Today’s prompt is. Bone of contention
Pick a contentious issue about which you care deeply — it could be the same-sex marriage debate, or just a disagreement you’re having with a friend. Write a post defending the opposite position, and then reflect on what it was like to do that.
Calm your qualms
It’s all change
It’s all good
Still
The trembling
Still
Today’s prompt is. Show and tell
You’ve been asked to do a five-minute presentation to a group of young schoolchildren on the topic of your choice. Describe your presentation.
Collaboration
Is knocked out of us
Systematically
In the school system
Filling us up instead
With competition
And greed
Perfecting us
As the ideal consumers
The perfect wheels in the
Machine
Those who hold the levers
Know
Collaboration
Could bring them down
If you liked this poem check out my novel – the theme of this poem is the central theme of the book – see below.
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.
On one level this is a story about how different people react to 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
or hardback
from Amazon
Today’s prompt is. Comfort zone
What are you more comfortable with — routine and planning, or laissez-faire spontaneity?
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, 180 Degrees
Politicians
Are vilified
For their U-turns
Personally
I admire those
Who can admit they are wrong
And stay to deal
With the consequences
Let not victory
Excite you too much, karma
Has her eye on you
Today’s prompt is. 180 degrees
Tell us about a time you did a 180 — changed your views on something, reversed a decision, or acted in a way you ordinarily don’t.
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Silver screen
Look into the eyes of the dragon and despair.
The beast is released.
They thought it tame
Thought it was a game
Now
It’s free
And they will pay the consequences
Of their fear
The quote, the first line of the poem, is from my favourite film, Excalibur by John Boorman, spoken by Merlin.
Government Guide to Hospitality
We welcome you with open arms
If you can afford it
If not, go to hell
Today’s prompt is. Silver screen
Take a quote from your favorite movie — there’s the title of
your post. Now, write!
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Erasure
There are days
We wish to erase
But would we be the same
Without the pain
Without the shame
Still…
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Ghostwriter
I don't need a ghostwriter
I need a ghostwriter
Ghostparenter
Ghostlover
I need someone
To live my life
While I write
Today’s prompt is. Erasure
You have the choice to erase one incident from your past, as though it never happened. What would you erase and why?
Lab rats
In a maze
Looking for
The exit
The Prize
The BIG CHEESE
Suppressing
Suspicion
Sure knowledge
The maze is it
The maze is all
Today’s prompt is. Ghostwriter
If you could have any author –living or dead – write your biography, who would you choose?
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Playlist
The story of the impossible The impossible climb Save the last dance for me While the world burns around us I’m a believer But I cannot believe what I see Walk away Never really a choice Nights in white satin But no knights to defend
Ignoring the suggestion again and instead, I am taking the first five random songs from a mix that my music player gave me – which is a mix of my own chosen songs and others it suggests I might like. So the five titles I interspersed with my thoughts.
Pink
A delicate shade
Of colour
Hijacked
By toy makers and marketers
To smash young minds
Into shape
And conformity
Give it back
To salmon
And cold autumn evenings
To flushed skin
And lips
And artists
And leather bound books
And bank notes
And fresh ink
Pink
Today’s prompt is. Playlist of the week
Tell us how your week went by putting together a playlist of five songs that represent it.
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, VIP
My wife
My life
My every breath
Together
Forever
Until death
This is the way
We need more today
Love
Today’s prompt is. VIP
Who’s the most important person in your life — and how would your day-to-day existence be different without them?
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Fantasy
Looking after their friends Interests It’s what they excel at Imagining them being able to cope beyond that Is just fantasy Welcome to your government
So the soldier walks alone
beneath the
starry night
He has no aim but distance
from the bloody fight
But the war it still pursues him
snapping at his heels
He slips into the forest deep
beyond those broken hills
O glory days
Those glory days
They’ve shattered
and they fade
They only left a rumour
A shadow
where they laid
So the sword is silenced
with a deep and lasting chill
In his heart, the war goes on
the beating never still
Behind the hallowed orders
that laid so many low
Is revealed the empty truth
the sickest, cruellest blow
O glory days
Those glory days
They’re gone
they never were
So the soldier walks away
from guilt
that he defers
Today’s prompt is. Fantasy
The Tooth Fairy (or Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus . . .) : a fun and harmless fiction, or a pointless justification for lying to children?
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Seven Days
In only seven days
The world was turned upside down
The lovers of peace
Watched it drain away
The shadow looms
The wall is too high
The lonely tree
Stood atop the blasted hill
Stark
Barren branches snatching
Rays from a mist-shrouded sun
Every now and then
Upon an errant breeze
Flits a weary bird
Resting one more time
On its final flight
Then falls
All around the roots
Dead birds and ash
Giving meager succour
To the lonely tree
One day
From that blood-soaked soil
This tree’s seed will rise
Green will conquer grey
Once more
But too late
For this final witness
Of our fall
#ClimateStrike
Today’s prompt is. Seven days
You wake up tomorrow morning to find all your plans have been cancelled for the next seven days and $10,000 on your dresser. Tell us about your week.
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Grown up
In our depths
There is a repressed scream
Distant
Held back
Leaking through
As stress
As inexplicable grief
As depression
But what that scream really is
Is the child inside
Yearning for escape
So it seems to me that beyond the news
Beyond the web of the media spin
There are places still where the only views
Are battlegrounds full of unearthly din
I see the most pious places burning
Where the holy words still hold high accord
Where simple souls for peace are still yearning
The peace that those holy words won’t afford
Yet here where reason and science abound
We live comfy lives secure in our ways
No bombs rain down on our manicured ground
There is no revolt, no passion ablaze
There’s something wrong with this picture I see
Is it really this way, can you tell me?
Today’s prompt is. All grown up
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Perspective
Some say they are liberators
Others say they’re invaders
This conflict dominates the news
But the only view that counts
Is the victims
Sunset of the plain
Buffalo are running fast
Into leaden death
Today’s prompt is. Perspective
Write about the last disagreement you had with a friend or family member — from their perspective.
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Twenty Five
The blackbird perches
High in the silver elm tree
The wind tests the trunk
A quick one – a haiku written without the letter o.
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, No Thanks
Visitors from the stars
Passing by
Would be appalled
And leave well alone
Abandon us
As the hopeless savages we are
One lumen
The light of a candle
It can be seen they say
For many miles
Candles burn tonight
One for each lost angel
Light that will been seen over many years
Still bright in our minds
A million candles
A fiery sun of bittersweet memories
The burning potential
Of lives that never were
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Today’s prompt is. Twenty-five
There are 26 letters in the English language, and we need every single one of them. Want proof? Choose a letter and write a blog post without using it. (Feeling really brave? Make it a vowel!)
They trickle in
The protesters, the bitter, the dispossessed, the poor
They swirl in slow currents
Exchanging thoughts, views, ideas.
An oasis for the outcasts
The Man sits by the pool
And fishes
Taking what he needs
Watching the rest
The pool holds no threat
Today’s prompt is. No, thanks
Is there a place in the world you never want to visit? Where, and why not?
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Places
The forest
Is always calling
Deep in my heart
The scent of fern and bark
Takes me back
To where I belong
All around me
Lies
The ruins of young
Dreams
Away from me hope
Flies
Bursting at the
Seams
So where to go
Now
The truth has been
Exposed
When you don’t know
How
To let go what you
Supposed
Find a new path to
Walk
Step up to the
Task
Start the do and stop the
Talk
Start the make and stop the
Ask
Man up and face the
Truth
You’ve faced worse and
Survived
You’re longer in the tooth
Time to come
Alive
Originally published in A Spring of Dreams
Today’s prompt is. Places
Beach, mountain, forest, or somewhere else entirely?
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Back to the Future
I whispered through a wormhole
Sending back words
Of wisdom to myself
Be braver – I said.
Take risks – have more confidence
Avoid this safe, stable life I look back on
It must have worked
Now, I rule the world with terror
Today’s prompt is. Back to the future
A service has been invented through which you can send messages to people in the future. To whom would you send something, and what would you write?
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, First light
I awoke
I remembered my dream
My oldest friend
And I
On holiday
On a strange island
We were going glassblowing
He dashed ahead
I lost him
I panicked
I know dreams don’t really mean anything – but this surely means my dreaming mind is more creative than my waking one.
Space. It stretched out before him – endless, dark, enticing. The stars were faint and blurry through the thick glass view port, 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!”
Today’s prompt is. First light
Remember yesterday, when you wrote down the first thought you had this morning? Great. Now write a post about it.
In response to Scott’s Daily Prompt, Comedy of Errors
It’s 2022
It’s true
But still
There’s a madman
With his finger on the button
Our zenith has passed
We missed the chance
To progress beyond
Our nature
OK – nothing to do with the prompt really – apart from that’s all that came to mind when I read it.
Keep them on the verge
Of being panicked
Keep them unsure
And afraid
Whip them into a frenzy
Then collect the coin they make
Prod them where you need them to go
Today’s prompt is. Comedy of errors
Murphy’s Law says, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Write about a time everything did — fiction encouraged here, too!
Bonus assignment: do you keep a notebook next to your bed? Good. Tomorrow morning, jot down the first thought you have upon waking, whether or not it’s coherent.
Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 