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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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