A little explanation need for this one. The quote I always come back to is one from Frank Herbert’s Dune.
The only constant is change
I come back to this when times are tough, to remind me – nothing is forever. Even the hard times will end. But also to keep perspective – I always try and think – will I care about what I am worrying about in 10 years time. If not – it’s not worth the stress now! (I know that’s easier said than done.)
With that quote in mind here is a quick Haiku inspired by it.
Even the mountains
Are impermanent giants
The wise realise
The world clashes with me Or I with it Its movie reel passes before me And I watch Observe But I am not of it Occasionally It brushes me Pricks me Interrupts my view My observations And the things I should enjoy I don’t Until I can observe them Again one day My moments pass Slipping I can never seem To be in them
Arid
Are the hearts
and souls
Of our leaders
Deserts devoid of
Compassion
The seem to think
That
Their endless thirst
Can be assuaged
Quenched
By blood and gold
Our blood and gold
By Francisco Sanchis Cortés (Music at an exhibition) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia CommonsThe God of War awoke. Stirred from his long slumber and stretched. He gave a few swings of his hammer and yawned.
“This is it!” His voice rolled through the thunder clouds like a promise.
His minions had had their fun while he slept. Keeping the family business running so to speak.
That was over. The was The War. The Big One.
Those puny little tyrants and heroes would not know what hit them.
The God of War flexed his neck, rolled his head and shook the sleep from his long, flowing hair.
Lightning gleamed dully in his armour.
He looked to his left, to his right. Stretching out on either side were the flanks of his sisters. Mounted – their wings shining in the rain.
The God of War raised his hammer and with a mighty swoop bore it down on the earth.
Lighting smashed open the clouds and unleashed hell.
People were confused. Thrown off their kilter. They could not understand the petty battles, the conflict after conflict. No one seemed able to stop them. No one seemed to care.
The rich and powerful holed up with their gold. The poor were starved and eaten.
The God of War kept at it. Smiling with fury. This was his purpose, his being, his goal. His end.
So confused and fearful the people did not see, the chances they had slip away. The weapons they might use be consumed by war.
While the battles raged the earth burned. And burned and burned. The forests turned to ash and cities fell. The seas boiled away.
Beyond repair, this was the final battle.
After the long age of suffering the God of War surveyed the devastation with satisfaction. He had won. Nothing survived. The earth was too warm for life, nothing breathed.
He had won. And so now he burned with the earth. Raised his arms in fury and triumph in his final pyre.
With no players, there was no more war.
Peace descended. The earth would rest in it until the end.
So last year I had a plan. To not post anything new on my website. I figured that by posting all my new work I was then eliminating that work from competitions etc.
So the plan was, keep the site going by reposting old stuff, while waiting new stuff in the background.
Well, that didn’t really work. I did the posting, but very little writing in the background. I did a few poems and a few short stories but nowhere near as much as I wanted.
So what to do?
I need a kick up the proverbial butt. So I have decided to try another daily post challenge. I did one years ago, a poem a day challenge. This time I will try and do a post a day for a year based on this document. I may diverge from the suggestions but they will be the spring board.
To address my concern about eliminating myself from markets I will actually do two. One I will publish the other I will keep private.
I will also make each prompt a post that people can link back to if they want to join in.
I will also still post old posts. Let’s see how it goes.
Life in unbalanced Uneven Unfair? Karma is bunkum Days, weeks, years of effort For each small gain Each small good None reached with ease While all around The bad rains down Good luck seems rare Bad luck the normal The scales uneven It seems
Dark, thick between the trees
No light shines off
The dull black armour
Of the horseman as he rides
Slow through the forest of dreams.
Pale the winding path The black knight follows His weary steed plods steadfast As its burden heavy grows Head hung low
This quest was not the glory
He dreamed of in his youth
Like the birds that flew this morning
On dreams that seemed to be
A promise of life and growth
He followed the flighty birds
As they danced upon his dreams
Into this tree locked realm
And the winding path so thin
They drew him deeper in
And the vines of need reached out
With curled dependency
Wrapped around his limbs, his heart
Sinking deep their thorns
The pain shook him from his dreams
To the vines, he must cling To keep his dreams at bay Though they drag him deeper down And hamper his faltering way They are a part of him
He no longer sees the birds
Riding on his dreams
Now he knows the awful truth
That only dragons truly fly
The dragons he should slay
He could unsheath his sword These vines to cut Roar fire and leap to the sky Instead, he forges onward To endure until he dies
Silver twines intricate wires thin and delicate stretching from misty past to infinite future Each one a story a thread of life Twisting they come together Winding, entwining Further down the road The twines form a rope Stronger Older Wiser Thicker Stiffer
What’s inside Distorts and shapes The exterior All those dreams and hopes Hates and fears That make up the interior The moiling Boiling Packed and stacked Stretched and tense Earnest pretence That inside us all Makes us all What we are Rather than what We wish
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.
What 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.
The humdrum conundrum Of life rumbles on The pounding of A thousand thoughts The tension Between the chains Of convention And the delicious Whips of vice Dreaming ends Life rumbles on On on The beat of the master’s drum
![By Francisco Sanchis Cortés (Music at an exhibition) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Walk%C3%BCrenritt_o_Ritt_der_Walk%C3%BCren_%28detail%29.jpg)
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Scott Andrew Bailey - Author 