1354 - The Warriors

 

Image by ChatGPT

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

This weeks words are:

hollow clawing bruised broken spell spiralling fog halo bound trace dragon crimson

The Warriors

Bruised but not broken,

Sword drawn, shield raised,

The warriors stand defiant.

The field of battle crimson with blood,

A spell in the battle permits reflection.

It is not for the warriors to pick the fight

They are bound by the hollow dreams

Of distant leaders. Drawn into the spiralling

Fog of ego fuelled aspirations, to conquer

Foreign lands, green and inviting.

Do they feel remorse, a trace of regret,

As they fight for a cause not their own?

These warriors deal in a clawing, ugly world,

They give full loyalty to the dragon,

No harps and haloes await them.

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1353 - Nobis solis culpa est

 

Image by ChatGPT

It initially refused to provided one as it 'didn't comply with content policy.'

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

This weeks words are a pretty bleak lot: 

past, climate, water, trudge, sludge, sodden, despite, despot, rise, demise, few, inner

"Nobis solis culpa est."

(The fault is ours alone.)

They trudge,

Trudge through sodden fields,

Trudge through sludge filled ditches,

Searching for water, food, shelter.

Anything really.  They trudge because they must.

Children, crying, cling to their mothers.

The men carry the load, the inner one as well.

There is a permanent climate of fear,

There are predators, man and beast, in the shadows.

A rag-tag, rag covered, rag and bone army

Through bleak, grey ruins, they trudge on. 

The demise of their past dreams, past lands,

The wretched, stinking skeletons of a despot’s ego.

Few challenged his rise, most praised it,

Despite the obvious warning signs

They cheered his rise, ignored his words.

Where are they now? Vanished. Silent.

Do they regret? Do they too trudge?  

Probably.

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The title is a riff off "Non Nobis, Domine" 

Where god is give credit for glorious victories.

1352 - Smoke and Mirrors

 

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

This weeks words are: 

touch, hum, flash, faint, gather, staff, tricks, head, snap, bits, cast, shadows 

Smoke and Mirrors

Act I.

Good Evening 

Ladies and gentlemen,

Boys and girls!

I have great pleasure in introducing

The Amazing Lorenzo!

A flash of light, a puff of smoke,

And a very dapper gentleman

With red satin lined cape 

Silk top hat on his head,

Magic staff in his hand,

Steps from the hazy shadows 

And bows to the audience

Gathered in the room before him.

The children are mesmerised

By his every unbelieveable trick—

Things vanish with a snap of his fingers.

The hum of the saw and the scream

Of his beautiful assistant, who faints

Halfway through being sawn in half,

Only to reappear, apparenty untouched.

Cards are cast into his hat

Only to reappear as bits of colourful silk.

And then, with a puff of smoke

He is gone, as mysteriously as he arrived.

Just the faint smell of gunpowder lingers.

Announcer

That was the Amazing Lorenzo!

Give him a round of applause.

Act II

Good Evening 

Ladies and gentlemen,

Residents of Utopia!

I have great pleasure in introducing

Lawrence Greaseball!

The next Member for Utopia!

Flashing lights, a loud drum roll,

The slick car-salesman type,

With his smile on high beam

A logo on the cap on his head,

And assistants and staff at hand,

Steps from the stage shadows 

Arms wide to the crowd

Gathered in the room before him.

The faithful cheer and clap

The cynics are alert for his tricks

Deficits vanish with a snap of his fingers.

The quarter acre block is no longer a dream

If he is elected as their local member.

Taxes will be cast aside. For some.

Jobs will not be touched, well just a bit.

In the land of milk and honey,

Life will hum along for everyone.

Thank you.  I love you all.

Cast your votes for me and all will be fine.

Then he is gone, as mysteriously as he arrived.

Just the faint smell of aftershave lingers.

Announcer

That was Lawrence Greaseball!

Give him a round of applause.

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1351 - The Fighter

 

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

This weeks words are: 

bell, mimic, blade, gaze, hills, jar, soothe, mind, stars, timid, beastly, sea

Elephant's Child supplied these words as well: Ripening, Turmoil, creation, vineyard, one.

The Fighter

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

— George Santayana

He has had enough.

He stands, gazing out to sea.

Behind, the hills comfort him, 

Vineyards with their ripening load

Offer a respite from the turmoil.

Above him, the stars look down

And also question ‘why?’.

For years he has fought the good fight,

But still they came, one battle after another, 

Mimicking the waves, a ceaseless creation

His spirit and blade were razor sharp then.

His mind dwelling on the futility of it all now.

For years he has fought. And gained what?

No bell tolls for the start or finish,

Nor any bells ring for the fallen he has held

As they too questioned why they were dying? 

He had no words to comfort them,

No words to soothe their troubled hearts,

Collateral damage in the unequal fight.

It was not for want of courage,

These were no weak or timid fighters.

But strong hearts were not enough to save them

The enemy, well resourced and ruthless,

Rebounds and returns, time over time,

A genie that will not be jarred or boxed.

He has had enough.

He stands, gazing out to sea.

Behind, the hills comfort him, 

Vineyards with their ripening load

Offer a respite from the turmoil.

Above him, the stars look down

And also question ‘why?’.

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1350 - Hindsight in Paradise

 

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

This weeks words are: 

enchantment, latch, apples, chatter, crave, catalyst, catastrophe, wings, gift, sing , miss, limit

Hindsight in Paradise

Long ago, when the Big Bang was still 

a recent and painful memory,

Birds filled the trees, to flutter, to chatter,

To sing, to flap their wings,

To do their regular birdy stuff.

Other animals roamed the plains

Sure, they killed each other now and then

But generally, it was a time of enchantment,

A time of sufficiency, a time without craving.

A time when every creature knew their limits.

Nothing could prepare this idyllic space

For the catastrophe about to be set free.

Man!  What a disaster that was.

Gifted paradise by some heavenly father

It was the catalyst for all the dismay to follow.

In retrospect, (Oh, hindsight, I love you so!)

Maybe it would have been different

With a heavenly Mother: not the dire consequences

Just unconditional cuddly maternal love.

These vengeful male gods just miss the plot.

I grant you that the weadling snake, 

Made temptation to lift the latch 

To the forbidden orchard hard to resist.

But consider life today if some bloody parrots

Had eaten the apples before Adam got to them?

◊

Me? Bitter that the bloody parrots ate all my apples?

Yeah.

1349 - The Companion

 

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

This weeks words are: 

ruinous, cards, glass, alluring, spin, dirt, flutter, secrets, roots, ghost, glitters, web 

The Companion

"...with artificial intelligence we’re summoning the demon."

-- Elon Musk

The woman’s face,

A caricature, looks at me.

The screen reflects my face,

Old and lined, a glass pane

To the ruinous toll of years.

“Tell me about her,” it says,

Its tones alluring but mechanical.

It sifts through the cards of my life,

Shuffling memories like a dealer

In a game I cannot win.

It spins my stories with precision,

Pulling secrets from forgotten corners.

The flutter of her laughter,

The dirt on her dress,

The roots of my longing—

All woven into its web of code.

“What do you remember of her?”

It calls forth a ghost:

Her smile, her gaze,

Her accent, her unconditional love.

But no breath, no warmth—

Just an echo of what was.

And yet, I press on,

Clutching at the glitters of memory,

Is this counselling?  Maybe.

For even in this hollow company,

I find some solace,

A whisper of life spun anew.

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1348 - Reflections

 

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

This weeks words are: 

splinter, steaming, shadows, old, mirror, rose, honey, crow, edge, gaze, stone, ghosts 

Reflections.

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. 

-- Keanu Reeves

I don’t like mirrors.

They should be splintered, damned.

At best, left to the bathroom’s steaming effects.

Each day I see the world but not as it sees me

Rose tinted glasses, milk and honey.

I gaze at young girls and enjoy their beauty

They see me and think he’s a nice old guy.

At my age I am on the edge of joining

The ghosts who inhabit the shadows.

Crows will sit mournfully on my headstone.

And so back to mirrors, inforced reflection,

This guy in front to me, who is he?

Where has he been, and whence going?

The evidence is before me.

I don’t like mirrors.

◊

1347 - The Once and Future Sun

 

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

This weeks words are: 

constellations, flames, reckoning, ashes, circles, once, scribbled, narrow, blows, curses, future, three.

The Once and Future Sun.

"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent".

-- Carl Sagan

At night, away from the lights,

I am looking at the sky, marvelling.

There is so much of it. I mean lots.

I mean, it is seriously big.  Very big.

Three hundred billion stars in our own galaxy.

Almost beyond reckoning.  Mine certainly.

Stars, constellations, some pulsing and throbbing.

Hard to believe that the One Word of God

Was scribbled down in a small Galilee backwater

By a few fishermen and couple of goat herders.  

It is hard to explains such a narrow focus.

But I digress from the main topic, forgive me.

I don’t want things to degenerate to curses and blows.

Of course, our closest star is the sun.

I wonder if it is part of someone else’s constellation?

When a star dies, when the flames go out,

Do they leave ashes? And do they, phoenix-like,

Rise again, like Arthurian legends,

The once and future sun.  Perhaps life

Circles around again?  Or is the universe 

Doomed to a cold and still endpoint?

A celestial grate, 

In need of a good sweep out.

◊

1346 - Fragments of Time

 

Elephant's Child prompts us to use 

beginning,  masquerade, towel, shadow, life 

and the colour yellow in a writing piece.  

I settled on three pieces.

Fragments of Time

As you ramble on through life, brother,

Through the good times and the foul,

Heed the words of Douglas Adams

And always take a towel.

◊

In the beginning there was light;

So I’m told told; before my time, to be truly fair.

But you can’t have light without creating dark.

And in the shadows…well, demons lurk in there.

◊

We are all imposters in life’s silly masquarade

So, if some wretch decides to call your bluff—

Hold your ground, hold his eye, and shout:

Yellow card, umpire!  Send the bastard off!

◊

1345 - Silent Night

 

Elephant's Child put up the prompt to use 

Wreath Pine Ribbon Stealth & Chimney

in a writing piece.

Silent Night

The front door is unadorned—

The wreath lies in the box

Surrounded by baubles,

Tinsel and a lifetime of knickknacks.

An advent calendar is unopened.

Pinecones, ‘snow’ tipped,

Are still in their bag.  Ribbons too.

No ornamental candles flicker.

The chimney has no stockings.

The pleasure has gone from Christmas

Not by stealth, but up-front and brutal.

◊

Backstory for new visitors:

My wife died of brain cancer earlier in the year.

I'm not a glum as this sounds,

It's creative writing.

1344 - The Laneway

 

Image by ChatGPT

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

This weeks words are: 

earth, herbs, cobbled, vines, thread, spark, heart, whispers, witches, shifts, pearls, words

The Laneway

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; 

but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin

Life is like a winding cobbled laneway,

Bumpy, twisted, and somewhat random.

Aromatic herbs grow in corners, in cracks,

Where earth has gathered over ages.

Vines twist and thread their way up fences,

Some houses present their faces to the path

Opening their heart and hearth to the traveller,

Others present their back—not wrong, just different.

Coloured gateways, fences of all sorts,

Line the traveller’s path, guiding and repelling.

Whispers, words heard behind these walls

Indistinct but emphatic, spark thoughts

That, like the laneway, weave and shift.

The mind of the walker of this cobbled path

Hears the gems, the pearls, but also the doubting

Thoughts of the witches, demons and goblins

Perched on fences, chattering, incanting, laughing…

“Turn back, Dick Wittington! Turn back!”

But there is no turning back.

The laneway closes behind you.

◊

1343 - Allegro Non Troppo

 

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

This weeks words are: 

remote, misty, scrape, slippery, candles, fresh, dust, magic, minor, strum, string, follow

Written with love for my daughter, Lydia.

Allegro non troppo.

We are stringed instruments

That the god of fortune strums.

The double helix sets the tune

Life then sets the harmony and drums.

The past can be slippery, obscure,

Misty, distant and remote,

But scrape off the years of dust

You will find it fresh beneath that coat.

The helix leaves a clear tune to follow,

The past is gone, so best move on.

The helix twists, a thing of magic.

No minor chords in its sweet song.

So many candles have gone unseen

Birthdays, first and in between, are stacked

So many thoughts of what might have been.

Now is the time for the second act.

◊

1342 - Wombats Don't Eat lettuce

 

Wombats don’t eat lettuce.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” 

– Aesop

It was a simple act,

Done on an impulse.

The outer leaves of a lettuce

Were presented, as an offering.

Nothing.  Marsupial indifference.

◊

But life’s like that, isn’t it?

Or, at least, it should be.

Little acts of kindness

Thrown like bottles

Into the tumbling sea of life.

Maybe they are found.

Maybe not.

Sometimes the message arrives.

Sometimes not.

But that’s not the point—

Just keep throwing.

◊

1341 - Not in the spirit.

 

Image by ChatGPT

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

This weeks words are: 

hungers until garden frayed tattered belonging spirits body salvage history walk stories

Not in the spirit.

"Until the lions have their historians, 

tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter,"  

-- African proverb.

History is a succession of stories.

Agincourt belonging to England;

Caesar a tattered body in the forum;

The garden of Eden, snake and apple;

Moses walked the desert for forty years,

A trip Google says should take six hours.

In a society that hungers for glory

The fabric of truth is frayed but protective.

Until we have a way to verify the stories

There is no way to salvage the truth.

But we don’t want the truth,

We want the triumphant, the glorious

And so the stories live on.

Somewhere, ancient spirits 

watch and weep.

◊

1340 - To all in tents...

 

Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

To all in tents...

There was an old bugger named Jim

Who headed to the coast on a whim.

With three ladies in tow

There was no way to know

What the Fates had in store for him!

◊

See you in a fortnight.  Perhaps.

1339 - Einstein's Sauna

 

Image by ChatGPT - no idea where ºA comes from.

Poets and Storytellers United has the prompt "Opposites".

I take the view that a lot of what we consider opposites

are not really opposite at all.

Background note: 

34ºC = 93ºF,   55ºC = 131ºF

Einstein's Sauna

You surely cannot be serious?

You'll be certified: mad & delirious.

The day's getting warmer

And your having a sauna?

It's all relative, says Albert, politely.

It's fifty five inside, let us say,

So when you leave to continue your day

The thirty four's a relief

(Though it is rather brief)

It's all relative, says Albert, quite rightly.

◊

I tried this and it really does feel nice to step into 34ºC from 55ºC.

1338 - The Sea Within

 

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

This weeks words are: 

stirs, scents, unrelenting, nudged, magic, stretch, face, words, space, edge, sense, end

The Sea Within

Currents.

Currently flowing.

Waves. Beating, unrelenting,

Wash over me, through me.

Words, emotions, senses, 

Stir, nudge, jostle me

Fight for space in me

Tumble through my mind.

Sounds, tastes, even scents,

Toss and turn, end on end.

It is both magic and scorcery.

But I must wear it, face it.

It takes me to the edge,

Teeters and then re-centres,

Stretches me, contracts me,

Creates me.

Deserts me.

◊

1337 - My Favourite Things

 

The Poet's and Storyteller's prompt is "what delights us".

My favourite Things

(Apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein.)

All types of cheese and sesame snaps,

Red wine in glasses and crispy lamb flaps.

The ability to silence a telephone's ring—

These are a few of my favourite things

Watching a cat walk, eating cream slices

Uncomplicated electronic devices

Magpies that chortle and choirs that sing—

These are a few of my favourite things

Home made spaghetti and parmesan cheese

A day without pain in either of my knees

Breasts that bounce like jelly on springs—

These are a few of my favourite things

When the soup burns

What the cat brings

When I'm writing bizarre

I simply remember my favourite things—

And pour a glass of Pinot Noir.

◊

1336 - Tapestry, Unstitched.

 

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

This weeks words are: 

Cloaked, ruins, ancient, lace, communes, stitched, spirits, wind, drive, curling, icy, ground

Tapestry, Unstitched.

In the tapestry of life, we're all connected. 

Each one of us is a gift to those around us 

helping each other be who we are, 

weaving a perfect picture together.

-- Anita Moorjani

Communes in the bush

Green tea, tofu and reflection.

Ancient ruins in the jungle

Cloaked in a fig-tree lace.

Spirits soar by the sea

The wind is driving, icy.

A fire on the ground.

Smoke curling, swirling, gone.

Are they all linked?

Yes and no.  But mostly.

◊

1335 - Details? You want details?

 

Details?  You want details?

Husband:

What's for dinner?

Oh, by the way, Betty's had a baby.

Wife:

A baby!  

Boy or girl?

What name did they give it?

How long was the labour?

How long was the baby?

How heavy was the baby?

Did she need painkillers?

Was it a Caesarian?

What hospital is she in?

What colour was the delivery room?

Was there music playing?

Husband:

Um...

Wife:

You didn't ask these questions?

Husband:

Um...

Betty's had a baby!

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