Wordle 198

Link

Some Thoughts on Life Love and Pain

we‘re wound together

like brambles of a thorn bush

i will not wound you

~:~

for a brief moment

our tumble in the hay loft

i’m falling for you

~:~

my moth to your flame

scent of lust that you emit

might be pheromones

~:~

she promised her love

on a lamb’s wool filled with fleas

i was fleeced on fleece

~:~

i sang her love songs

rasping loud and out of tune

not a sound idea

~:~

after the cloud burst

in clothes all wet and clingy

she burst into tears

~:~

ink stamp on paper

this official document

does it seal our love

~:~

once like an hour glass

now so much sand has drifted

more like a tumbler

~:~

your love has wandered

I can fill that empty spot

until he returns

~:~

in a still moment

i could instill in your heart

loving thoughts for me

~:~

left for another

bring the pieces of your heart

i will comfort you

~:~

with my silliness

am i the joy of your life

or just a sad clown

Sunday Wordle 197 and Imaginary Garden Flash 55

The Wordle words

day   race   state   spend
spread   rescue   tickling   humility
cloud   patron   measure   host

Flash 55 from The Garden - Plus

Imagined by Kerry O'Connor:
"I promised to add an optional extra every month, for those who prefer some direction for their writing to take. This time I have decided to share a form I devised (based on the Robert Herrick Stanza which we explored as a mini-challenge in 2012) which has exactly the correct number of words needed to complete this challenge.

Word count: 8 – 6 – 8 – 6 – 2 – 6 – 2 – 5 – 7 – 5"

~~::~~ 

DEMOCRACY

the day of the race for state office

look what they spend to spread

a tickling word salad designed to cloud judgment

spewed with little thought no thought

of humility

only to give each rich patron

his measure

never to rescue the voters

that angry ignorant flock of bleating sheep

that host of fatally uninformed

 ~~::~~

I wrote this in under 5 minutes.  Sadly, it is not a work of fiction.

Sunday Whirl - Wordle 124

My twisted brain wanted very much to make something obscene from this week's words.  But I reined in the beast and came up with this, instead.

~~::~~

We were close to her place when the storm hit.  But the rain fell so fast and hard that her flyaway hair was quickly plastered wet onto the sides of her head. In the gathering dark, her feathery locks were transformed into an oiled-looking mat.

We heard shouts from the other surprised pedestrians when sparks flew from a nearby transformer, and the gathering darkness suddenly deepened into inky gloom.

Finally, on her porch, she groped in her purse for the key, then exclaimed, "I've lost the key hole - oh, here it is."

When we were inside, she lit a few candles.  I watched the scarlet flames flicker and sway while she examined herself in a mirror.  Then she turned to me, wet, bedraggled and full of doubt.

"I am a sight," she said.

"No, my dear," I said, sweeping her into my arms, "You are a vision."

~~::~~

wordle 124

The Sunday Whirl

Wordle 101

~ : ~

in the desert
bent by the unbroken wind
a single gnarled tree

~ : ~

in the desert
country music is sung by
the wayward wind

~ : ~

in the desert
is a mirage a trick
of the eye or mind

~ : ~

in the desert
coyote travels disguised
but wolf does not

~ : ~

in the desert
an ever-shifting dunescape
wound by the wind

~ : ~

in the desert
like yesterday and today
all days bleached and sere

~ : ~

in the desert
old bones lie forgotten
bleached by the sun

~ : ~

in the desert
follow fox and not coyote
for the way across

~ : ~

in the desert
cacti live for decades
no need to hurry

~ : ~

in the desert
beneath a broken glass jar
spider spins her web

~ : ~

in the desert
if you wait long enough
all things turn to sand

~ : ~

in the desert
amid cactus and primrose
my cold heart is stirred

Sunday Whirl -- Wordle 97

Wordle 97

Discipline

I'm still working on
The discipline of patience
Always reaching out too soon
For what might on its own
Fly to me if only I would wait


But, no - I would be heroic
And spurn the wise prophets
Who council reticence, restraint
Tell me refrain from stealing pieces
Of what tears when clutched too tight


So I am still left alone gazing
Upon those rare happy couples
Who define their sphere of influence
By the limits of his yang, her yin
At that sublime moment of love

Sunday Whirl

Wordle 87

I wasn't going to do it this way.  I've already spoken out, and  Mystic handled it with such power and grace.  I wanted to do something frivolous, magical, enigmatic  .  .  .

I thought it might be fun to find a phrase to start each of 13 haiku to employ our baker's dozen words.  So I went to page 56 of my old paperback copy of Charles deLint's short story collection The Ivory And The Horn, and in the story "The Forest Is Crying" found this sentence.  "So he only had two images of them: down and out, or dressed in khaki, carrying an assault rifle."

Then the wordle words cried out to me.  So I cooperated with the inevitable. And now I am crying.

Reflections at Sandy Hook

An assault rifle
Quickest way to top off
Your list of victims

An assault rifle
speaks.  Now no way to lighten
Grief for those families

An assault rifle
Brings to visibility
A madman's sickness

An assault rifle
Speaks. Nothing to listen to
But report and screams

An assault rifle
Blast signalling the end of
An innocent life

An assault rifle
Slicks the corridors with pools
Of innocent blood

An assault rifle
Leaves no time for a gentle
Sigh - just violent death

An assault rifle
Speaks death.  Responder rushes
To the scene  .  .  .  Too late

An assault rifle
Scratches at the psychopath's
Wild murderous itch

An assault rifle
Left no doubt about how the
event unfolded

An assault rifle
Reflected in the glassy
Stare of madman's eyes

An assault rifle
Pierces a milky tableau
Leaving children dead

An assault rifle
And predictably we have
One more tragic end

The Sunday Whirl - Wordle 86

On Tuesday.  As Ford Prefect once said, "Time is an illusion."  Link up here.

This array at first looked to be intractable, so I let it rest for a day.  Late last night I decided to compose a series of haiku with a common first line that illuminates the mythos of my developing story. In the Wikipedia article on Fairies there is a section heading "A Hidden People."  Five syllables and very close to what I needed.  After a little editing this morning, and arranging into what I think is the proper sequence, here they are.

The hidden people

Live in a magical space

Not so far from us.

The hidden people

Might coast overhead on their

Diaphanous Wings.

The hidden people

Have never forged steel weapons

Just obsidian.

The hidden people

Prefer bland climate; coats fit

Poorly over wings.

The hidden people

Know magic is old hat and

Weave spells from spirits.

The hidden people

Display the entire spectrum

Of green in their eyes.

The hidden people

Have innate eroticism;

They don't mate for life.

The hidden people

Will be relentless when they

Don't know what they seek.

The hidden people

seem delicate but can have

Power over us.

The hidden people,

Not fecund, tap into our

rampant fertility.

The hidden people

Can rejuvenate us with

The power of love

The hidden people

Suffer from stress and whither

If trapped in our world.

Sunday Whirl

Wordle 85.  On Monday.   I am not perfect.

This time, I'm exploring the strange and unexpected turn Cheryl's life has taken since the seduction by her not-quite-human paramour.  This story is developing in ways that are no more planned than Cheryl's pregnancy, so it all might seem a bit choppy.   As yet, there is only one glaring inconsistency, and so far nobody knows about it but me - and Cheryl's illicit lover, whoever or whatever he might be.

This is, I think, the 5th meme that I have used for inspiration among the 4 threads of this story.  The Wordle words are highlighted in this 144 word vignette.  For context, you can click the "Cheryl's thread" link at the end of the post or in the right hand frame.

SEPARATIONS

They parted at the footbridge.  Cheryl walked alone through the trees, then glanced back past the FORK in the path, but he was gone, as she knew he would be.  Her mood WAXED to MANIC joy at the thought of the new life taking form [though a strange form it would surely be] inside her, the by-blow of this weird and unexpected AFFAIR, then crashed to FORLORN despair.

Now she had a dual identity, with her life HEWN into mundane and eutre fragments that could never FUSE, nor even have anything to do with each other.  The worst of this CLASH was that Gil could never FIND out.

The SAND of the unpaved lot scrunched under her tires as she started the long DRIVE home.  She knew what Gil would DESIRE when she arrived, and had only a few short hours to compose herself.

 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Reduced to a haiku

 Now so wildly torn,
What can she make of her life
In two worlds apart?

 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

As a Six Word Story*

 Cheryl
Walked back,
A changed woman.

*Discovered

Via Link

At Jasmine Calyx

 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Cheryl's thread

Sunday Wordle #80

The Sunday Whirl

A shot at minimalism: the 12 target words all used in a 17 word 
sentence Dedicated to Red State Republican Legislators.

We men think of a way - or wish for that power: women bound within a single damaged thread.

~    ~    ~

Twelve Haiku

First lines extracted from

 A RECOLLECTION by John Peale Bishop

The Sunday Whirl - Wordle 79

Taking a cue from Mystic*, I've decided to use each of this week's wordle words in a haiku, and start each haiku with a phrase extracted from a poem.  The poem I've selected is one of my own original sonnets (all rights reserved.)  Thus, a restrictive form based on restrictive inputs.  I think the results seem not only solipsistic, but a bit forced - and perhaps that is the point.

Thirteen Wordle-based Haiku

Force of destiny:

All the universe condensed

in a single FERN.

There are those whose lives

Have simply HAPPENED. Have they

no living Purpose?

Two curves in perfect

Alignment - goblets in my

Cocktail CABINET.

Their closed circumference:

Is it their SHELTER from harm,

Or are they hermits?

In each cycle once,

Then fasten the next widget;

My JOB is my life.

Born a decade late

For my destiny - now what

Do you RECOMMEND?

The distant echo

Of an unseen FACE - and now

Who would take her place?

Who will be the one

This Halloween to bring me

My Circus PEANUTS?

If in the vast span

Of time we might meet, would it

Be in a CAFE?

The farthest corner

Would not seem so far if you

Would just be my GUIDE.

Choice and fate converge.

You are the apex. But can

You HANDLE this truth?

Meant to be entwined,

We FACE life's vagaries armed

Only with our love.

Love's sweet spiral bind

is built not just of spirit,

But our STURDY limbs.

The Sunday Whirl - Wordle 64

Gazing into her crystal ball, The Seer discovers this future news flash.

Later this year, certain housewives will, as Rind did to Odin*, spurn balls in drawers.

To the ignorant, this sting will feel like conjugal subtracting for eternity; though it is only a few months until they desist in the Fall. 

[Somehow, I feel as though I should apologize for this, but I'm not going to.]

* I am not making this up. 

Find The Sunday Whirl here.

A Sunday Whirl - Wordle 63

My first shot at this little word game.  Read all about it here.

I've composed a cryptic and very short story using the 12 specified words, and an even more cryptic poem using only those 12 words.  You can tell me if they make any sense.

SNAPSHOTS

I don't know who sent me the snapshots. A gesture of blackmail, I suppose.  What do they want from me?  It's left me hanging.

In them my lips touch the skin of the thin woman I stand next to.  No - I won't utter the name of that .  .  . other. 

Oh, what cruel and devious art.

=========================

HANGING

Snapshots sent. 
Gesture?
Hanging art?
Stand.   Utter.
Other thin lips touch skin.


 Whirl Along Here.