Weather marvellous,
having a terrific time,
postcard platitudes.
Category Archives: As you read it
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #267 Marvelous&Terrific
Filed under As you read it, Factual, Haiku, Self compositions
Sammiscribbles weekend writing prompt
I will tell you a tale,
it’s not very long,
about Teddy the tinker
who loved to sing songs,
while riding in his cart
as his pony towed them along.
The pony’s name was Ticker
but he had just one thing wrong
with him, though you couldn’t tell
as he trotted in time to his gong.
It wasn’t his heart though his name may suggest
but his very long appendage
which reached to his chest.
Filed under Adult themes, As you read it, Comic verse, Self compositions, Whimsical
Sue Vincent’s popular Thursday photo prompt: Journey #writephoto
Culloden was getting tired. For forty days he had been searching for the sacred mount. The burial place of his forefathers. He had no understanding that he was the last of his race although he realised he had met none of his kind for longer than he could remember and for a giant, memories are long. He had long ago learned how to conceal himself from the eyes of men. Although he and his kind had never meant or meaningfully done harm to these strange, to his eyes, miniature replicas of himself, whenever the two races had met his people were attacked and despite friendly overtones they had been forced to flee and hide. Hiding places were becoming scarce. Men had slowly but surely started to change the lands he had known, loved, walked and cherished since time immemorial. Fires were set across the land for reasons he could not fathom. The woodlands were shrinking, there were now vast open spaces which were left as bare earth for one half of the year and in which strange plants started to grow which were soon removed by men. The only secure hiding places were in the vast caves which time, wind and water had excavated in the deep gorges in the hills or at the edges of the sea. He was scared and slowly the thought had been building in his mind that his kind were no longer necessary. After much contemplation and with a resignation born of patient, peaceful, deliberation he had decided to return to the eternal resting place of his forefathers. There he would lie down and enjoy the sleep of the blessed which comes upon all living things. He would leave this realm in the hope that those who followed would maintain the eqilibrium thus far enjoyed by Mother Earth.
Heroism and grief, a tale of the two.
The 15th August 1952, a night of tragedy for a small close-knit community on the wastes of Exmoor. Still remembered by many as one of the most tragic nights in living memory. Many tales of bravery have been told mixed with tales of woe, here is one such with a most poignant climax.
Grandfather Abe sat in his chair beside the old log fire. Stubborn, obstinate, he had refused to leave with his family when they had told him the house wasn’t safe and looked likely to collapse. The rushing waters of the swollen river rising ever higher at its back door. He insisted that the river had served him all his long life and would never hurt him now, but he was wrong. He was just drifting off to sleep when the end came and only awoke when he found himself in the water, miraculously unharmed by the tumbling masonry, all that was left of his beloved cottage as it toppled backwards into the torrent.
His wife, watching from outside, where she had waited in the cold and driving rain shaking her head at his obstinacy, gasped as she saw the collapsing building, safe from her position across the road from their front garden. Fearing the worst for her husband she rushed back to what had now become the water’s edge. It was not yet completely dark and suddenly she saw a shape in the water, arms thrashing wildly. It was Abe struggling to escape the fast flowing stream. His wife cried out, “Here Abe,” and bracing herself against the railings that were previously the garden fence, leaned through and reached out her arms to him. This appeared to give him renewed strength and in two strokes he reached the railings but the effort took it’s toll. He started to roll over. With superhuman effort his wife managed to grab hold of his braces and drag him towards her till he could grab the railings himself.
With one last heave she dragged him to the lowest bar. Exhausted she leaned her arm on the top rail but with the water around her feet she over balanced and with a loud cry toppled into the water to be swept away. Her body later recovered about half a mile downstream wedged under the remains of one of the many bridges destroyed by the flood. Old Abe never recovered from the shock of losing his wife in that way. He knew that it was only because of his attitude she had lost her life and was never the same again.
Filed under As you read it, Factual, History, Short story, Stirring the memories, Uncategorized
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, First Line Friday: August 16th, 2019
The capitol grew rank in the summer heat, the humid streets clogged with sweating tourists and rats. Both were welcome, the tourists for the money they could put in the pockets of the traders, and the rats, the over-riding reason why there were so many tourists. The vast majority here to visit the Karni Mata temple, better known as the Temple of the Rats. What the vast majority don’t realise is that it is only the twenty thousand or so black rats who live within the temple precinct are sacred. The ones who they see scurrying around the streets while they browse for souvenirs of this wonderful if not stomach-turning experience, the ones lazing on the sun-bleached walls and roof and those who roam uninvited in their hotel rooms are just rats.
Filed under As you read it, Factual, faith, Self compositions
Sammiscribbles Weekend Writing Prompt #118
Following on from the well known and still, though not now so frequently, asked question whereby who can either recall where they were or what were doing on the day Kennedy was shot or man took his first step on the moon, can now be added a more recent one. I am referring of course to the furore caused by the award of the 2016 Nobel prize for literature to the well known, Beat Generation, folk singer and hero, Mr. Bob Dylan, thus sparking a major debate amongst literatiii as to the inclusion of songs as literature. A topic still much discussed today.
Filed under As you read it, Factual, General post, Self compositions
Sue Vincent’s ← Thursday photo prompt #writephoto
At first it was the silence that disturbed me. I had always imagined that, like being blind, if sight is restricted then it heightens the other senses. This was different. All sound was deadened, vision was restricted. there weren’t many left, one of them was smell and this was unpleasant, acrid leaving a hint of a bitter taste on my lips. The air was clammy to the touch, warm, unlike most mists or fogs, usually cold and damp, this was like perspiration. From above my head large drops of water were falling at regular intervals from the motionless leaves on the trees. When one fell on my cheek I shuddered in disgust for it felt sticky to the touch. I examined the drop more closely, inside the ball of liquid was a small brown dot, it was moving. It resembled a tiny brown maggot, it’s back bending as it wriggled with what I assumed was the head bending down to the end of its body and springing back. With an involuntary, “Uggh,” I dropped the sticky, gelatinous blob to the ground. I couldn’t be certain that these were droplets of the trees’ sap or part of the fog itself. Considering the numbers that were falling I decided discretion was the better part of valour. Turning I retraced my steps with a bit more haste to wait and see if this curious fog would clear.
Filed under As you read it, Flash fiction, nature inspired, Otherworldly, Self compositions
Sue Vincent’s weekly challenge #writephoto #Aflame
After four hours of half-running, mainly stumbling, over the rough ground we allowed ourselves to rest. Karen placed her rucksack on one of the many granite rocks strewn over the hillside and started to rifle through it. Her fingers feverish, her gaze intense. The marks of recent tears etched on her soot and earth-stained cheeks. Occasionally she would look over to the West where the late evening sun had set the heavens aglow. It wasn’t the crimson streaked golden glow of the sun that worried us. It was the impetus given to the spectacle by the raging fires from which we were escaping. I wanted to put my arms around her, tell her everything was all right but we both knew it would be a lie. Everyone’s homes were in ruins, razed to the ground. Whole families erased or trapped helpless in the area of devastation. It was only by sheer luck we had managed to escape. We had seen no other persons in our flight; surmising on the possibility that we may ave been the only ones left. All we knew was that we had to keep on moving, get as far away as possible and then try to find if there were any more survivors of the catastrophic onslaught. But I only knew that if we didn’t rest now, take stock of the situation and plan our strategy there could be no tomorrow to hope for.
MLMM’s heeding haiku with Chevrefeuille ~Shadows on the wall
The best horror films
will use, to build some tension,
light walls, dark shadows
Filed under As you read it, Factual, Haiku, Self compositions, Whimsical
Colleen’s 2019 Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge No. 137 #SynonymsOnly
Each variety
of animal, fish or plant
lost to extinction,
will by way of Nature move
mankind down the same sure path
Filed under As you read it, dystopian view, Factual, nature inspired, Self compositions, Tanka, Uncategorized
When the pen takes control. 