1847 - A Senryu Cluster

 

Image by ChatGPT

The Sunday Whirl presented these twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

bound slip swells fan luring fence cracks bone tower frosted trap grasps

Not seeing a single topic that I felt that I could fit the words to, 

I used each as a prompt for an individual Senryu.

A Cluster of Senryu

bound

Overseas travel.

Like having your second child—

You forget the pain.

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luring

"We can sell your house."

You don’t have to want to sell—

Just give us free rein.

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Bone

They are so eager—

These keen real estate agents.

Don’t throw them a bone.

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fence

Life has compartments.

We must know where our place is.

Boundaries are good.

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cracks

With the right outlook

We are all kintsugi bowls

With gold on our cracks.

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tower

The storms come and go.

I weather all of them—

I am the lighthouse.

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trap

Life is not a trap.

You can move to where you want—

You are not a tree.

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swells

The tide ebbs and flows

But we are in the same sea—

Waves wash over us.

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slip

They slip in between—

Fingers meshing with fingers.

Hearts then follow suit.

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fan

The fingers fan out—

Long sweeping touches follow:

Sensations of love.

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grasps

She touches my hand

(Sitting in a cinema)

Quickly I grasp hers.

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frosted

Frost sits on the leaves,

Sits on the branches, the buds—

A Spring time icing.

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1846 - Preconceptions

 

Image by ChatGPT

The Sunday Whirl presented these twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

demolished legacy step eager age turn scam rich chest shaking smell lie

(Decided to skip ‘scam’.)

Preconceptions

To be honest

I never expected to meet a fairy.

Equally, I never expected

Her to come by tram.

I never expected

Life to turn so quickly—

For age to be no barrier,

For her steps toward me

To be the first in a magical journey,

A journey rich in blessings,

Sacred ritual and spiritual nuance,

Or for me to be so eager, so willing

To embark on this journey with her,

Creating our enduring legacy.

My fairy and me.

I never expected

To be holding hands in the dark.

To be finger-combing her hair

With her head on my lap.

For my voice to be shaking so

As my heart swelled in my chest.

To lie beside her and smell

Her aromas, her fragrance, her being.

To commit to abide in her love,

To worship and support her.

My fairy and me.

I never expected

That so many preconceptions

Would be demolished so quickly,

Shattered and strewn—

Like a foundry worker’s clay, 

Crumbling, breaking away

To reveal the statue

Standing complete before me.

My fairy and me.

I had no idea.

I do now.

◊◊◊

Writing on a plane, 

flying in the wrong direction,

at roughly the same time, 

the fairy wrote to the same set of words:

For Lee*

We demolished their visions of age.

You hand brushes my shoulder

As magnolia blooms its rich mauve,

Its leaves shaking in the rain.

I pause, take a breath.

You kiss my breast.

Your fingers lift me up, step by eager step.

Our skin glows like those

Rain washed flowers.

I lay my head on you chest.

We arrive with the tide.

Our waves receding with the moon

These cycles of love eternal

Our legacy.

◊◊◊

* Lee is my nom du rue.

1845 - The Assignment

 

The Sunday Whirl presents these twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

roosted fringe strip orb ruby beat rush shame faith peaks spot heart

The Assignment

"Everything that irritates us about others

can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

― Carl Gustav Jung 

The Scene

Two angels, roosted

Like two barn owls,

Observe the scene below them.

The Teacher

“Tell me what you see.”

The Student

“I see a globe, an orb,

A mottled blue marble

Fringed in a sky blue…”

The Teacher

“Fine.  Can you go deeper?”

The Student

I see strips of land,

Mountain peaks and 

Vast oceans…

The Teacher

“Yes.  Good. But what else?

The Student

I see a proliferation  of life:

Animals of all sorts, birds, plants, insects.

The Teacher

But these are all just things, objects. 

What do you see within them?

What do you feel?

The Student

“I see…feel…that there are emotions—

Love, faith, shame, to name a few.

And I see…feel…their opposites too.

The Teacher

Good.  That’s better.  Go on…

The Student

“I sense many strong

negative emotions—

a dark overlay in the people:

Fear, anger, greed, a need to win, 

to beat and triumph, an urge to rush 

but no sense of a destination,

a needless assignment of value to

Stones—diamonds, rubies—that sparkle.  

Trinkets and baubles,

That are given inexplicable value.

The Teacher

You are getting there,

Getting to the heart of the problem.

What is missing?

The Student

(thinks for a bit.)

Love.  Compassion. Kindness.

It is there in spots, individuals,

But it is not universal, it is not

The herd default.

The Teacher

So, what is your assessment?

The Student

I am not optimistic,

I fear the malaise is too entrenched.

There are individuals

Who have promise

But the overall sense

Is one of fatality.

A collective fatality.

The Teacher

OK. I think you 

Understand now.

For your last assignment,

A much harder assignment,

We will next assess

The planet they call Earth.

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