20 - always

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Always (blank),” replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “Always on My Mind,” “Always Wrong,” “Always Writing Poems That Don’t Sound as Good the Next Day,” etc.

Always, So Far, Another Day



We get so used to this.
My eyes open, read the titles of the books next to my bed.
And my body there, still - all ten fingers, all ten toes.

Lucky.

And standing.  Every day is a little bit different.
So much the same.  And here - a fleece cover, for the morning.

We are sensitive to it - the degrees of warmth
or cool in the light.  It is always just right.
Just as it should be.

We know, because we get so used to this.
The way November, for us, who have homes,
who have socks and coffee, who don't need
to think about the parables of Jesus to pass
early winter's nighttime hours on the corner
downtown
at 71

- I could use some shoes -

is perfect.  Always.

25 - wildlife management

For today’s prompt, take a poem from earlier in the challenge (that you’ve written) and remix it. You could take a free verse poem and re-work it into a villanelle or shadorma. You could re-work multiple poems into a new one. You could take a line from one of the poems and write a response poem to it. Or you can take it in an entirely different direction.

What's a shadorma?
Let's find out.

Shadorma is a Spanish 6-line syllabic poem of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllable lines respectively. Simple as that.

Okay then.  Let's try it.


I have fish
the pond drew raccoons
And my birds
eat fish too
I hung the birdhouse out front
white cats wait below

23 - salmon thing

For today’s prompt, write an “I shouldn’t be here” poem. You can decide where you shouldn’t be: maybe it’s a place, maybe it’s a time, or maybe (just maybe) it’s a state of mind. Shake yourself loose in a poem.

I Shouldn't Be Here

Here I am again.
Right back in the same damn spot.

Every thing I own was touched, packed, unpacked, settled back east.
Then touched, packed, unpacked, settled right back here.

Should I be there?
Vice President of Something.
Inventor or Artist or Wife or Mother.

Then again, maybe I should be here.
In November, leaping upstream.

Right back where I started.
Thicker.  My expression settled.
Possibilities abandoned.

Maybe I should be here.
An imperative of some kind.  Unclear, but firm.

It has to be good enough that I made it
- once -
All the way out to the open sea.

22 - Suckerfish

For today’s prompt, write a poem using at least three of the following six words:

• ideogram
• remora
• casket
• eclipse
• selfie
• wretch

All too easy.  wretch, eclipse, casket.
Going with ideogram, remora, eclipse.
Funny - either set of words describes the books I'm working on.


Okay.

Suckerfish

The remora has figured it out.
Eat shit.  Don't rock the boat.
Don't take too much.
Swim along, attached, unnoticed.
Go where the host goes.
Get places that way.  See the world.
Parasitic, but modest, elegant in its way.
Become part of the ideogram -
a flourish, like a tail, or a tale -
that changes the meaning just slightly.

Regardless what comes,
- even as the moon
blocks out the sun,
stay there and - gently - take what you can.

No one will even know you're there.
This is one way to make it in this world.

stupid.  I'm not doing a poem a day I'm doing six poems a day every five days.  oh well.  ... tomorrow I'll catch up.

clearing some hurdles anyway.

zzzzz4now

Alright.  world's fasted catchup.  well then.  time for soup.

19lovepoem

For today’s prompt, write a love poem.

I can only hope you know

as I will never tell you.

It is not fatal

but it is serious.

It is not serious

but is sweet.

That you are there

though never here

matters.

It matters more than most things.

You are a direction, perhaps not mine,

but for you I align and sing and go on.

18weirdone

For today’s prompt, write a “forget what I said earlier” poem. This poem could be a response to a poem you wrote earlier in the challenge (or just earlier in general). Or it could cover one of those moments–I have them all the time–when you say something that ends up proving wrong or that you wish you’d taken back.

(weird one).

Forget what I said earlier.

I'm a damn liar.

I can use a shotgun.

I keep a holster under my dress.

I have no particular fondness

for the clink of a tea cup

or for the sound of boots up the back steps.

I don't see things like you do.

And I don't care about that. 

Or about you much.

We're blood.

That's all.

I bequeath you my wrists

their quickness.

Don't believe the stories.  Go.

Give me back to my time.

17 - element of sleep

For today’s prompt, write an element poem. Maybe an element from the periodic table (hydrogen, oxygen, etc.). Maybe an element of surprise?!? Or a missing element, which could refer to a person, tool, or poem. Run wild with it.

The Element of Sleep

I came up with this title
whenever it was I awoke
and however I did I thought
that sleep is only knowable
in the return from sleep
in the reconstruction of the self
using wanweed and the cry of an egret

and from this and fabric
the touch of fabric

you put together your entire
story

and when you stand on your feet
cold, little,
and separate the blinds
and see no one there
not one soul stirring
you know you are back

because the sidewalk is wet
and it is real and for awhile
you, yourself, were not.
or you were
and now you are not.

but the tree is there
and that means a lot
and everything
- all of it -
is okay.

16 - Half Way

For today’s prompt, write a half-way poem. The poem might deal with a half-way point in time. Or perhaps, a place in the dead center of here and there–in a physical sense. Even a compromise on terms in a negotiation can work.

Halfway in catching up?

Carrying on....


Half Way

I wonder if I was right
- too drunk to be swimming, testing irony there - 
when, in a river in Vermont, in the middle of summer, in the middle of the night I knew
I was RIGHT in the middle of my life.  The exact moment.  That exact pass of water.

I sank under, testing
would my iron heart would sink me

- why did it not? - 
my chest filled with the lead of her name
my veins circulated, barely, black-thickened wine
my despair was a rock, weighty and wet
that was to be my name, alone until the end.

What did I want?  To be at the end
and not in the middle?

I felt for sure the star above - I could see it from under the surface -
 was the star
I should see RIGHT in the exact middle of my life

and to prove it
I didn't drown too.

15 - what I knew

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “What (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “What Luck,” “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas,” “Whatever You Say,” and so on.



What I Knew

I was an odd child who was in love.
This I knew and I knew
I loved the distressed mess of oak leaves
that a peacock brushed through during the night
that ochre field greyed shuffled under electric blue, night-greyed
that the rain was love, was in love
with the leaves under the leaves
that the worms
and the spiders under the snapped and fallen branches
were as perfect as the words
"I love you"
and that no words were needed
not ever
there when I was ten, silent,
acknowledging each piece of color
as I could, arranging them in my lap,
in the bowl of my cotton dress,
with care according to how much
for them I felt.

14 - explorationpoem

For today’s prompt, write an exploration poem. Maybe you’re exploring a new land, the depths of quarks, outer space, the mind, the soul, etc. Your call. In fact, it could be said that most poems are an exploration of one sort or another. So get at it.


Turn out all the lights.
There is no light.

Grope up a surface, there cold,
there colder.

In the dark, the mind knocks out the back wall.
A wind doesn't rush in, but a space is then there available.

You are on the floor, kneeling.  You feel the tile and know exactly
when it turns to ice.

You know there will be no door here ahead.
The door is behind you.

But what there is now is sky.  So much of it -
  the possibility of being lifted

from the surface of the world
into a dimension

that is as close as a hand brushing your cheek
that is the same in all aspects

as the real, but

there is something.

Don't ask.
Be lifted.
Turn into the new field.
Understand light as something

invisible.

13 selfhelp poem

For today’s prompt, write a self-help poem. It can be written in the style of a self-help article or book. Or you can take it in a more subtle self-help direction.

Gonna hafta knock these out.  Well, okay.



If I wrote this poem about me
it would be about trying to figure out
what to do, how hard it is, when you have
more or less
everything
to know what to try to figure out

when the soft pillow can prompt questions
of meaning, meaninglessness,
of contribution, failure to contribute,
when the rain can lonely measure
some possible better use
of the night.

Instead, I try to see her
having not stopped hoping but stopped looking
actually looking under planks and tossed fronds
, bent signs for her second child.

No one is coming
No one is returning.

The sea is flat and there are no clouds.
The water flaps at the shore.
I can't see her face.
She is busy.  She must help herself now.
Her every move is important.
And how she thinks, matters.

We have nothing in common.

oh phoo.
seriously falling behind.

PAD 12 happiest moment

1. Write a poem about your happiest moment. Well, doesn’t have to be yours actually. Just a moment that is someone’s happiest.
2. Write a poem about your saddest moment. Conversely, take happy, flip it, and make it the saddest moment.

The Happiest Moment

Before we got wet

or after we got wet

or as we thought of it - without saying - 

or before we thought of it.

Annecy.

France.

Dinner with friends.  Wine

and what did we speak of 

for hours all of us at the height

of our beauty

and before failures,

fallings away, before devastations

or was that true?

Between them anyway.

Dressed. Lovely. Each loved

and funny.  All well.  All there.

Every morsel shared.  Savoured.

We walked out afterwords over the cobblestones

over the canals to the park.

I remember evening, but it must have been night.

I remember my dress brushing my body

and everything everything perfect.

My laughter, ours, our delight filling the evening

settling on the lake.

Our family whole - or whole enough.

Our friends: family

all of us at the height

of our beauty

Fully dressed, finely dressed

We wanted to run, to run and jump

into the lake, fully dressed, finely

And, in there somewhere,

in the air somewhere perhaps,

was the happiest moment of my life.

PAD 10

For today’s prompt, write a poem incorporating something sweet. Maybe a cake or pie. Possibly a candy bar or pixie stick (you know, that paper straw with delicious sugar inside–mmm). Or move it sweetly in another direction.



It's troubling that you talk to me.
That I hear you.
That I understand and obey.

Chocolate melts at 98.6 degrees.
When it hits the tongue
surrenders, all.

Marriages have been built on less.

Day 9 - the other path

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “The Other (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Some possible titles may include: “The Other Side of the Story,” “The Other Brother,” “The Other Hand,” or whatever else you concoct. And remember: I really don’t care if you bend or break the prompt in your favor. My prompts are just a starting place.

The Other Path

Sometimes the entire course of one's life
depends on

whether you catch that taxi
trip on a sycamore ball
stay sick one day more
wait five minutes
leave too soon
speak your mind, for once,
in public, speaking truth
to power.

If you invite someone to come along
so you are not alone you will linger
with them over Irish Coffee and not see
someone slipped on a sycamore ball,
someone you would have then met
and loved until the universe
ends.

But none of this is interesting.

The life unlived
in a different state
and state of being.

The meals untasted
or the books unread
or the way you would have
scraped the gunk off the plates
had you become a printmaker,
somewhere where it snowed,
where you would have had children
a faith of some kind -
at least a different discipline.

Every moment is the same.
It's a wonder we don't go mad.
I have not yet left the house today.
And that other life that won't now manifest
Dissipates as risen dew
and my mentor in how to live, how to be,
has finished his pancakes,
paid the bill and, just barely,
made the green light.

For today’s prompt, write an inanimate object poem. Obviously, you could write an objective poem about an inanimate object, or you can write from the perspective of the inanimate object. If you can think of a third option, have at it.

Black Spot

Still there

in three dimensions

Inanimate black spot

There, still, in the corner of my eye.

Just a bit lower than when I first saw you.

I guess I have to say I'm sorry.

It was an impulse.  It happened fast.

The truth is I am sorry.

You are a marvel and had travelled far.

Maybe from the east coast.

Maybe from the garage.

I think you lived in the philosophy section.

Near "The Critique of Practical Reason"

which now is on my desk and has a leg or two

just above the barcode.

And you

Black Spot

Seem to be waving for help

There, still, in the corner of my vision

with one of your remaining legs.

Help won't come.

Couldn't anyway.

There is no bringing you back.

All your efforts have come to this.

If it helps,

one day too

Something a thousand times bigger than me

Out of nowhere will just end it

And I will get hit hard with something, fast
that I'd have no way, anyway, of beginning to comprehend.

Day 7

Write a hardship poem.


Western Black Rhino

You don't even know what keratin is
Or that they could just chew their goddamned fingernails and
could get a magnificent hard on
if the science worked.

You are upside down
tied your wrinkled ankles
Flying upside down like a new creature
(because the world will need one)
high, high, calm

the sun setting below
the clouds below
dreamlike
the flamingos in a lake above
the route taken above
winding back
and back in time

if you weren't too dead to see it.

Last
Last of
Last


Last
The very last one.

Shavings from your horn worth more
per gram
than cocaine, poolside in Abu Dhabi.

Is this a hardship?
One day in the papers.
DNA lost to infinite time,
infinite space,
unravelling sequence of this
this brute beast
- sometimes agressive

Upside down now
To be raped in death
horned ground to a powder
for an exorcism or
to ease

a modern headache

at least one final headache
eased

at least one little man who feels tonight
like a man

like a big one

Day 6

For today’s prompt, write a poem from the perspective of a person who either works at and/or visits a place you like to visit (that’s not yourself). For instance, a fry chef at the Krusty Krab, a bouncer at a nightclub, waitress at a restaurant, etc.

Not feeling this one.  Maybe because it's not about memememememE!

Maybe because I don't go anywhere.

Hmm.

Perhaps a Haiku is in order - though I was settling in to write an epistle this morning.

He has his skis on

New Years Eve's full moon glows peach

cresting the blue peak

Day 5

1. Write a concealed poem. Could be about a concealed weapon, concealing emotions, concealing intentions, etc. Cover it up and write about it.
2. Write an unconcealed poem. Okay, take everything from the first prompt and uncover it. Reveal everything that’s hidden.

Matinée Idol


Everything I do, I obscure.
You will know how much I care
if I leave quickly, turn the corner.

If I vanish, I vanish
and close my eyes to keep
the quick, stunning sight of you,
projected, glowing, flickering,
against the far dark wall
of the chamber
of my quiet
velvet-seated heart.

PAD 4

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Sheet,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write the poem. Possible titles might include: “Rap Sheet,” “Blank Sheet,” “How to Fold a Sheet,” “I Look Like a Ghost Beneath This Holey Sheet,” etc. Feel free–as always–to bend and break the prompt to your will. The poeming is what matters.



Warm Sheets

For four nights now I have dreamt of loving
of being fully, truly loved.

In the first, he had made a new world for himself,
had moved and now occupied the full bend in the river.
His grounds were peopled with friends and it wasn't odd
that he had a temple there by the water
and was in a ritual of himself, of his living.
He was beautiful, golden in effect.
Alive and clear.
And he loved
me
and I had to believe it
because he came to me
and declared to me
love.
He was exactly him 
and he said, looking right at me
and meaning it,
"It's you."

On the next night
in a busy market or alley
or corridor of a kind.  A blousy woman
selling antiques
noticed my ring.
"Yes.  I am married," I announced. "To him."
I said his name.
And the him was different from the one in the first dream.
He was there.  He turned to see me, astonished at what I said.
As was I.
Though we both have always known.

The third night there was a woman - who?
I've lost it - only a scent of hair remains - but the warm sheets
held me close and gently
and it was sweet
And that she and this she and 
the sheets, warm, were indistinguishable
feminine, caring, kind and lucky,
together, together and near.

And now I try to recall
last nights' dream

I remember love, loving
a vagueness of loving

I was setting up a new studio.
I was building a new table.
The dream was populated with partiers
some orgy with a golden egg caught on film
- so many people I knew

and one who understood me
who was busy but near
who cleared the room for me
who built a table for me
who kissed me on the back of my neck
and shone a light on the blank wall before me
and on its canvas
and it was clear what he meant when he told me, 
"This is love, my love.  It always will be."

PAD 3

For today’s prompt, write a “the last time I was here” poem. Imagine you’re returning to a spot (physical, emotional, psychological, etc.): Is it a good thing? Bad thing? What did you leave behind (if anything)? What’s there to welcome you back (again, if anything)?

Morning


The last time I was here
it was yesterday

and I can't recall it.

Who was I then
- waking, standing up stiffly,
having some time to do some
things.

I did them, largely, by the time the sliver
thin moon dipped into the Pacific.

And today
I have some time.
There are things to do.
There is a sense of having

some time.
How much - perhaps -
was the question
yesterday
and today

and tomorrow I - perhaps -
will be here
and this hour

the light of the November morning
will glow the white curtains beige as if
from underneath

The day will feel familiar, but also brand new,

and I will glimpse but not grasp
the imperative
of either.

PAD 2

What’s more challenging than taking that first step? Taking a second step. Let’s keep November going.

For today’s prompt, write a “news of the day” poem. The poem should use some sort of recent news event as a springboard. It can be a news story from today (this morning), but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, you could even go “old school” and find news stories from archived sources–like the “news of the day” from 1936 (to pick a random year).

(type in found garage sale poem from very very first set of poems - Oberlin)?

found today.  garage sale day.

cuz this below is booooring.
whatever.  god I hope that dog doesn't bark all night again!!! pleeeze no!!!!

In the news today

The sun didn't come up

because the sun never comes up.

The earth rolled over on its side

and bit by bit opened its trillions of eyes

that found

a new day visible

- bright

and sunny

- new.

Welcome to Day 1 of the 2013 November PAD Chapbook Challenge! Let’s get some poeming done this month!

For today’s prompt, write an appearing poem. This could be a poem about something (or someone) appearing out of nowhere. Or it could be about appearances–appearing one way to some people; appearing another way to others. If you’re new to my prompts, let me share one thing: I’m totally fine with you stretching the prompt in any direction you need to write; in fact, I encourage it. Now get poeming!

Competitor

I know they are there

because the neighbor's dog is barking 

and it is late, late and the leaves are black

and the light on them white

in a small breeze, shifting like many black and white striped faces

little dark, shining eyes staring 

from some nighttime perception

or are those maybe-eyes ink-black berries - October ripe

night-glistened, looking at nothing at all?

But there is just this one

(I think)

who appears directly out from under my deck

like an actor onto a stage

and looks at me - yellow-haired, I am,

pink in my pink nightgown

backlit by my baby blue kitchen light

trembling and as ready for a fight

as I will ever be

I throw things at him

He flinches once

Then ignores me

and the useless things- - socks and circles of rope -  I throw

without meaning

as I don't belong to the night

to the world of black and white

or to nature, really so much at all

I don't have claws or fearsome cries

But the freeway that is mine has criss-crossed his world

split him from the river and the river scent,

from the blackberry brambles and the fat frogs

that surrounded all teeth at once and fed him

fully by the cool water

- his mask reflected

in the slipping, greyscale, moonlit surface.

I find nothing else to throw and see,

for now, he is just cleaning his claws

on my lilies - though he wants my pretty little fish

that flash cadmium orange in the day 

At night they are just arrows of a lightness

diving into and becoming darkness

protected, not by me, but by the deep

and the eventual passage of hours that will bring back

their useless given names and their color

the protection of the sun

the apparent safety of the surface

of their endangered little fabricated world.

cabling

That's better.

Hate those stupid templates.

No time tonight and baked from these excessively hot days.

Nice early mornings but fell back in to rest up for the road this a.m. (juliet arrived today.  highway straight away).  Double deep dreaming.

Lost a dream I should have written down in all it's stunning complexity.

Will just right one word to remember:  cabling


It was a behavior some (the narcissistic amongst us - i.e., all of us) where secretly doing that would create layers and layers of representations of ourselves, our perceptions.
   Like paper walls I pushed through to come out onto a trench-dug hole (home. ... pond week) and then after reality settled, more cabling, more flaking, shedding, propagaing versions of the self.

As someone in 'the real computer world wrote':  this is some spooky shit we're on.

ah, well.

It's been a busy month in Lake Wobegone....

Just as well, I guess, to fail in the Poem a Day thing than to just kick out a bunch of crap.
Maybe after we return from NYC I can reboot.

Anon, lonesome blog....

Poem A Day - Day 10

For today’s prompt, write a suffering poem. A person or animal in the poem could be suffering. The poem itself could be suffering.

... Really?  aw geez. hmmletmethinkwhatcomestomind..


It is not that the walls are malevolent
but they will not stay still
they peel away, peel towards,
their boards pull lose and
would slice through
the dumb body if the dumb body
weren't liquid and rocked tossed
on the high seas
the blankets, hands
molesting
the waves now just self pity
in the form of

light now traversing a ceiling
and the sound of the relentless traffic
that for a moment is like gasping

or calling out

and the walls fold and the seas settle
and become the floor
of a place that was once a structure
that was once upright
loved

illuminated, clean

alive

sober

cared for

Poem a Day - Day 9

Today is a Two-for-Tuesday prompt. Write one of the following (or both):

• Write a hunter poem.
• Write a hunted poem.

In the dream, I have followed her
to where she is staying.

She has gone up the elevator
so I go up the elevator.

She has gotten out, so I do to
and see that between the elevator

and where she is heading is a field
a field full of the mentally ill

the extremely, deeply disturbed
waving their hands in front of their faces

pulling out their hair
clustering together and crying out.

She walks past them, so I do too
but where she rests

is open and out of the open space
out of nowhere comes the dog

wild, he goes straight for me
there is nowhere to hide

his teeth sink straight in
I wake, pulling back the wet, ferocious muzzle

It is strange to hear myself, crying
strange that even in sleep

I can form the word
Help.

Day 7

For today’s prompt, write a sevenling poem. Never heard of a sevenling poem? Well, it’s a 7-line poem (chosen because today is the 7th day of the challenge) that features two tercets and a one-liner in the final (third) stanza. My poem below illustrates the form. The first two stanzas should have an element of three in them that can either play off each directly, work as juxtaposition, or have no connection whatsoever. The final line should work as either a punchline, weird twist, or punctuation mark.

lt is afternoon
I nap some
I nap until 3:00

Or I awoke after 2:00
Sometime, for awhile
Assembling myself out of air, bits and odd dreaming

Stitching the self's story to time again sometimes takes time

Day 6

For today’s prompt, write a post poem. Post could be short for post office–or traditional mail. Post could be a wood or metal post. Or post could mean relate to words like postpone, post-punk, or whatever.

Post Post 911

We move around the memorials,
The footprints of the towers.

Each, like each of our lives,
has a black square chasm in its center.
Elegant and terrifying.
Into this everything,
from all sides
all shimmering banks of falling.
Falls.
This is Death
And this is clear.
The absolute condition
Of No, of falling,
Ongoing, even when we turn away.
Or look up
To imagine what was.
This is loss, never-ending.
One cannot see the bottom.
From any side,
Or know if there is one.

And yet it is finished.
We are here.  Even though I push her in a wheelchair.
We do not cry.
I look for one particular name but do not find it.
I look around every side of the memorial but do not find it.

I find 'Angel'
And that will do.

We are hungry and we will eat.

Day 5

For today’s prompt, write a plus poem. Plus can mean a lot of things, and even the act of addition could equate to subtraction.

(It's not good when I get behind on these things… But this one kind of stumped me.)

One plus one plus green
Green plus yesterday equals wind
Leaves plus river plus divorce plus bills,
loss, records, weight
Add up to me
Wanting to be alone
Wanting me plus green plus
One flame
Minus words
Equals
one flame
flickering
so blurring
into two

Poem A Day - Day 4

Hold that question

Someday it will be the question;

- Is beauty enough?

Someday you'll find yourself

Looking at that porch 

Without anyone who remembers even a bit 

of what you remember

What the ringing phone meant

How smooth was the litho stone

What you sound like, crying

Someday you will find yourself without anyone 

who remembers you 

Little

Dancing in your mother's shoes

Growing through versions of yourself

Then standing by the roses

All of your life you have said it is enough

All of your life 

You have said it is all the proof you need

It is all that you need

- indivisible, inexhaustible, infinite
beauty.

But will you care

When you are orphaned

Under the brilliant blue sky

And the multiverse has swallowed

more light, more,

And the other

half of your heart

Poem a Day - 2013 - Day 3

Write a tentative poem.

shootphooey.
lost the original of this, which I liked.
maybe I'll remember more later.
ah well.
detachment.


Making Sense

I have wasted my life on these four things:

believing I won't die
wondering if its true that I can be seen
wondering if I speak if I can be heard
wondering if words do anything but destroy

sense

strange (or not) that meaning and perception
are the same

I am an invisible eye
and am all that I see, as far as I see
my name - a distinction
barely
between breathing and air.

my size is indefinite to me
it expands down avenues
and fills vaults
changing its composition
of air
to light

I am everywhere, a dispersion
of memory and yearning
or I am here curled, contained
in this dear body, warming.

I make love as water
folding over as a wave
into ourselves,
my arms, arms, these mine,
but also, made only
of time
and only briefly

My voice is always a surprise to me

- an awkward, too quiet attempt,
at unpolished anecdotes, while the moon waits,
slips like truth,

at the back of my throat.

I do see I am not not invisible.
The body is not an afterthought.
But it is porous
Spring travels through me in spiraling paths,
trajectories of energy.  Sometimes I am all petals or all scent
all Tuesday, all love.

This doesn't make for good stories,
though I am immortal
and dying at the same time.

There is no point in speaking of this.
Maybe as a poem.
Not in the the words people use when they see each other
when they sit across from one another and use words
as if they actually speak of what they know
of what life is
and how living feels.

Poem a Day - 2013 - Day 2

Today’s prompt is a Two-for-Tuesday prompt. For those new to the challenge, you have the option of writing to the first prompt or the second prompt–or even both if you feel so inclined. Here they are:

• Write a bright poem.
• Write a dark poem.

Siena

It is not as if you shine
- you shine -
from where?
this dazzle different
this radiance, new
no, grown

Bold red hair now
down straight
half-covering
your huge blue eyes
alight with all
the life that awaits

that you await
sparkling
diamond
cut in the setting
of your self
your place
your incisive, bright, mind

adazzle
self named anew.

who will be the first to find you
and how will they not be blinded?

Poem a Day - 2013 - Day 1

The April PAD (Poem-A-Day) Challenge is designed to help poets do one thing and one thing only: Write more poems! The process of revision may go on for weeks, months, and years later, but this challenge is all about getting that first draft. Please poem along with us–either in the comments below or silently at home.

For today’s prompt, write a new arrival poem. The new arrival could be a baby or a person. The new arrival might be a car or other piece of technology. Heck, the new arrival might be an idea or poem. (Btw, if you’re a new arrival to the site and this challenge, take a peak below about commenting.)




Coming home

there is the toast, uneaten
dried stiff but buttery still
the bouquet - camelias
all but one fallen like soft
dresses to the table
the mail stuffed in the box
all asking for money
but one
with my name on it
- thank goodness

"Blue Skies"

early to bed,
still moving from travel,
my exhales animate the dead air around me
the familiar sheets
touch me
home
I dream of a butterfly collection
I do not have
of needing to return
a monarch to its crystal case
before anyone knows
I have it, fluttering, in my hand.

In the morning I stand on my porch.
My neighbor is walking her dog
and the cats that were born under my back stairs
that I didn't want
dart out of bushes to follow her.
Good life.
The unfolding of stories -
the growing of things -
proper.

awake early
my body expects New York
expects to see bare branches
pressing back the buds of Spring
expects a world of nothing but potential

But here, in my California,
the leaves have already pushed past
the almond blossoms,
the shadow of the mighty oak
has camoflauged itself in the exact color of the hill
and so vanished
and my life, it seems,
as I walk through it like a stranger
is here,
I can see that,
and has been largely
lived.

link to reading  last fall
Contemporary Art Crossroads Reading October 2012

Missing my old musings here.  I don't know what I wrote about but maybe I'll try to come back around. I like coming across old dreams because, as I suspected, I will forget them all - even if I do write them down, I guess.  And yet if I do they are at least potentially retrievable.

Maybe also I'll manage the poem-a-day in April.  Kinda didn't get started too good this year.  My blogaday resolution was as weak as my immune system, I guess, and January vanished into a feverish fog.  Not the start I expected to the year in any way.

Writing the Russian novel has been fun but I guess I should take it down until I get permissions to show the names of my co-authors.  Yeah.  Good stuff that.  I wonder if it will go the distance...

Here is Father Gapon (Alexander) a real historical tie-in.  Okhrana.  Czar's Secret Police.

More soon, maybe, Blog.   Miss you some.

Russian Novel proceeds

It was the first hour of the evening of the first day of a brand new year and

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D.R. Wagner, Ed Balldinger and 10 others like this.



           

            



Alex Pope the bells began to toll as
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Laura Hohlwein Vlaskov pulled up the high collar on his overcoat and headed out into the
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Alex Pope pink snowstorm in order to investigate
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Laura Hohlwein the untimely death of his great uncle, Pavel, who
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Emily Sato at the age of 6 had once been hailed as the next great child prodigy, but
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Laura Hohlwein , though he could play the Кorobushka with his teething spoon, he never got much beyond that and audiences had soured to him before his seventh birthday. Vlaskov thought of this as he whistled without gift in the pink snow. The wind silenced his tune in a snow drift as he turned right on
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Emily Sato to the main avenue of town, where it was for the most part quiet and sleeping off the previous night's festivities. A few people with reason to be out in the snow passed him, in the same determined manner he expected he projected, on their way to their various destinations. He
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Laura Hohlwein arrived at 17 Mosfilmovskaya Street, ran his gloved hand over the doorframe and knocked Uncle Pavel's key onto the icy doorstep below. He quickly ascended four flights, not pausing on floor two, where Pavel had apparently kicked out the final chorus of the Korobushka with his boot against the wall as the last of his moving blood dripped from floor two to floor one. Vlaskov
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Emily Sato nimbly hopped over the coagulating mess, cursing briefly under his breath, as he ascended the broad, wooden staircase,
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Laura Hohlwein сукин сын, сукин сын, he kept muttering. сукин сын, сукин сын. As he opened the door to Pavel's apartment he realized his mumbling had lead him to his first suspect! The сука was, of course,
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Emily Sato his father, Nikolas, who had shrugged indifferently when the authorities had knocked at their door and
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Laura Hohlwein told them of Pavel's brutal assault with what they think was an oboe. Nikolas was indeed a сукин сын, not to mention a lousy oboist. Only Vlaskov even knew he 'played' the oboe. And Nickoli Nickolovich had been missing since that night. It wasn't unusual for him to leave for days without anyone knowing his whereabouts, but still ...
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Laura Hohlwein Vlaskov turned the key and flung Pavel's door open wide. ...
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Emily Sato revealing a youngish woman, dressed in pale linen and somewhat disheveled, hunched over the ornately carved desk that dominated the room. She
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Laura Hohlwein simply looked up at him, as if he had come in quietly and they had lived together for years, and returned to study what was before her - sheet music that Pavel Pavlovovich had
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Emily Sato most likely been working on when he'd been surprised. Vlaskov quietly came up behind her and peered over her shoulder, which was bare. Glancing down, he startled briefly before regaining his composure. Surreptitiously he looked again, noticing at once what appeared to be
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Deb Belt words, in pale and uneven script, at the bottom of the sheet music. Vlaskov tried not to let his mind run ahead and imagine that the faint words could be a clue to
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Laura Hohlwein Uncle Pavel's miserable demise but his mind ran ahead and he knew the faint words were a clue to Uncle Pavel's miserable demise. He was also distracted by that bare shoulder. But that was beside the point. The pale uneven script was in French and it said,
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Dennis Yudt "C'est la seule phrase que je peux écrire en français." Puzzled, Vlaskov wandered
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Laura Hohlwein around the living room in circles., muttering, "Почему? Почему? Pourqoui en français? Pourquoi une expression en Français?" "And...," he said in English, turning sharply toward the girl, "Who the hell are you?"
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Brian Gorman and You are A Wonderful Person
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Laura Hohlwein "Thank you, but I'm not," she said in English, with a slight French accent, Marseilles maybe. "I came to Moscow to steal this from him. I did! And here it is, right below my digits." She looked Vlaskov right in the eye as the linen slipped just a bit more off her shoulder - maddening! "Do you know what this is?" she said, waking him from a new trance and tapping vigouously on the musical score. "Do you know?!?"
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Dennis Yudt His eyes rolled back down past the lids as he gave a slight shudder while he was coming to. "Ah, that. I used to know...before this happened". He took off his fez, an ill-gotten keepsake from his mercenary days in the Ottoman Empire, and pointed to a large patch of scar tissue and proudflesh. "A Prussian officer accused me of stealing his monocle. This is what his sabre did. Worse, it took away my ability to read music or play my beloved bassoon. Before I die, I
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Laura Hohlwein dearly hope to play the bassoon again." "If I can teach your father to play the oboe, I can teach you to play the bassoon," she said. "What?!? You ... ?" "Yes!" she said, nodding, excessively, he thought. ... "Exactly! Your father, Nickolas and I were
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Laura Hohlwein ...were ...
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Patrick Grizzell in a loyalist marching band for a time. We both played bassoon. While practicing a particularly difficult manuever while performing a piece for brass and woodwind, Boris Buravic, who played the tuba, lost his hat and while quickly reaching down to retrieve it smacked your father quite hard in the head with the bell of his ample horn and he, at that very moment, forgot how to play the bassoon. Ever since that event he has struggled with 
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Laura Hohlwein ... well, pretty much everything. But potatoe cakes. He is still the best at potatoe cakes, don't you think?" she said, pulling up her linen blouse much to Vlaskov's dismay.
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Rebecca Spencer discussing our shared loves... the oboe, needlepoint and throwing rocks at moving objects whilst sipping on an old wine and eating even older cheese, when...
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Laura Hohlwein "You know what? ... I don't care," said Vlaskov. "Why is Pavvy writing in French? He hates the French! He doesn't even like cheese! EsPECAIALLY not OLDER cheese! ... This is getting unbearable! What is that score! What is it for?!"
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Laura Hohlwein "It's brilliant. Brilliant." She looked outside at the snow, no longer pink, but the palest blue, drifting straight down, and slowly. The both watched it snow for a very long time, knowing the answer would come.
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Laura Hohlwein "It's 'The Internationale' - scored ... for teething spoons! It's.. It's. " She stammered and stopped. How could he have not seen it before? She was holding onto her stomach and blood began to seep through her fingers. Vlaskov
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Patrick Grizzell looked at the empty butcher's wrapper on the counter and at her stomach and the wrapper again and at her stomach again and began to laugh uproariously while trying to discern some betrayal of duplicity in her eyes. There was none. His laughter slowed but his eyes kept darting back and forth as though there would at any moment
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Rebecca Spencer grabbed the cork from the bottle of aged wine on the chairside table and shoved it tightly into the fresh bullet wound. He gently eased her to the ground and slightly over, confirming the shot had not gone clean through. She reached up to him...
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Laura Hohlwein "Can you believe it?" she said, "A butcher knife! AND a bullet! I deserve it! Ha ha. Hahahahahahaha," she laughed, disturbingly. "Hahahahahahaha" Who cared what color the snow was? Would she stop? Ever? " "Hahahaha.... I've always tried to be two things: Haha! Russian/French, Ha! An oboist/a bassonist, a Loyalist....a ....
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Laura Hohlwein Ha.
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Rebecca Spencer ..a connoisseur of fine wine and cheese...but..." her voice trailing off as her final breaths left her limp body. Suddenly...
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Rebecca Spencer the door burst open and Vlaskov spun around to find himself staring down...
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Patrick Grizzell at a calling card on the stained floor. He bent and picked it up. It read: Madame Hand - Palmistry, Psychic Readings, Seances. He remembered a pavillion outside the snowy retreat near St. Petersburg and the drawer full of daggers belonging to a transient circus performer who, one night 
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Laura Hohlwein tapped out the first rhythm of the Кorobushka in thrown daggers next to the profile of a wild-eyed Petrograd child, looking at Grand Uncle Pavvy the whole time as if he'd, Pavel Pavlovovich, had done something WRONG by being a toddler prodigy. His whole life he'd been teased in this way. And now Madame Hand. Would it never end?
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Laura Hohlwein Vlaskov felt like crying, hearing the girl draw her last, "Ha ha h.!" behind him, feeling the presence of Uncle Pavvy dying on floor two, not days before. And his ruined father, good only for potato cakes, gone ... where? He could ask Madame Hand. That's it. She would know. ...And then he heard it, the poor, plaintive cry of
January 5 at 10:02pm · Like






           

            



Rebecca Spencer the impossibly small, scrawny, half-starved kitten huddled in the corner of the room. Having attempted to clean itself of the partially congealed blood of his uncle, the kitten's once-white fur had turned the same shade of pink as the snow outside. Approaching cautiously...
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Mary Zeppa Vlaksov murmured "Grushenka, Grushenka". The name he'd instinctively given the kitten calmed her at once. She recognized something kindred about him and..
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Alex Troyan Rubbed up against his rigid leg, and started to purr. He quickly checked the cabinets for some cat food and found nothing but some old condensed milk. He opened the can with
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Laura Hohlwein knife sharpener. One blunt thrust into the can did it, but as he pulled it out he noticed just a bit of potato cake on the handle. ... "Nicolevich!" he whispered loudly.
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Laura Hohlwein "Yes, what?" said his father, stepping out from behind the front door, bloody butcher knife in hand. He looked utterly broken and depressed. "I loved her, you know." He choked back a sob. "But...
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Alex Troyan "That's it!" He exclaimed.
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Laura Hohlwein "You killed Pavel!" "No. ..I killed her, " he said, gesturing lamely with the butcher knife at now quiet girl, slumped over the "Internationale for Teething Spoons." "She killed Pavel. With MY oboe! She said I was no good. She said I couldn't even play Frère Jacques after six months and that she'd had enough. ... I wasn't that bad. Was I?"
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Laura Hohlwein Time passed. The snow fell, colorless in the dark.
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Laura Hohlwein Vlaskov broke the silence without answering the question. "But why take it out on Pavel? ... And who SHOT the girl?"
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Patrick Grizzell With that, the slinky kitten trudged out of the house, leaving little red footprints on the snow. It was as innocent as anything that had left through that door. It would never come back. Just like everything that ever left before a coroner arrived. It was like the time that 
January 6 at 5:44pm via mobile · Like






           

            



Laura Hohlwein the transient circus performer killed two people at once with a wild and terrible throw when someone in the audience sneezed and the elephant and the dancing zebra just left the tent, as innocent as anything that had ever left the tent before. It was like that. And speaking of the transient circus performer, it was probably his dagger that had just whizzed through the air, just missing Vlaskov's nose and puncturing another hole in the can of condensed milk. Vlaskov and Nicolas turned.
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Laura Hohlwein "I shot the girl, you fools," he confessed, "because, well... my aim with a dagger has gone to hell ever since that incident with the baker and his wife and elephant and the dancing zebra. ... She was going to take that score back to France and it is rightfully mine. I...I...I am Russia's greatest prodigy. I AM! I ...
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Alex Troyan I am the oboe master! Why you thought I would...
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Mary Zeppa ..allow her to get away with such an outrage I cannot begin to imagine. Have you forgotten..
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Laura Hohlwein this!" he said, pulling from his pocket like a sabre from its sheath (he even added an 'ahHA! of his own): a monocle, THE monocle! The monocle from the Prussian officer from so long ago. Vlaskov felt dizzy and instinctively touched under his fez, the scar, the proudflesh. He could hear bassoons or oboes or hungry kittens screaming in the night or the officals arriving, their boots thundering up the stairs. He pulled out a chair and just sat at the ornately carved desk that dominated the room. He was suddenly very tired. And yet there would be no rest, no meditative moment, no thought or mention of snow because just then
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Alex Troyan The alarm on his watch went off. He was late! He quickly left to go to...
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Mary Zeppa ..the rendezvous he hoped would save him, to meet the one person who might help him untangle this web of oboes and kittens and egos. Ah reader, you guessed it, Vlaskov was off to meet...
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Laura Hohlwein Madame Hand. Even though she cost 3,037.27 rubles an hour and her tiny carriage smelled like wax and cats and ... Madame Hand, she did get around, by way of cards and crystals and humming and weird hand gestures, at pointing in the direction of what might seem like some at least plausible variant of absolute truth. But, just as Vlaskov was about to fling himself across the threshold, the sound in his head of officials thundering up the stairs ceased abruptly and he practically bounced backwards off three stomachs of the three officials now stopped and aligned in one flank, blocking the door.
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Brett Daly "This your cat?" the biggest of the stomachs queried..."We traced its bloodied paw prints to this flat, and I see it's not the cat's blood that coated its fur, but some other's..." The largest stomach was caught mid-breath when its owner's eyes espied the bleeding female corpse toward his right. He approached the girl, while the other two stomachs blocked all entry to or from the flat, to investigate. Suddenly, with a great THUD as stomach and supporting legs collapsed to the floor, the first stomach wailed in sorrow...and a gentle hand gently touched the young girl's hair...then stroked it as a mother might fondly stroke her child's first locks in the crib...he mumbled something incoherent to all else in the room, and gently kissed the young girl's lips, then brushed his hand across her eyelids to close them forever to the world, and pulled-up her blouse toward her shoulders lest she catch cold. He looked up as if to say something, then suddenly collapsed. The great stomach heaved its breath no more...
January 12 at 9:29pm via mobile · Like






           

            



Laura Hohlwein The cat instinctively came up to the corpulent official, renewing the potency of her prints by padding through another puddle of the lost girl's blood. She climbed atop his still stomach and curled up, facing the girl - as all were now facing the girl. "Grushenka," said Official Two, and the cat turned around as if addressed. " The girl. I feel sure of it... Trepov has been looking for his sister, Grushenka, for his entire life. She ran away to France when she was twelve. I feel sure ..." "TWELVE!" - the number shouted itself in Vlaskov's head. And again - "TWELVE!" He knew then, like a thunderbolt had hit him, why he instinctively named the cat, 'Grushenka.' Oh no, " he thought. "Please, no...My little kitten. My little love."
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Brett Daly His mind drifted backward through the years to a carefree time in Montmartre. Two scarecrows running through the alleys of Bohemia. In bliss amongst suffering...

           

            One evening in a cafe as the sun set, Trepov and Grushenka staring into the West, a music student in a flat above the cafe practicing the oboe. How they found the ten franks they needed for wine Topov couldn't fathom now, but he recalled the settling of his mind into the bath of Pinot noir while he gazed fondly at Grushenka. He was just about to tell his first love his first confession of his feelings, when he noticed just past her, at a farther table, sat another young woman looking his way. She was pretty, Oui!, and clearly had money from someplace as she didn't have the disheveled look and soot-spotted skin of those he had known all his young life. She cast him his first ever seductive look. His breath grew tight, and his pants felt tighter...

           

            Topov made some quick excuse to use the restroom downstairs. The other girl, the seductress who was to become his femme fatale, noted his bearing, and arose to make the same journey...

           

            Into the basement...

           

            Topov returned later to find Grushenka no longer at the table, and his belle du soir had vanished as well...

           

            He spent the ensuing years searching for his dear Grushenka throughout Paris, living amongst miscreants and n'er-do-wells, yet having no desire to be one of them. He became knowledgable of their ways, and often was called upon by the Prefecture of the Police to assist them in their investigations. That relationship gave him access to all manner of men and means in that great city, but it never brought him any closer to his dearest Grushenka.

           

            In his mind he resolved himself that he had lost all rights and privileges to traffic with people, to have friends, to bask in the warmth of their celebrations. He had lost his first love to the demons of the Parisian underworld. It was his fault. He was no better than a common murderer.

           

            His only respite was spending his evenings at that same table at that same cafe, soaking his brain in liquor, and listening to the music students' practicing in the flats above. Cellists, violinists, and others had come and gone over the years, and his ear had become attuned to the practicing that he could sense where a student stood in his or her own musical development. He was most fond of an oboist who played sonorously every evening, at twilight, who always finished when the night sky had lost all trace of sunlight. It was upon such an evening, when he could discern a faint sound of sheet music being folded away and the window closing, that his mind spoke to him in a moment of clarity: "To Russia"...
January 13 at 2:22pm via mobile · Like






           

            



Paula Detwiller Writers: THANK YOU! This is better than HBO!
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Brett Daly Vlaskov sat in the ornately-carved chair supified...confused..."Ach! The confusion! As if the bleeding girl, the scattered sheet music, the nuances of mastering the oboe, the ever-changing color of the snow weren't confusing enough, but now his mind was awash with "Trepov! Topov! Paris! Incest...?
January 13 at 9:20pm · Like






           

            



Brett Daly Vlaskov recalled with horror those long Russian winters of his youth. His cherished oboe stowed away by his grandmother, not to be savored until he had finished reading those wretched Tolstoy novels with their armies of characters, and the ever-shifting use of names from formal to patronymic to informal address that drove him to vodka. If only Stalin could have purged a few hundred pages of those horrid tomes instead of his well-placed one day, ill-placed the next, Uncle Vanya of whom he was so fond...
January 13 at 9:33pm · Like






           

            



Brett Daly But the smell of cheap tobacco from the two standing officers' cigarettes brought clarity to Vlaskov's brain. He knew now who the fallen officer was, Trepov (who shared the same formal address as the second officer) he knew as Topov or "Toppy" as he called his Casanova of the Caucus before he ran away with a young girl to Paris in the days of his youth...

           

            ...and where was Toppy now...? Lying still in a pool of a young woman's blood...
January 13 at 9:40pm · Like






           

            



Brett Daly But Toppy's mind, just a moment before his untimely demise, was in that cafe. "To Russia" he had resolved, and retained in his memory. But now his conciousness transmigrated into the afterlife...we now witneess his sprit departing from its original course on that Paris evening, arising toward the sound of that oboe...ascending stairs into the light. Toppy approaches a door, which upon opening of itself reveals his beloved Grushenka holding an oboe. His spirit motioned as if to pass the threshold but Grushenka raised her hand, and gently pushed against his torso as if to say, without being audible, "It is not your time".

           

            Suddenly, a great burst of light surrounded Topov, and as the door closed of its own accord his spirit slid backwards down the stairs...away from the light...back to that same seat in the cafe. His spirit now sitting into that seat in his memory, we return to the actual course of time...he heaved a great sigh and said to himself "Yes, to Russia I must go."
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Brett Daly Reader, I beg your leave for me to step back only a few moments in time, back to the scene in which we left our heroes. Centuries in the afterlife seem as seconds on Earth, and I must convey the events which transpired during Topov's sojourn into the hereafter...
January 13 at 9:55pm · Like






           

            



Brett Daly The second officer approached his fallen comrade, followed immediately by his collegue, and the room now smelled not only of cheap tobacco, but of cheap vodka. The two officers had imbibed themselves in so much vodka for so many years that they had become unaware that the alcohol had permeated not only every fiber of their clothing, but every cell of their bodies.

           

            The second officer drew out his nightstick, and gently proded the ribs of his fallen comrade. The gentle pressure was sufficient to unleash a great flatulence from the fallen Topov. The methane ignighted into a fireball when it met contact with the cigarette embers, and the flames seared through the alcohol which comprised so much of the officers' body mass so quickly and so thoroughly that neither was able to feel any pain from dying of spontaneous combustion.

           

            The fireball extinguished itself as quickly as it had formed, leaving only some scattered ashes.
January 13 at 10:06pm · Like






           

            



Brett Daly The monocle fell from Vlaskov's eye as he, and everyone else in the room, were petrified by what they had just witnessed. All paid no attention to the sound of the monocle rolling across the floor, save for the cat, who paid the event with casual indifference, fixated upon the rolling object with great interest. The cat's muscles were just starting to steel themselves ready to pounce when it was interrupted by a great sigh from the stomoach upon which it was perched.
January 13 at 10:13pm · Like






           

            



Brett Daly ...and amongst the web of neural connections in Vlaskov's brain, at that moment a small thought flashed in-and-out of existence: "Well, at least that's two fewer people's names I need to worry about keeping straight..."
January 13 at 10:15pm · Like






           

            



Laura Hohlwein Vodka. Vlaskov needed vodka. Nikolay Nickolovich, one hand on the butcher knife, one stuck, apparently, against his forehead in perpetual astonishment, needed vodka. That was clear. The circus performer, lost in some kind of trance and mumbling, slumped down now to the floor, needed vodka. Even the cat would eschew condensed milk for a little nip. It was a moment of true despair in which Vlaskov recalled Uncle Pavel's great personal triumph over the tyranny of drink. Not a drop in the place. No point in even looking. Pavel had been clear as a bell in his final months, humming, happily, day and night. There was nothing to do in that moment but look at the snow, swirling, ecstatic, electric green in the glow of the streetlight. Toppy sucked in a loud, ugly gasp. Vlaskov really wasn't happy. He leaned against the table, with the purest digust he had ever felt, observing him wheeze and huff and return to the company of the exhausted, unwelcoming living.
January 14 at 12:51am · Like






           

            



Brett Daly Topov lifted his head as if he had just been beaten in a fight. He gazed confusedly around the room, and met Vlaskov's eyes.

           

            "You..."
January 15 at 8:06am via mobile · Like






           

            



Laura Hohlwein "And how will you address me then? You pig. You swine. You thief. Ever since French class, in our primary school days, you knew, you KNEW, Grushi and I were ONE!". With this, Vlaskov pounded on the table, crumpling the corner of Pavel's masterpiece. "And here you lay fat and pickled and one kick in the head from dead. Even the cat takes you for a litter box."

            He was interrupted from his tirade by the sound of awkward, fitful sobbing coming from
January 17 at 7:53pm via mobile · Edited · Like






           

            



Patrick Grizzell a young woman in the back of the traveling Habedasher's wagon. Her father slouched over the reins that guided two remarkable black horses with manes that reached the ground. Oddly, he wore no hat, and sleet was beginning to blow down the wind tunnel formed by the two close rows of houses that lined the cobblestone streets. Everyone knew Petrov and his damned wagon with its steamers and blocks and its gawdy decoupage of Bowlers and Fezes, Miters and .Dunce caps, clopping sloppily along at the misaligned mercy of its one small wheel. But was that really Natalya whimpering from the hold? Had he found her after all this time? Did she hold the key? And where had he gotten those gorgeous horses? He couldn't afford them! And where was his hat? And just as Father Gregor had intimated over dinner, there would be
January 17 at 10:59pm via mobile · Like






           

            



Mary Zeppa ..the raven-haired, statuesque woman in the doorway. "Vlassy, Vlassy," she cried. At the sound of her voice, Vlaskov spun around. His jaw dropped; his eyes widened. He had never been more confused..
January 17 at 11:04pm · Like






           

            



Brett Daly The woman rushed toward Vlaskov, throwing herself on her knees and burying herself in his heart..."Twelve years I've searched for you..."

           

            Suddenly Petrov appeared at the doorway as if he had thrown himself there, gasping for breath and hunched as if he had run for miles, orange snow blowing through the doorway. "Natalya...my love...Father Gregor was right...I would find you again someday..."

           

            Topov surveyed the latest intruder, then swung his head back toward the lovely raven-haired woman now caressing Vlaskov's cheeks. Natalya...where had he heard that name before...then he registered the thick raven hair, the edges of the woman's profile, HER EYES! Yes, THOSE EYES...he'd never forget them. Natalya, sensing Topov was staring at her, cast him a quick glance, and as if they'd both been struck by lightning they both knew: she was the woman at that Parisian cafe so many years ago. The woman who, for only a moment of carnal passion, had forever separated Topov from his dearest Grushenka...
Friday at 11:29pm via mobile · Like






           

            



Brett Daly The circus performer, who had lain stupefied and petrified all this time, now found strength to speak..."Petrov...HORSE THIEF!!!!...SWINE!!!" He reached for another knife from his belt and flung it with all his strength. The knife flew through the window, and a horse neighed as if electrocuted. Next came the fading sound of hooves galloping down the cobblestone street, dragging pieces of a wooden cart.
Saturday at 12:14am via mobile · Like






           

            



Brett Daly "Papa! Papa!" A young girl, a little disheveled and starting to bruise from having been thrown off a cart, but wearing a very stylish bowler hat, hugged Petrov from behind as if clinging for protection. "Papa! Someone threw a knife at Sasha and now she's gone...". Her voice broke and she clutched her throat, then her fingers clutched her necklace. Her eyes and the circus performer's locked into each other's...
Saturday at 12:32am via mobile · Like






           

            



Laura Hohlwein "Um... The horses ... your horses... are fine. Well, they ... were ..... and Papa... Papa just ... borrowed them and I REALLY love them - especially Sasha," and here she lost control, taking the bowler hat off her head and crying in terrible heaves of...See More
Saturday at 1:46pm · Edited · Like






           

            



Brett Daly Madame Hand sat in the deepest meditative trance she had ever been, and that's saying something for someone who has spent her entire life in deep meditative trances.

           

            She continued to lay the cards upon the table, now covering the original cards with a successor, forever defining the course of the history for that still very small pile, as well as that for the other emerging piles, as she continued in this manner by the faint light from a single candle placed at the center of the table. The flame flickered wildly, casting hallucinogenic shadows dancing upon the walls of her carriage. The candle was soon reaching its end, when it will soon of its own accord self-extinguish, casting all into darkness, and ending the card placement in which she had been so engrossed.

           

            She drew another card from the deck, and she regarded it for what seemed an enternity. Shortly the card was stained by a teardrop, now running down and then off the card, the dripping onto a small pile of placed cards below. She looked-up with a countenance of utter despair, her face a shifting collage of shadows from the now rapid oscillations of the candle flame. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" she cried, and with a sweep of her hand dashed all of the cards onto the floor.

           

            For twelve long years she had performed this nightly ritual to no satisfaction. Now, on this very night she had taken the ceremony to its farthest point, but still, to her dismay she could not conclude.

           

            She resolved that night never to play solitaire again, not after twelve straight years of losses.

           

            She snuffed the candle, and drew a warm shawl around her shoulders. Looking outside she noted the snow had just stopped, and she decided to walk the streets to reflect and take her mind off of solitaire.

           

            She happened upon a sight of all manner of hats scattered about in the middle of a street and, seeing nobody about, placed a stylish broad-brimmed hat adorned with peacock feathers upon her head.

           

                        She was soon to make good her escape when she espyed a door left ajar at one of the buildings. An odd sight on an evening when it had been snowing intermittently all day. She was about to pay it no mind and return to her carriage when she felt a sudden impulse to investigate. She felt guided by an internal energy which guided her footsteps. And as she trod ever closer to her destination as if controlled by some outside force, an oboe solo she had never heard before, but which seemed so familiar in a déjà-vu way, was playing in her head.
13 hours ago via mobile · Like