality of that title but as mum said after they could have labelled us Hideous Sightus.

At least Creepus Deepus does have something you can work with and its since become the brand name we apply all our products.

Our newest product is one we have kept for ourselves, an Illusion potion, a capful each morning and in no time we could be mistaken for film stars. It has ensured a much more regular trade, prior to the Illusion Potion it would be normal for one member of a family to enter the shop and then relate the experience to their family rather than risk the possibility of traumatising the entire family.

Weekends we do a roaring trade, busloads turn up at our doors, we run tours of the place which dad loves doing though he does take a bit of effort to clean up despite the Illusion Potions best efforts but he scrubs up well enough to run the tours as opposed to the tourists running from him.

He loves the banter with the good people who drop by, dad is a born salesman, as we say he could sell ice to Eskimos plus he gets on occasion to test out some new potion he has been working on to a visitor willing to try a dab of this cream on a particular sore they may have on them just to see what might happen when its applied.

He has achieved some fascinating results. One small rotund man had some of dad’s Creepus Deepus Thinning Lotion applied to his head and it worked a treat on the mans head reducing it to half the size it was when he arrived. We all had a good laugh about it, that’s the thing with trial and error dad said after there’s often more error than trial but in the end all was good the man was happy to take away a free Creepus Deepus baseball cap, in the smallest size I must add.

The business has expanded to an online service now giving new meaning to the saying ‘Your products are winging their way to you.’ Mum’s Fairy Wing Potion has found a new application and she is thrilled with that, as it has saved a lot in postage.

I must say though that the fairy potions are always popular, every Friday dad and mum brew up a fresh batch in readiness for the influx of would be fairies on the weekend. Not everyone is cut out to be a fairy, the potion only works on a few which is a good thing as we’d probably be out of business plus there’d be fairies everywhere and where would be the magic in that?

By Sunday evening we are all in a state of exhaustion. The till is usually full and we are in need of a good lancing all over and a good lie down with a few hot poultices placed strategically.

It is good of a Sunday night to look at each other as we really are, and give thanks it could always be worse.

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/fairytale-prompt-32/

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MTB– The things we see – Silent Sentinel.

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Michael

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Standing sentinel

In my ancient yard

Your rustic metal frame

Sturdy, designed to last,

Friendly in appearance, but,

Needing a cushion or two

For your seat is rock hard

No compromise in that respect.

What are you seeing?

The cattle graze endlessly

The lurking bull awaiting his chance

When pheromones permit action.

The beauty of new life,

Calves prancing and dancing

The distress of the mothers

Their plaintive lowing

When their calves are taken.

You acknowledge

The ducks on the pond,

The water hens

The prowling hawk

As he swoops along the creek

The snakes that slither silently

All share with you

The same outlook.

I join you from time to time, watch

Morning sunrise

The pink brilliance

Of sunset.

The passing birdlife

Some days eye to eye with a bovine or two

Never a dull moment.

We lament the workers

Their daily grind as together

As we idly watch the day drift by.

Written for: http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/30/mtb-the-things-we-see/

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Tale Weaver’s Prompt #32 “The Velveteen Rabbit” – Jasper

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Michael

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Image: Aranda Dill@Deviant Art

When Will was born I thought he would be the one to give Jasper to.

Jasper is my teddy, the one I had as a child, the one I have carried with me all these years.

When I was three I contracted Rheumatic Fever and my father came to the hospital one night with Jasper in a brown paper bag. He placed it in my bed to keep me company during the night.

The next day he came by the see me and saw that Jasper was still in my bed. I told him that I had woken up and found him in my bed, snuggled up against me.

‘He does that,’ my father said.

Jasper and I became inseparable. I carried him everywhere, slept with him and cared for him, as I am sure he did for me.

One day I noticed one of his eyes had fallen out. We searched everywhere but never found the lost eye. Mum offered to sew in two new ones but I said no, it would change his character and so Jasper became my one eyed teddy.

A few years later one of his arms was partially dislodged when my brother and I had a dispute over possession. Thankfully mum could sew a few stitches into his arm so it looked like he still had two, but I felt the repaired arm was more decoration than real.

I carried him with me through life and when we last moved my wife did remark about my penchant for hanging on to the past. I did point out that we were moving back to my family home purchased from my brothers and sister and she was more than happy for that to happen.

So today Will is also ill. Laid low by another of the bugs that’s appear to haunt small boys, high temp, cough, croaky voice, generally feeling very miserable and my heart goes out to him lying there in his bed looking for forlorn.

I place Jasper beside him as his drifts off into sleep hoping he will stay that way until morning.

I awaken to the sounds of not only the myriad of birds chirping in the trees outside but the sounds of my son chatting in his bed.

Venturing down the hallway I listen to his animated voice, interspersed with that long forgotten nasally twang I remember from so long ago.

I go to the room of Will’s room and look in at my son lying on his back with Jasper on his chest, the two looking intently at each other.

‘I see you’ve met jasper,’ I say as I enter

‘Yes daddy, he was here when I woke up. His arm was around my neck.’

‘Yes Will he does that.’

‘I love him daddy. What happened to his eye?’

And so I begin the tale of Jasper and how I came to have him.

I told my son that Jasper was his to love and care for as I had done.

Will listened and then breathed in deeply and said ‘Thanks Daddy, I’ll love and care for him.’

I smiled down at my son as he looked loving at his newly acquired teddy, the one eyed Jasper. I hope he would have the fun and adventures I did.

I somehow felt he would.

Will felt well enough to get up that morning, it wasn’t long and he was running around the house, Jasper under one arm showing him the lie of the house and where his toys were kept.

It was a wonderful day, so good to see my sick son well again and happy as well.

That night as I tucked him into bed and kissed him good night, he held Jasper close to his chest as he drifted off into a well-earned rest.

I looked at Jasper, the one eyed teddy who had been a part of my life for so long and saw his one eye blink at me.

Or was it a wink?

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/tale-weavers-prompt-32/

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Scribe’s Cave Picture Prompt #45 – The Hand

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Michael

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Image: c.1800. wooden prosthetic hand

Mum announced that for our family holiday we had rented an old house that had a history of things that go bump in the night.

The thought of a relaxing week away from the hustle and bustle of our normal lives went out the window as we looked about and contemplated the coming first evening with trepidation.

We all went to bed anticipating something that night. Around midnight the hairs on the back of my neck rose sharply when I realised there was something touching my arm.

It was a terrible moment I wanted to scream but couldn’t, wanted to run but my legs refused to move.

The scratching on my arm was real, I knew there was something there, I put my hand on it and felt the cold wooden fingers, wrap themselves around my own hand tightly.

Unable to pull away I finally screamed, waking the entire household bringing mum, dad, my brother all-rushing into my room.

They stood around my bed looking at me as I huddled trembling under my blankets, my hands clasped around the left hand of my wooden doll Jemima.

Written for: http://caveofscribes.starvingactivist.com/2014/10/27/scribes-cave-picture-prompt-45/

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Poetics – War Poetry – Mother

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Michael

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Mother its hell over here

The whizz, the whine of bullets,

The constant deafening roar

It never lets up;

Fear my constant companion.

Men around me cry

Mortality beckons them.

Gasping, gagging I hear them

Pleading for help

Begging for mothers

As lives ebb away.

Boys my age

I weep for them

Their silence is welcomed

Their misery ended.

I thought to make a difference

Such foolishness long gone.

Replaced by man’s degradation,

His fellow man

Reduced to cannon fodder.

Knee deep in mud

I struggle through each day

Wondering

Will I see a green field again?

Its hell over here Mother.

Written for: http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/28/poetics-war-poetry/

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Haibun Thinking – October 28th 2014

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Michael

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Image: © Arthur Browne

I’ve travelled half a world to this point. We sit here in silence beside the memory pool.

My mind casts back to those hot languid days last summer where in the sweltering heat we lay about listening to old Dylan music and you told me the meaning of each song, sang along with the nasally warbler as he laboured his way through songs I knew others had done so much more justice to.

You never ceased to surprise me by knowing his thoughts, his motivations for writing what he did. How did you know that stuff?

Again in the winter with the wind howling outside we sat huddled before the fire discussing the reasons why some art works are art in your opinion and some are mere drawings, photographs with little to no artistic merit.

In keeping with the weather that night our conversation was chilly to say the least, arguing long into the night the futility of my argument and the merits of your own.

Now in the quiet of this pond, I meditate on all that has past and wonder why I am still with you. As I look about the trees stand tall, the gentle breeze rustles the leaves, the sounds of nature echo around me and I like this brief moment of tranquillity before I am sure you’ll begin discussing aesthetics.

meditate upon

serenity abounds in nature

a moment of quiet

Written for: http://haibunthinking.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/haibun-thinking-october-28th-2014/

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Photo Challenge #32 “Contained”

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Michael

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Diphylla@Deviant Art

Safely contained

Petrified to step out

Afraid to venture

A fairy-tale princess

You wish,

Cocooned in your own fish bowl.

I’ve watched you

Read your words

Your self-flagellation

A pretence,

A barrier

Figment of your imagination.

Is it fear of the unknown?

Guilt of past sins?

A game your mind plays

On you

With you?

Where you ponder the world outside

Speculate

Postulate

Tighten your self appointed restraints

Until you stymie yourself.

You cannot move forwards nor backwards

Stuck, terrified

Denial is all embracing.

Should I reach out once more?

Offer refuge

Love

Perspective?

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/photo-challenge-32-contained/

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