This entry is another stand-alone, and on the surreal side - again at exactly 100 words.
The photo prompts:
WHERE THE WATER TAKES YOU
You wake alone.
Where is the mysterious woman who had lured you into her house and pleasure bed?
After you dress, the strange little girl appears there.
"Look in the garden," she says.
Yes. There she is – still beautiful, but not in the flesh – in cold, hard stone.
“No. There.” The strange girl points to the fountain.
A sunbeam strikes the cascade, and in the rainbow, her lovely face.
From the mist she beckons to you with her arms, eyes, lips, . . .
“Yes!” the strange girl encourages you.
You remove your clothes and step through the watery curtain.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I wrote this in present tense to heighten the sense of weirdness, then at the last minute decided to oonch it up another notch by changing the PoV from first person to second. Good idea? Bad? What do you think?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Reduced to a haiku
You long for her once
More, and find her waiting in
The fountain of love
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
UPDATE: Taking some inspiration from Bjorn's post, I also tried my hand at a Triolet. It feels a bit forced, so I'm less than thrilled with the not-quite-satisfactory result.
Remembering a single night of love
You seek the elusive loving stranger.
Can there be a destiny to prove,
Remembering a single night of love?
You heed the little girl and do not leave,
But search the garden heedless of its danger,
Remembering a single night of love
You seek the elusive loving stranger.
I love how you always end your Visual Dare entries with a haiku or small poem encapsulating the core theme and tang of the piece. Such a wonderfully creative way to extend the boundaries of what you do here.
ReplyDeleteLike you said elsewhere - most of the entries this week have been tinged with sadness; yours is hopeful, elusive, mysterious, tantalizing - an excellent spin on the prompts - and all three of them, to boot! Job well done! :)
Hi, and thank you for visiting my blog and being inspired by my poetry. triolets are wonderful pieces of poetry, and a great way to vary from sonnets and more heavy forms.
ReplyDeleteBjörn
Thanks, both of you.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite captivated by the beauty of the statue, and it looks as if it could be the little girl, grown up.
I'm not quite sure what is gong on in this vignette. I think the little girl and the elusive lover are manifestations of the same entity. I wanted the statue to fade out of existence when he saw the face in the fountain [though I don't know why] but couldn't fit it in the word limit.
Cheers!
JzB