1 I came, she went, you called.
2 Tooth ache, knee pain, old age.
3 Six silver thistles broke fetid wind.
4 I want you in my bed.
5 Run away quickly, up the tree.
6 The future smiled past sins absolved.
Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/prompt-73-6-words/
This week’s prompt is ‘Lilac Wine’ by The Cinematic Orchestra.
In the centre of my garden lives the Fairy Queen. She is the most serene and beautiful of all fairies. No matter the time of year or climate conditions she never gets flustered. She rules over her Kingdom with complete autonomy, respected and loved by all who live under her domain. I have often spent my mornings in her garden cup of tea in hand as we would chat about the garden, her world and mine.
(If you have read my previous stories about the fairies in my garden you would know that I am the caretaker of the various fairy worlds that exist in my garden)
The Fairy Queen first made herself known to me when I took ownership of this place after my father died some years ago and entrusted me with the responsibility of caring for the fairy worlds both good and bad. Each contributes to my garden in its own unique way.
Hers is a magic world. So often in recent times she has touched my forehead with her finger and instantly I am taken into her world. Here are the most picturesque gardens, vegetation rich in colour and vitality, flowerbeds that proffer a riot of colour; one I have never tired of.
I one corner of her garden is a space where a chessboard consisting of topiary shrubs in the shape of chess pieces.
It is the grandest of sights, the shrubs each immaculately sculptured, and as it is a magic world the pieces are coloured appropriately, half white and half black.
My first sight of this section of the garden left me mesmerised as I thought it the awe-inspiring thing I had ever seen.
The Fairy Queen loves chess. This I discovered as I stood beside her and watched as she waved her arm and a white pawn moved only to be obliterated in a cloud of sparks and singed leaves.
This is far more than a quaint romantic part of her garden, this is a serious game she plays against the black. One day she asked me to stand back as she sat and thought for a moment before again waving her arm and action started, her move countered by the black, the black’s move countered by her own.
Often she gets stumped and says she’ll come back later when she’s considered her next move.
Though she did wink at me one day having noticed my amazement at the game. She remarked that if I thought the normal game was spectacular I should be here when they play speed chess on the first Monday of every month.
The Fairy Queen and I have developed a rapport of the years. I report to her of goings on in other parts of the garden and she sees that any unrest between fairies is addressed and resolved.
Most days I have to say my garden lives in harmony with itself, so what she does is a mystery to me.
At the end of every visit she takes me aside, thanks me for being the garden caretaker and offers me a glass of Lilac Wine.
She has a special garden in which her peacock struts and shows his stuff, quivers when he see the queen and I am always sure of a showing of his magnificent feathers. Of all the places in her garden this one place fascinates me most. There is a magic feel about it, as if there are forces beyond my comprehension at play in this one small space.
She has told me on several occasions not to try and understand it but to accept the magic of the garden.
Every time I drink the Lilac Wine she says in her impish way: ‘Sip it slowly, it will only do you good.’
Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/fairytale-prompt-26/
I have a cactus in my garden
It’s phallic to say the least
As if possessing
The power of an aphrodisiac,
Though none have tried it out.
It’s called the penis cactus
(Causes every one to smile)
You can clearly understand why.
It’s flanked by two companions
One green and quite majestic
The other with a rather, bright red knob.
Impressive is its prowess
Never limp nor flaccid
It stands proudly erect,
Or at least it did.
Like its owner its colours have lowered
Now in expectation, semi prepared,
But ever ready.
I fear nature is telling me something
It has a multiple sets of testes
Seems to be producing more
There’s a message in that to be sure.
Grow a set I was once told
And these I do rejoice in
They are fine and spikey
I smile as you step back
As they are not for fondling at all.
The fact that I was a captive didn’t dawn on me until two days after it actually happened.
I was too sick to think much beyond my immediate urge to throw up at every opportunity.
When an hour passed where I began to think I was coming good at long last, it afforded me the chance to consider my circumstances.
I was in a dark room, I was confronted by a sickly smell which I soon realised was my own vomit.
I didn’t know how long I had been there for.
Time doesn’t seem to matter when you are incarcerated in a black hole.
A door opened away to my right, light poured in, a man in uniform entered, shuffled towards me, stopped looked at me, against the light I couldn’t identify him, he placed a bowl of food on the floor for me.
Food was the last thing I wanted.
Answers to the questions in my head were what I wanted.
Where was I?
Who were my captors?
How did I get here?
What did they want?
Maybe I was in a dream I told myself. Dreams can be so real, but lately I’d been having them with the wrong people in them, like time was all mixed up but then again in dreams time and place can be random. I shook myself as it to clear my head but I was still where I was before I did that.
There was music, confused rhythms, an unmelodic chorus of sounds each emitted from recognisable instruments as if the efforts of the non-musical let loose in the music room to create sounds designed to irritate, initiate, intimate an ultimate demise. It grew in intensity, my ears rang from the assault, louder it became, until I realised I was in the corner, hands over my ears, cringing as if my entire body was under an attack.
Silence.
Sudden.
Abrupt.
A girl entered and stood over me. ‘For a boy you are incredibly stupid. We are playing with your mind, getting inside that space between your ears where not much happens does it? Idiot.’
She left with a smirk on her face as the door closed the music erupted into a fanfare, this time there was some order to it, it was less affronting, less confronting.
Silence.
Sudden.
Abrupt.
Voices:
There was a boy
Whom we thought a toy
He wandered in
But never wandered out
We poked and pushed
We pulled and prodded
He cringed in the corner
We laughed, such a miserable wretch
There was a boy
What’s his name?
Does it matter?
He’s only a boy.
Shrieking laughter echoed through the room
Something fell on me
Then a rain of items
The bombardment continues
I cringed further into the corner.
Silence.
Sudden.
Abrupt.
I felt a hand take mine and lead me to the table.
The hand was warm, comforting,
I feel myself breath a little easier
I was settled, fed, dressed,
Take to a place with a circle of light
Around the light were old people
Wrinkled and crone like.
They revolved around me
Spinning faster and faster
Faster and faster
Just a blur.
Blackout
Silence.
‘Sometimes,’ said a voice. ‘Its hard to distinguish between dream and reality.’
I sat up!
Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/tale-weavers-prompt-26/
I am travelling late
It is been a choice
Children kept me at home.
Now they are grown
I’m planning a few journeys.
For many years my only trip across the sea
Was one side of the harbour to the other.
I have since been to New Zealand
A land of contrasting landscapes
A beauty unique to itself.
A mystery awaits me in the future
Foreign lands, discovery, exploration
A chance to meet up with friends
Ride the Bullet in Japan
View the Tower, the Eiffel,
Be a tourist, camera in hand
Eyes open, mouth agape,
As history unfolds before me.
They say I will enjoy my travels
I plan to do just that
Broaden my horizons
Acquaint myself with cultures different.
So with my trusty bag of meds
I shall wave goodbye
Set off
Down
The road not taken.
Written for: http://dversepoets.com/2014/09/16/poetics-travel-poetry/
Image: Cesar Santos
It’s the morning after the night before
I feel wretched
Used
Abused
Discarded.
You were such a well-mannered boy
Saying all the right words
Doing all that was expected
Chivalrous
Gallant
What happened my love?
I awake and I am alone
No note?
No word?
What am I to think?
What of your promises
The plans we made
Were they just part of your charm?
To simply have your way with me.
It was sensational
You aroused me like no other
Your sensuality left me breathless.
I awoke longing for you again
To feel your touch
Knowing the heights to which you took me,
I ache now
My body neither sated nor pleasured
My mind spins.
What did I miss in you?
How could you dismiss me so?
Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/photo-challenge-26-silver/
This weeks words to work with were:
Vantage Insipid (without distinctive, interesting qualities) Collar Spit Captivity Adrenalin Predicate (to proclaim, assert) Shield Colossus Scratch Mercury Evaporate
My Uncle Harry was on the outside most insipid of men. In many ways he was indistinguishable from the blobs of crap you saw on the pavement as you walked around town. It wasn’t his fault, it was how he was, nature, my mother used to say, can be cruel at times.
Uncle Harry was my dad’s brother and it was probably because my father walked out on us when I was five that my mother predicated such thoughts about her brother in law.
Uncle Harry was well over six feet in height, even when he sat he was tall. He wore starched collars all year round and I would see him most days as he walked along our street on his way to work at the timber yard where he was the company bookkeeper.
From my vantage point perched in my bedroom window I could see all there was to see about Uncle Harry. His height gave him a sense of a colossus, but when I looked behind his grand façade all thoughts of grandeur about my Uncle evaporated.
My mother would often say he wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. She’d argue that an adrenalin rush for Uncle Harry would be getting out of a chair.
To say my mother was somewhat prejudiced of Uncle Harry is to put it mildly.
But he wasn’t totally devoid of personality and interest. I once had to deliver a message to him from mum, as she wouldn’t go near him. He invited me in and I was captivated by the sight of a large shield on the living room wall.
He explained that it was the family shield that his father had made when he was a child. It was an impressive piece of woodwork to say the least. Ornate carvings, gold lettering, a coat of arms of a rising stallion against a setting sun, something I had never seen.
One thing about Uncle Harry’s place struck me. Everything was meticulously clean. Not a speck of dust, not a scratch on any piece of furniture.
Then he showed me his room and my mouth fell open. I was about fifteen when this day occurred. I stood at the door and suddenly realised a lot of things about my Uncle Harry.
He was a single man and no one had ever questioned why but that day I understood a little more about my Uncle Harry. On the walls of his bedroom were poster size images of Freddie Mercury.
Turns out Uncle Harry had met Freddie once and they had become good friends.
I learnt that day that even the most insipid of us can be of interest to others. We just don’t always mix in the same circles do we? Uncle Harry led a solitary life but it was predicated by a love he once knew.
Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/wordle-26/
Miss R lived three doors down
Walked by every day
Spritely was the word we used.
As she aged
She slowed down
Until one day she stepped out
Stopped by our fence
Held onto the post
Breathing heavily
Looked momentarily defeated
As she looked ahead
Her destination
Seemed a light year away.
She struggled on,
Determination written on her face.
I asked her one-day if she was ok
‘I have a bone in my leg.’
It was her standard reply when asked.
Today she hobbled by once again
A third leg, extended from her right hand
Propping her up
Giving her confidence
Returning her independence.
She winked at me as she went by
‘New leg’ she said smiling broadly
‘Spritely eh?’
Miss R, has always been Miss R
No idea what the R stands for
Resilience I would think.
She lives three doors down
Walks by each day
Her three legs working together
Getting her there and back.
Hush!
Hush!
Shhhh!
Hush!
They might hear you.
You don’t want them to know you are here.
You might be lucky and not see them today. But if not…then….then…..beware the puppet master!
Hush!
If they catch you they do things to you.
Odd things.
Tie you with this gold stringy stuff, and you can’t get out of it, it binds you good and proper, and they leave you and you think you’ll never again be free, then you realise they are watching, as you struggle, twist and turn they are there in the background watching.
You think they must be laughing at you because you can think of no other reason to watch someone twist and turn themselves inside out.
I know all this because they caught me once. It was a night I was walking along Shadow Street looking for the Pieman’s shop and they jumped me.
Before I knew it, I was gone.
I was helpless, unable to move as they carried me off.
Its all a bit blurred remembering back, I’m sure there was some drug involved.
They dumped me and I fell, and kept falling, forever it seemed. Then I landed and the thump hurt my knee. I lay there, terrified, unable to move.
It was black as pitch but in the blackness there was a hum, and behind the hum a distant thump, thump, thump.
It was a soft hum, away to my left, it stayed constant, around me there was nothing I could feel, just the hum in my ears and the distant thump, thump, thump.
I rolled thinking I would find a wall but I didn’t, there was nothing only the hum and the distant thump, thump, thump.
My hands hurt from the bonds that bound me, they dug into my skin, the rolling had filled my nose with dirt.
The entire place was eerie. The hum was my only companion, where and what was it I asked myself. A machine? In time the hum seemed to throb in my ears, it drowned out the thump thump thump, then it would diminish to a soft almost soothing hum as if caressing me into a state of compliance.
Then a light came on. Brilliant, white light, blinding and the hum there in the background.
I was picked up, my bonds cut, blood flowed to my hands, I sensed relief.
They carried me to a room in which stood a huge green fountain, spewing out green water, it was mesmerising, a green like I had never seen before.
Then around the fountain I saw them. Looking at me, standing there, watching and all the while the hum was behind them.
I was lifted into the fountain, the green water washed over me, the sensation was like no other I had felt before, like my soul was being cleaned, my mind cleared of all and any obstacles.
The hum increased in volume, the thump thump thump became louder as well, they were swaying in time, eyes on me, bodies gyrating.
Then the water stopped, I was lifted and placed on a bed, my clothing was in tatters, my mind a swirl of thoughts, physically I was incapable of resistance.
Once on the bed they approached me, bent over my body, removing the bits of tattered cloth revealing my nakedness, I felt their feather like limbs running the length of my body, the sensation mind blowing.
I became aware of them peering into my eyes, as though they were looking into my brain, so intense was it my eyes burned until a bolt of pain wracked through me.
I awoke to find myself in Shadow Street. Yes I felt odd indeed. I recovered enough to feel myself all over, relieved that everything seemed to be where it should be. My clothing now repaired lay beside me.
It took awhile to understand what it was that was wrong. Even dressing and standing up to look around, relived that I was away from them could shake from me the feeling that I was now somehow different.
It was the hum. It was still there, between my ears, humming away. Thankfully the thump, thump, thump had stopped.
I didn’t sleep for several days, fear does that to you. I don’t know why its still there but it is and now after all this time I am used to it.
Occasionally it gets a little louder, I suspect to remind me that they are still around, watching.
So hush!
Don’t let them hear you.
Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/prompt-72-sister-awake/
Today’s prompt is the word : funny.
Funny how things happen. Yesterday my daughter arrived at my house with her two small boys in toe. Jack the eldest came through my back door and I was puzzled as to who it was and that after hearing the door open there was no arrival. I got up to find him standing there with a big grin on his face as his very pregnant mother down the path holding the hand of his younger brother.
They didn’t stay long as they were delivering linen orders, my new sheets had arrived and I must say they are very impressive sheets, ‘supima’ cotton, very soft and very smooth, almost satin like. I look forward to trying them out.
This morning I receive a message from my eldest daughter to say pregnant daughter is in labour. Now there is the wait to see when this boy will arrive, it is a boy; we know that already, she will have three boys under three. I did too, but I also had three older ones by the time that happened so I had a bit of help in that regard.
And I think it is funny how fate and time can change things. Within hours of her being here she has gone into labour and with a few more hours another child will come into the world and our lives will be all the more richer for the arrival.
This will be grandchild number eight for me. Another birthday to remember, another coin set to be purchased, I don’t buy my gkids toys they have every toy imaginable as it is. Sometimes I give them books, but each one gets a coin set on their birthdays. By the time they are 18 if I am still able they will have a set that may be worth something to them.
So now I wait, thinking it is funny how things turn out sometimes and how quickly it can all happen.
In the back of my daughter’s car there are three seats all buckled in. When I asked Jack who the third seat was for he said it was ‘Peanuts’. So come on down Peanut, come join our family, we are all awaiting your arrival.
P.S. At 2.12 this afternoon, Australian Eastern time, Beau Edward arrived into the world.
Mum, dad, brothers and new son all doing well. Grandad is ok too.
Written for: http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-september-1314/
Morpethroad 