Sunday, October 08, 2017

1155 - The Starless Night


Sunday Whirl (Wordle #320) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

road, lift, charge, star, swirl, mystery, 
struggle, fringe, list, sigh, storm, power



The Starless Night

“It is hard for a free fish to understand
what is happening to a hooked one.”
― Karl A. Menninger

Not every road
Is smooth,
Downhill
And awash 
With the warm tones
Of early morning sunlight.

Some struggle on paths
That are littered
With a fearsome list of obstacles,
Strewn with rocks and pits.

They walk on,
Battered by wild storms,
Some of their making,
Others, mysteriously, not so.
Storms that swirl
With oppressive power
Crackle with charged menace
And ominous rumblings.
They seem to attract them.

These are the night dwellers
The fringe dwellers,
Where life has no dawn.
Where living, 
Generously interpreted,
Has no stars.
Even Vincent had stars.
With nothing to lift the eyes,
Or the spirits,
They trudge on,
Stopping occasionally
To sigh.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2017
---
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21 comments:

  1. The fringe dwellers are growing in number too.

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  2. Let us let the nature to sing its own rhythm

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  3. Even Vincent had stars!! The reference works wonderfully!

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  4. I recognise these roads, a good write, thanks for sharing it.

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  5. Please note: this is a writing exercise and not autobiographical.

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  6. Love the wisdom in this!❤️

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  7. We know how we would imagine scenes ourselvse but seeing them from others viewpoints is an education for us. Art through the centuries has kept on coming up with new ways of seeing, broadening our own perspective. Great write.

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  8. Indeed sometimes it is hard to keep walking on through these storms...but we must continue on!

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  9. Do we take to the road, or does the road take us and not let us go?

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  10. I wonder if it's not so that we are sometimes in the light and sometimes in darkness.

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  11. This brought to mind the eternal question of why bad things happen to good people ... thus your perfect words "they walk on, battered by wild storms, some of their own making, others mysteriously not so". This poem is a keeper!

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  12. How I LOVE the quote at the beginning of your poem! And your poem itself, evocatively describes the hopelessness of lives lived in the shadows....."where life has no dawn.....where living...has no stars." So poignant.

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  13. Sometimes we walk in light, sometimes darkness, sometimes shadows. An evocative poem.

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  14. Damn. It feels so much akin of an introvert attempting to explain the concept of feeling alone in a crowd to an extrovert while both are at a gathering.

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  15. This is so true. Some people just attract misfortune. Great write! Sad but true.

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  16. Sad to see people without any light to guide them--although I suspect that might be true for all of us at different points in our lives--this tugs at my heart

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  17. This took me into Vancouver's east end ... Land of the Night Dwellers. And now ... the Fentanyl horror. Vancouver, we are told, is at the Epicenter of the Drug Crisis. We are up to 9 overdoses a day ... shockingly ... many addictions beginning with pain killers, after bad, bad injury. Those people didn't choose it. I suspect, few do. The legacy of First Nations Residential schools, the failure of the mental health system and family services. So many people have had the stars, brutally, taken from them. Great writing!

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  18. Well written too many struggle on these difficult paths

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  19. ...and so those mankind, sigh, on it's path to development.
    ZQ

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  20. That's an arresting quote! I'm sure it's too often the case, as your poem sadly reflects.

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Take your time, look around,
There is lots to see.