Destination Dreams
The light that burns bright
Will burn twice as fast. My light
Must last forever
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #180 Slow&Burn
In response to the daily prompt Dim
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If only I knew
What I know now years ago
My time would have been
Spent in a much better way
Less effort on silly things
In response to COLLEEN’S WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE, NO. 73: ENERGY & KNOWLEDGE, #SNYONYMSONLY
#Tanka
I have a bad feeling about this
He said
She said
It said
Many voices
They did it anyway
Always
In response to the daily prompt Premonition
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Hi! I’m glad to see you here. Are you ready to write some poetry?
HERE’S THE CATCH: You can’t use the prompt words! SYNONYMS ONLY!
I hope you will support the other poets with visits to blogs and by leaving comments. Sharing each other’s work on social media is always nice too.
Please note: We are all students of poetry. I have given you the instructions on how to write the different forms. Try your best to be as exact as you can. There are no tests, and I don’t grade your work. LOL!
The most meaningful change you will learn about is in writing a Haiku vs. a Senryu. Also, remember, pronunciation in various parts of the world will affect your syllable count. Go with your gut on deciding the syllable count. You are the poet and the creator of your work.
The main reason…
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We have a love/hate relationship with it.
We do not want to be afraid. We want safety and comfort.
Or do we?
Underneath, secretly we crave it. The thrill of fear, the arousal of danger.
So turn off the lights. Open the pages and delve in.
Find the thrill in the words.
Slip away for a few hours, into other worlds – away from all the troubles of this one.
Perhaps into the future – a near future – dark and disturbing and yet – so close. There follow the fates of four people worn down and broken – or angry with the system. Who break out of it and try to break it. Who question why they did and falter in their resolve only to be thrown back into the fray to discover the truth within themselves. A tale that questions rebellion and its motivations while railing at the oppression around us. Try it.
Or if not the future – the other worlds – supernatural ones – that impinge onto ours from – where? Some other dimension? The afterlife? Our own minds?
Where ever they come from – try these Thirteen Tales of the Ghostly variety.
Or forget them all and take a moment each day – to read a little poetry and think. Three hundred and sixty-five poems in all shapes and sizes sprung from dreams and emotion. Published day after day for a year. There are haiku, sonnets, katauta, lanturnes and many other forms – including free form. The moods are as varied as the forms and often reflect my mood on the day. There is sadness and grief, joy and love.
If you’re in London on the 9th of March and like some class and culture.. check this concert out.
To help celebrate International Women’s Day the Royal Academy of Arts approached the Royal College of music to suggest a collaborative performance entitled “In Tune with Feminist Futures” inspired by revered female artists, including Royal Academicians Gillian Wearing, Sonia Boyce, and Phyllida Barlow.
This was an ideal opportunity for me and my friends on the Women In Music module to perform some of the pieces that we have researched and prepared for our recital lectures on the 8th March.
It has been a wonderful opportunity for me to work with accompanist Leanne Singh-Levett who has helped me to shape my songs, one of which is quite a difficult and quirky contemporary piece by Kaija Saariaho called “Il Pleut”. Leanne will also be accompanying my friends Katy Thomson and Esme Hurlburt with their contributions to the evening.
There will also be performances by the Maconchy Quartet, Maren…
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I have been put in so many boxes
No wonder I have lost my head
My left hand has lost the right
My heart is by the brown bread
My eyes are somewhere dark and grim
Can’t tell where or when
My feet are tied to a tired path
They wander again and again
But it doesn’t matter
My imagination can fly
In response to the daily prompt Imagination
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Tempting like a tart
Sweet nectar awaits inside
So the dance begins
In response to RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #190 Tart&Sweet
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
We have reached
A time
When
Congregation
Is not enough
Movement is needed
Action
Revolution
In response to the daily prompt Congregate
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The future we hope
Will be crystal clear and bright
Instead, it is blurred
I ruminate on my future
I have grown weary
My skills and senses
Blunted
A plough driven too long
I must change
Or something must change
Nervous
I must arise again
Be alive again
Feed!
Made of crystal
So clear
It can hardly be seen
The breadth of seven men
The height of the clouds
The top unseen
Inside
Sparking and crackling
Impossible
Bright and pure
It is filled with
Starfire
For miles around
The land knows no dark
Ever
The question might be asked
Why it was built
Were there anyone around
To ask it
Dancing with my wife,
last week the telegraph came:
Coughs ring round the trench.
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She stared at the artefact. It reminded her of a flower. Well, reminded was the wrong word. She had never seen a flower – there were no more left. They had died out long before she had arrived.
Everything had.
But in the last few months, her colleagues had managed to decipher and read the ancient data they had found here and there. They had pieced together a rough history of this dead place. Not much but enough – enough to know what happened.
Enough to know it could happen to them.
Enough to know what a flower looked like.
Before they had died – somebody had carved a final message on this artefact.
‘Man’s final folly!”
She wondered at that. She could not fathom its reasoning.
It was beyond doubt now that this giant metal flower had been the instrument that had called out to them so long ago. Sent its message to the stars.
And they had heard. 20,000 long years ago she and her colleagues had boarded their ship and started on their way.
In all probability, the flower was still broadcasting then. The carver of that message was still breathing good air.
No more.
There was no more good air. There was nothing left to breathe it.
Was puzzled her more was the fact that the remaining histories made it plain that it was foreseeable. Preventable even.
Yet she could also see that their own masters back home could easily make the same mistake. As advanced as they were the path was familiar.
So it was that she and her fellow robotic explorers had taken the decision to delay their trip home. It would take them 20,000 more years to get back with the warning.
This – folly – could send the message quicker. So here they were trying to repair it get it working again.
A desperate battle to avoid the fate of these long dead people who called themselves human beings.
In response to the daily prompt Astral
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Deep bright purple star.
Piercing from the depths of roiling blue gas clouds
And a million billion stars
Outshining Venus and Mars
Swathes like silver paths
Some gathered in spiral wheels
And between them in the sparse dark spaces
Ships blink and travel on by.
A memory from the deepest well of childhood.
A memory that could not have been.
In response to the daily prompt Astral
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Does the earth miss
The hard and distant touch of
The rocks from the stars
In response to the daily prompt Astral
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Astral light guides
Cold and passionless
Cargos through the ages
Wood and steel
Fruit and bread
Flesh
To be sold
Along with the souls
Of the seller
In response to the daily prompt Astral
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
Swifts swoop and dazzle
Aerobatics in the sky
Still, we watch in awe
Would all the earth succumb to the concrete blanket of mankind? Was that the best legacy they could leave? Was their vision that limited?
One day there would come a time when it would be more profitable to tear these trees down than to leave them. Then there would be no power on earth that would save them. Even concerned consumers couldn’t stand in the way of profits anymore.
Read an excerpt here.
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or hardback
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I am conversant
In…
Um
Well, I am quite good at….
Hey
What the hell
Why does it matter?
Who am I trying to
Impress
In response to the daily prompt Conversant
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Trying Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo prompt for the first time – simply because I have a poem I think fits the photo very well. Hopefully, I’ll continue each week though as I need plenty of prompting!
This is the picture
Here’s my poem from way back – fits nicely I think.
Footsteps on the dusky beach
Holes left by those gone by
Empty.
The tide turns, creeps back in
holes become pools
shining in the sunset
Peering in beyond my reflections
the shining water
teems with life
Originally Published in “A Spring of Dreams“.
The sun reaches out
And excites the northern sky
A watcher’s pleasure
From the grain grows the stem
That delivers the wheat
From the deep furrow of the ground
Harvested
By the old
Leather clad hands
Carried beneath the canvas
Of the rocking wagon
To the mill
Until the day
We went against the grain
Explorers – or pillagers? The line is thin on the high seas, in strange exotic lands. Those that operate without fear of consequence soon learn their folly. There are older powers in the world than gunpowder and steel.
A collection of short stories concerning ghosts. Some are traditional ghost stories in the tradition of M.R. James and Edgar Allan Poe. Other are not. Some scare, some are fun. Some play with the concept of a ghost. There are ghosts who are out for revenge and the living avenging the spirits that curse them.
Ideal for sitting around a campfire and late at night under the covers. Or maybe not if the stories themselves are any guide.
Check it out on Amazon and Smashwords and other online e-book retailers.
A paperback version is now available for those who prefer the feel of the paper while huddling by the fire – on your own – in the dark – with that noise behind you……
Where is the litmus test?
The assay
Of our leaders
Mettle
Why must I strive
To prove
My worth
When they
Enjoy
No scrutiny
In their ancient
Empty halls
With their ancient
Empty way
In response to the daily prompt Assay
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Black and white headlines
Betray grey morality
Fallen leaves turn brown
The King of the West
With his golden crown
Encrusted with jewels and finery
Refuses to let it go
When the waters rise
So he is dragged
To the deep
In response to the daily prompt Encrusted
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Humanity reduced to a bottom line.
Trapped. In a world where everything is measured and control pervades every area of life, four people begin to break down. Instead, they break through the walls of deceit and propaganda and into a world of revolution.
Each, in their way, vow to overthrow the established order. They embark on a journey against the forces arraigned against them, forces of state and self-doubt.
Ultimately their paths converge on a dangerous road and the discovery of an ancient secret.
One one level this is a story about how different people react the ever growing and relentless pressure of everyday oppression. It explores their journeys as they are broken and rebuilt and investigates their modes and motivations for rebelling.
At another level it is a critique on the darker side of capitalism and free markets and how that has driven us further and further away from the evolutionary advantage that gave us supremacy in the first place. It questions whether the human race has doomed itself or whether we still have the capacity to wrench ourselves from the track we have so tightly committed our society upon.
Read an excerpt here.
Available as
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Now also available at Smashwords, IBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and many other outlets.
Stars sparkle
Planets shine
Celestial bodies far from reach
The solars tantalise
Go for the shiners
Whose light is constant
The stars will ever taunt you
In response to the daily prompt Constant
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Forward
Maybe
From the chaos
From all the death and anger
We can find a better answer
We Need
I used the American form rather than the didactic.
In response to Colleen’s Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge, No. 72: Breakthrough & Movement, #SnyonymsOnly
#Haiku
Wherever words roam
Over fantastical lands
The heart rests at home.
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Only hear the stream
Babbling toward to ocean
The breath of the air
In response to https://ronovanwrites.com/2018/02/19/ronovanwrites-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-189-zennoise/
#Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge
I have written one for this prompt already but it also reminded me of this – enjoy
In response to the daily prompt Compromise
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Compromise
Hope
That feels like
Betrayal
Can it be that
Our future
Is simply the
Best deal we can
Broker
When we can step
Aside
From the demands
Of one side
And the
Other
Then
We can have
Peace
In response to the daily prompt Compromise
#DailyPrompt, #amwriting, #postaday
If you are stuck for ideas – here are a few. They are original and different – plus being ebooks they have the advantage of not being hindered by delivery issues 🙂
Marc trudged on with life, marching in line with his fellow workers. Weighed down by the everyday burdens of life, the pressure to conform, to succeed or face destitution.
Yet he knew, in his heart that it was all wrong, the questions squirmed like fiery dragons in the pit of his heart, beneath his deepest darkest doubts.
Until they grew and burst his sanity, set him on a path of defiance and rebellion. A path that would cross three others – all like him seeking answers.
A path of danger and adventure that would see him marked as a terrorist and fleeing for his life. It would see him find love and heartbreak, hope and despair, Most of all, it would open his eye to the possibility of an ancient and powerful secret that might answer all his doubts and fears.
If he survived.
As the title says – thirteen tales about ghosts. Yet, while ghosts feature in them all – not all are traditional ghost stories.
You will find the vengeful spirit but also the plaintiff one. The haunting message from the past and the playful spirits capturing the joy of their past lives.
Some of these visitors from beyond lead the haunted to peace and joy – others take them on much darker paths to places with no return.
Enjoy them – just don’t get too comfortable.
Three hundred and sixty-five poems in all shapes and sizes, sprung from dreams and emotion. Published day after day for a year. There are haiku, sonnets, katauta, lanturnes and many other forms – including free form. The moods are as varied as the forms and often reflect my mood on the day. There is sadness and grief, joy and love.
If nothing else – these can provide a small moment in everyone’s stressful lives to stop and contemplate the world in a different way.
In response to the daily prompt Present
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The past is hazy, but warm
The present cold, hard and discontented
The future unsure
The goal
The route
Hidden
In response to the daily prompt Present
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There are empty spaces
left as people move on,
of the spaces of places long gone,
of times gone by
There is a link between present and past
an energy, a potential,
strung between the memories gone
and the living yet to roll on
The link hums with the tension
and the empty spaces echo back the thrum
deep rich reverberation
layered on the past, the present, the future
Such is the music of life.
In response to the daily prompt Present
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He would have been six today
Had things gone differently
Who knows?
Being nearer to the hospital?
Or some other factor?
That we can never change
So now
I remember you
Every morning
Then shoulder the burdens
Of life
And the joys
Of your brothers
Read more about his short life here
A woman alone, in a deep dark valley, finds her cherished isolation filled with creeping fears. Yet courage can lead to some surprising twists.
A collection of short stories concerning ghosts. Some are traditional ghost stories in the tradition of M.R. James and Edgar Allan Poe. Other are not. Some scare, some are fun. Some play with the concept of a ghost. There are ghosts who are out for revenge and the living avenging the spirits that curse them.
Ideal for sitting around a campfire and late at night under the covers. Or maybe not if the stories themselves are any guide.
Check it out on Amazon and Smashwords and other online e-book retailers.
A paperback version is now available for those who prefer the feel of the paper while huddling by the fire – on your own – in the dark – with that noise behind you……
What right had she to make decisions for other people?
What had made her think that those posters were true?
How dare she have the courage to break those chains?
Read an excerpt here.
Available as
or hardback
from Amazon
or CreateSpace
For SocS
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “his/her(s).” Use one, use both, bonus points if you start your post with one and end with the other. Have fun!
A real stream of consciousness today. Typed the first line and went from there. A bit teen angst like – but hey.
His and her towels
Is where it all falls down
Just towels
Please
No pink or blue
No exclusive clubs
No glass ceiling
Consign the establishment
To the shelves
Build anew
But build it together
No more him and her
No more black and white
No more straight and gay
Just people
Friends and lovers
Colleagues and partners
Helping hands
Droplet spins midair
Shimmering graceful free fall
Dashed against grey stone
Ruby the rube
You think she’s below you
But really
She’s just behind you
With weapons of justice
So
Shiver
And prepare
In response to the daily prompt Rube
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The resplendent cock
Struts and crows, feathers rich red
While the hens scatter
In response to Colleen’s Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge, No. 71: Character & Affection, #SnyonymsOnly
#Haiku
Costume
Armour
Suits
It all hides
What is really inside
In response to the daily prompt Costume
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No time to write tonight. So recycling.
Space. It stretched out before him – endless, dark, enticing. The stars were faint and blurry through the thick glass viewport, moving in a slow arc across his vision.
He could feel the endless nothing all around, calling to his soul, a siren’s whisper.
Float with us. Float with us forever! Float and forget.
The dark song was as endless as dreams.
He shook his head, fighting off the draining sensation.
He needed to concentrate.
He turned away to look out the only other viewport.
This one was dominated by the dark shadow of the dead ship. It was only visible against the deeper blackness due to the fading embers of molten metal fragments of its destruction.
They too fade from sight to and die.
Like everyone inside.
He shivered.
Looking out that viewport was hurting his neck. He faced forward again. He was too cramped. He could only move his head left and right and his arms enough to use the control by his hands and the keyboards before him.
He was stuck.
Daydreams had led him here – he couldn’t let them end him here.
A beep from the computer brought his senses back to proper alertness.
It had started. The attacks were coming.
He had anticipated it, though not so quickly and not all at once.
Float….
Concentrate!
“Update”, he commanded.
The computer’s calm voice responded.
“Interceptors are on the way they will arrive in precisely 623 seconds.”
“They must be responding to the distress call from the prison,” he muttered.
“That would seem a high probability.”
Dammit! He hadn’t been able to cut that off in time.
The computer went on.
“We should send our own distress call, they will be equipped to rescue you.”
“Do not!” he commanded. “Keep radio silence!”
“Affirmative.”
They were not only equipped for rescue. They were heavily armed. Once they learned the truth – and very soon they would – weapons would their first response.
“And our firewall?” he queried.
“The outer defence has been breached but the systems have not yet been compromised.”
That wouldn’t last much longer. The authorities were suspicious already – the presence of such a strong firewall did not to allay those suspicions – so they were hitting the firewall with the best they had.
“And my program?”
“Approximately 800 seconds to completion.”
Not enough time!
He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. There was too much at stake here to fail.
He needed more time.
“Instigate firewall program 42!”
The computer complied and ran the program for him. That would keep the cyber attacks at bay for a little longer.
He shook his head. He had the nagging feeling that this was all just too fantastic!
Only a year ago the only thing he did on a computer was check social media and chat! Spaceships were a thing of science-fiction! Now here he was a master programmer and a fugitive from the authorities flying in space. It all seemed too unreal.
It was the stress of the situation he told himself and he could not afford to be distracted by it.
Besides he wasn’t actually flying a spaceship right now. He was drifting in what was little more than an escape pod.
But the ship he had escaped from was real. As were those bearing down on him. And these were not the only truths he had discovered lately.
He looked at the countdown on the program he was running.
“OK,” he told the computer, “prepare a distress call. But inject the virus I prepared.”
“That is against regulations,” the computer informed him. He barked an override code at it and it proceeded to prepare the distress call.
It was amazing what you could learn in prison. Hacking, override codes. The truth about the universe out there.
Putting him in prison had been their mistake.
Daydreams and curiosity had led him to that prison. he asked too many questions and that had got him into trouble at work and with the Government. That alone would probably not have condemned him but he had also an inventive streak. And a paranoid one.
When they hauled him for questioning he had snuck in a crude listening device.
It had not worked very well but he had caught snippets of conversation.
“He seems immune..”
“Is he any harm though?”
“ … control … inherited or just a ….. “
“He is a dreamer, not a revolutionary.”
“There we go then. We make him a believer…”
Unfortunately, the listening device was discovered – and that sealed his fate. He was shipped off to a deep space prison ship.
A deep space prison ship! One day he was in a world where the space shuttle was the most sophisticated space vehicle man had created and smartphones where the best man seemed to be able to achieve – the next he was in a world of spaceships – and space police!
It was a culture shock, to say the least.
He was dumped into prison and forgotten.
And that was the strangest thing of all. In prison, he flourished.
On earth – in his old life he had been Mr Average Joe to a T. Prison should have broken him. Yet he found that he had more freedom stuck on this ship than ever before.
He learned the truth for one thing.
There existed on earth (and space) a super élite far above anything anyone even suspected existed. They had science and wealth beyond the imagination of most people.
The rests of the population were kept in drug-induced ignorance. Cattle whose sole purpose was to provide this élite with their lifestyle.
Knowledge seemed to flow freely in prison and he absorbed it all. He learnt to program and how to hack computers.
He had vowed to expose the truth and free the world.
So he had concocted his escape. It had cost him the lives of everyone on that ship – and probably his own life too but he didn’t care.
He was filled with fury. He wanted to free the enslaved population of the human race for sure. What he wanted more though was to see the smug bastards who ruled them get their just deserts.
“Distress call is ready to send.”
He nodded, he was about to tell the computer to send it when it preempted him.
“New contacts.”
“What?”
“There are two more ships, coming in from the direction of Saturn.”
“More interceptors?”
“No. They bear all the signs of space pirates?”
Space pirates? Pirates? How could pirates exist? That would imply ….
He shook his head. There were too many questions threatening to distract him. He had to concentrate.
“Program completion has been suspended.” the computer announced.
What!?
He flung his fingers at the keyboard and dove into code. They had not yet got full control but they managed to stop his program.
Which implied they knew or guessed what he was doing.
He glanced at the other screen. The pirates would get here quicker than the interceptors! And they would shoot first!
He didn’t hesitate now. He called up his virus and made a few changes, then he told the computer to prepare it again and send it.
Then he dove back in and started a counterattack against the hackers. He managed to regain control and get his program running again. He then spent the next few minutes both fighting the hackers off and keeping his exit channels open.
While he did this he also watched as his virus took hold of the interceptors and turned them towards the pirates. They would be forced to fight each other for a bit.
The program was also done. The hackers came on in full force. He struggled to hold them back.
A fireball briefly bloomed in space. All the pirate ships and interceptors signals went dead. They had destroyed each other.
Almost there.
Now the hackers could see the program running even if they couldn’t stop it yet.
A signal flickered back to life on the screen
One interceptor had survived.
It was closing in, weapons charged.
Almost.
“Program completed!” the computer announced.
“Run it!” he shouted.
He watched the screen as the truth – all the truth – was sent out to every single person on earth.
The lies were exposed.
Come now, float with us…
No!
The interceptor would be in range soon.
He breathed easier.
He had done as much as he could for the world. Now he had to look to his own survival.
He was stranded in space, with limited resources and little time. Air and supplies running out and no hope of rescue.
After the years and years of confinement, he welcomed the challenge – relished it.
“Now this,” he said, with an almost feral grin, “is living!”
In response to the daily prompt Suspicious
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An old one – especially for the love of my life.
Standing on a high hill
Greenfields rolling away beneath my feet
Off into the hazy horizon.
Strong breeze blowing through my hair
It exhilarates me – makes me feel
I could step forward and fly
Yet
It is nothing to the way you make me feel
Laying in the sun
In the lush deep grass
Sparkles dancing on the water
Blue skies in great expanse arching high
Warms me – happiness safe in my heart
Yet
Cold compared to the warmth you bring
A word of praise from peers
Or reward for long hard work
A beer after a trying day
Shoring up my worth
Yet
Nothing makes me better – more the man I should be
Than having you by my side forever
My love
My wife
My Rachel
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 