Thanks to Bikurgurl for hosting #100WordWednesdays.
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Credit: Bikurgurl
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We live along the river in delapitated shanties. At sunrise we sleepily pull on our rubber boots and checked flannel shirts. It’s late fall and the days are chillier. It doesn’t mean we can’t fish, but the joy of a temperate summer is a distant memory. Gone are the laughter filled nights of plentiful fish, drinking rice wine until midnight.
Harsh temperatures have arrived. Our mornings are early so we can chase the waning light. Evening arrives and the catch is not terrible but not plentiful. The fish at this time of year are wiggly and stronger.
I shiver in the morning light, winter’s stinging winds drawing near. Soon the river will be coated with ice. Then, all we can do is drill a hole and hope for something to bite — anything.
Thanks to Bikurgurl for hosting #100WordsWednesday.
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Credit: Bikurgurl
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“Hey, how are you, Jim?”
“Good. I’m good, you?”
Oh, doing fine. Your lining up here too?” Tim asked.
“Yep, I am. Seems like the place to be.”
“Well, I thought something good must be going on here. Why else would everyone be lining up?”
“Ha, well actually I have no idea what this line up is for. I thought the same thing as you, Tim.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I guess we are all just sheep.” Jim said laughing.
“That’s funny and I think you might be right. I asked a few people ahead of us why they were here and they didn’t know either. It has to be something good, don’t you think?”
Thanks to Bikurgurl for hosting #100WordWednesday.
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Credit: William Stett via UnSplash
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It’s 1962 and Miss Parker’s exotic beauty temporarily shocks her grade seven class into silence. She has lovely dark skin and striking eyes lined with kohl. The boys are held speechless by her attractive appearance. Her bold cranberry lipstick and a fashionably revealing outfit are what her female student’s desire to wear.
Her student’s realize how interesting, knowledgable, and outgoing their new teacher is and walk home each day telling their parents Miss Parker is wonderful. The parents are thrilled for their children.
Nevertheless, things change when the parent’s realize at parent teacher interviews, Miss Parker is black woman. Race was not a feature of Miss Parker their children noticed as racism is not ingrained within a child — it is taught.
Thanks to Bikurgurl for hosting #100WordWednesdays.
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Credit:Felix Russel; Saw via UnSplash
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Images, the vines, the flowers, the tribal tattoos, marking his body their presence is defining. A farmer’s son covered his body in tattoos, to lay claim to a canvas, a territory, beneath a sunless sky. But bruises so dark, red and vivid purple used to cover his limbs, his torso, his face, and even his hands. So when he chooses bright ink, a part of him heals and the bruises fade. With each work of art he becomes stronger and he returns home, sheltered by his images. He’s happy because his body is his own and no father can abuse or mother can deny; tattoos are his stories accompanying him gently as the wheat sways in the field.
Thanks to Bikurgurl for hosting #100WordWednesdays. Today is the last NaPoWriMo prompt “to write a poem about something that happens again and again . . . It could be the setting of the sun, or your Aunt Georgia telling the same story (etc.).” I will add a quote but it’s pretty much any quote I want as the A to Z Challenge is finished as well.
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Credit: Bikurgurl’s Mom – Sandra June
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“Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.” ― Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye
Thanks to Bikurgurl for hosting last week’s #100WordWednesday flashfiction prompt. Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is “to write a poem of ekphrasis — that is, a poem inspired by a work of art.” The A to Z Challenge GoodRead’s Prompt begins with the letter U.
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Credit: Bikurgurl – Her Photograph and work of art for the prompt 🙂
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“To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat— some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet”
(Sorry finding a Q name for this piece impossible but there is Q in Disquiet!)
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The photograph is lovely at first,
A brilliant blue sky, soft winds of cool breezes,
The Atlantic still icy, but forgiving.
Trees rise and guard the home, the lighthouse,
Ancient ones in slumber as spring yet approaches.
Rock walls prevent a fall below, to the unforgiving chill.
Hypothermia comes quickly here,
But the scenery makes up for the inherent danger.
Bright pink of the house stands out and the tower above matches,
Glows in the night when the boats pass by,
Protecting and guiding ships.
The long grass still waiting to be verdent,
Not dry crumpled straw.
And the owners of the house are silent, keeping to themselves,
Their only sense of existing, is the light that glares, when outside the tower is dark.
Spring is slowly birthing, but the ocean’s still freezing,
And the danger is too real for ships too close.
And a stranger walking watches from the dim,
Holding back a dog barking in madness.
The bulb has burnt out, now disaster is unhinged,
The ship clips the cliff, the house crumbles and the ship sinks,
Screams in the night, in the Atlantic’ waters cold numbness.
And when all is said and done, only the lighthouse stands,
With a burnt out bulb of fault.
How can this photograph be a work of art?
Is there art in dying?
Or is art and death as a perception, to ambigious to be real?
