Creation and Creator

As you may or may not know, I used to belong to a local poetry group. Aside from doing readings, the group would gather in the upstairs of a local pub once a month where we would read poems in progress, have a drink, and generally chat about poetic things. We also had “poemwork.” This is purely optional, but most of us participated because one, it was fun, and two, sometimes you end up with an unexpected poem. Today I’d like to share one of these assignments.

Poemwork: Make a poem out of a collection of dictionary definitions.

Sources:
Merriam-Webster On-line dictionary
Family Word Finder – Reader’s Digest Books, 1976
Words looked up: underworld, creation, provident, fanatic, skeptic, heaven, hell


creation and creator

in the nether realm of the devil and the demons
lies the place of departed souls
a social sphere below the level of ordinary life
a place or state of misery, torment, or wickedness

it lies on the side of the earth opposite to this one
the nether world in which the dead continue to exist
the damned suffer everlasting punishment
in these regions of Hell

the Norse goddess of death
is bringing the world into ordered existence
the Deity’s all-foreseeing care over the cosmos
has her acting without a prearranged script or plan

other goddesses, whose worship involved frenzy
descend in one way or another
not seeing beforehand
the act of creating, the act of making

a person disposed to skepticism
can make ready for the future
but absolute knowledge is unattainable
and judgements must be continually questioned

with God, sin is absent over the earth
there is a spiritual state of everlasting communion
in the arch of the sky, the dwelling place of the Deity
the world under Heaven is a condition of utmost happiness

Fiction Friday - An Elemental Wind

I thought I’d switch things up today and instead of a flash piece or an unfinished piece, I’d share an excerpt from a completed work. In this case, that work is An Elemental Wind, my first book.

In this scene, the vehicle our heroes Nakeisha and Chaney were using has been disabled by a sand storm and they’re forced to spend the night out in the desert. This is one of my favourite scenes in the book. :-D

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

It was almost too dark to see by the time they settled themselves on the sand-filled hollow. Nakeisha lay with her head pillowed on Chaney’s shoulder. Together they watched the stars appear, then the moons of Anchyre started their journey across the night sky.

“Do you know the story of the moons?” Chaney asked.

“They have a story?”

“The large one is called Kandor and the small one is Shinandu. Early in its history, Anchyre was ruled by a powerful warlord in the North and an equally powerful queen in the South.”

“Their names wouldn’t happen to be Kandor and Shinandu would they?”

“Yes. Now don’t interrupt. The two were desperately in love, but a curse kept them apart.”

“A curse?”

“It was believed that should Kandor and Shinandu ever come together, a disaster of epic proportions would befall Anchyre.”

“What happened?”

“They may have been rulers, but they were only human after all, and eventually Kandor could stand it no longer and went to his beloved in the dark of night. She tried to resist, but was unable to withstand his charm. Their joining caused a cataclysmic explosion that blew them into the sky and caused Anchyre to become giesthenis.”

“You made that up,” Nakeisha accused, raising her head slightly to look at him.

“See for yourself,” Chaney said. “Every night since, Kandor has chased Shinandu across the sky. It’s said if he ever catches her, Anchyre will be restored to its former glory.”

“It’s a lovely story,” she said, laying her head back down. “I hope some day Kandor catches Shinandu.” She yawned and made herself more comfortable.

“Look,” Chaney pointed. “A shooting star. My people believe them to be good omens.”

“Hmm?” she murmured sleepily. “Mine make wishes on them.”

“What did you wish for, Nakeisha?” he asked softly.

There was no answer. He turned his head to look at her and her eyes were closed. The day had finally caught up to her and she was asleep. With a contented sigh, Chaney, too, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

If I’ve piqued your curiosity and you’d like to read more, you can get your copy of An Elemental Wind by clicking on one of the following links:

Amazon
Kobo
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

Let America Be America Again

Though Langston Hughes is a somewhat more modern poet than the ones I usually enjoy, there’s no doubt that the man knew his way around a poem. I chose this particular poem of his in celebration of my American friends because today is their Independence Day. It’s a little long, but worth the read.


Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")


Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Be Careful What You Wish For

This week’s fiction comes to you courtesy of something called an Archetype Card. This card belongs to a set of 80 cards, each with a different “archetype” or pattern of behaviour and shows both the light and dark aspects of these archetypes. They’re actually kind of fascinating and I think they’d make a really handy writing tool.

If you’re interested, you can find a description and walk-thru by Tiger’s Abyss HERE  or by Truth in Story HERE

Anyway, the card I drew was the Detective and the description was as follows:

Light Attributes:
Great powers of observation and intuition
Desire to seek out truth
Shadow Attributes:
Voyeurism
Falsifying information

And here’s the story I came up with from the prompt:

Be Careful What You Wish For

I knew it was a bad idea from the moment the woman approached me. It was the same old story: girl meets boy, girl and boy get married before they really get to know each other, boy spends long hours at the office, and girl suspects he’s cheating and hires a detective to follow him. That’s where I come in.

I hate these kinds of cases but I have to eat and things have been pretty slow lately. So when the not-so-young woman (she had to be in her 40s) darkened my door one gloomy morning, I didn’t figure I could turn the case down.

“Money’s not a problem,” she assured me. “In fact, that’s why I need to be sure. My assets are, shall we say, considerable.”

“You never had him sign a pre-nup?”

“It was such a whirlwind romance,” she said, blushing slightly. “It just didn’t occur to me.”

I just barely refrained from rolling my eyes. Love is no excuse for ignorance. But a buck is a buck.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll take your case.”

She gave me his picture, where he worked, that sort of thing, and left in a flurry of patchouli.

He looked like a decent enough guy, a little younger than her but who am I to judge? Anyway, after two months of tailing him, I was kind of feeling sorry for the guy. She may have been holding the purse-strings, but he was the one who was filling that purse. He worked a lot of overtime, yes, but that’s exactly what it was – work.

He stopped for an after work drink once, maybe twice a week with the guys, but that’s all it was. One drink and he was headed for home to his “loving” wife. Funny thing though, any time he was at a bar he was approached by a woman, but he turned them down every time. Even the one who accidentally spilled her drink on herself and asked him to help clean it off. She was a real looker, I’ll tell you, but all he did was offer her his hankie.

His wife came to my office to receive my report, and just sat there in the chair, lips pursed, when I finished reading it to her.

“You’re sure he’s not meeting anyone? No encounters with a woman at that bar he sometimes stops at?”

“You seem almost disappointed,” I said, as she confirmed the suspicions I was starting to have about her.

“It’s just…” She turned all coy and demure, then after a slight hesitation for effect added, “How much extra would it cost to make it look like he really had been seeing someone?”

“You mean falsifying my report?”

At least she had the decency to wince. “I just want to make sure I come out of this with what’s mine. You know the old saying, marry in haste, repent in leisure.”

“Or maybe you’re the one who had to sign a pre-nup, only now you’ve met someone with even more money. You want to have your cake and eat it too.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Interesting that you’d use the phrase “marry in haste, repent in leisure,” that’s exactly what your husband said when he hired me.”

I laid a series of pictures on the desk in front of her. Not only was the man she involved with older, he was richer too. “There’s another old saying that applies here. “Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.” And you’ll certainly be getting your divorce.”

Fatras

When someone loves the structure a poetry form provides as much as I do, the fatras is kind of scary. It has no rhyme, no rhythm, no set number of syllables…so what the heck is it?

This somewhat obscure form comes to us from medieval France. Early examples were humorous, sometimes obscene, and usually satirical. Very few fatras survived the test of time, which is why so little is known about them, although many of them were attributed to the poet Watriquet de Couvin

It begins with a couplet (sometimes, but not always, lifted from a more serious poem) that sets the tone of the poem. The first line of the couplet is repeated, followed by nine lines of the poem, and ending with the second line of the couplet. A fatras double can be created when two eleven line stanzas are formed (the original couplet remaining only at the beginning), with the lines of the couplet reversed in the second stanza.

I wanted to try and stay as traditional as possible, so I opened my big book of English and American poetry and picked two lines at random. My starting couplet is from The Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde. And for some reason humor seemed to escape me, so I went with satire.


Silently we went round and round
And through each hollow mind
Silently we went round and round
Like bugs caught in the current of a pool
Kicking our feet and getting nowhere
Listening to the news from the south
Where the orange menace seems to be
Losing what little mind he ever had
Determined to go down in history
As the anti-Christ, the new Hitler
His words knocking down his followers
In one ear and out the other
And through each hollow mind

And through each hollow mind
Where brain has been replaced by jello
Or some other such substance
That has no nutritional value
The collective I.Q. is falling
Like a chocolate soufflé does
When you open the oven door
We don’t have the answers
Any more than you do
As just like the bug in the pool
Silently we went round and round

Baby Steps

Wow, I wasn’t kidding a couple of weeks ago when I said it was going to be hard to break the solitaire addiction and do more writing. It’s been really hard.

I’ve made a little bit of progress in the addiction part of it – I’m only at risk if I already have my lap top open. I won’t boot it up just to play solitaire (like I was before). Now if I need to relax my mind and the computer is shut down I’ll pick up a book and read a chapter instead. However, it’s still really hard to avoid solitaire when I have my lap top open, I still just naturally default to it.

It would be nice if I could just close the lid of the lap top and pick up a book when I feel the urge to play (kind of like drinking a glass of water when you feel the urge to snack), but if I do that with the new lap top I have to wait for it to boot up and then sign in again. My old lap top I could just close it, it would go to sleep, then I’d open it and it’d wake up at the exact spot I left it.

You might think that reading isn’t much better than playing games – it’s still not writing – but I’m able to control my reading (mostly) and oftentimes it seems to inspire me to pick up a pen or turn on the Neo.

The good news is, the site I go to for solitaire has a bunch of different games but I’ve played them so much they don’t present much of a challenge anymore. Would it be too much to hope that this particular addiction has just about run its course?

As for getting back into the writing habit…you might recall I mentioned my whirlwind visit to New Brunswick a few weeks ago. I adjusted so easily to New Brunswick time when I was there that I kept to those hours once I came home again – I’m going to bed earlier and getting up earlier.

This means extra time in the morning for writing – theoretically at least. But it also means less time at night. Nine times out of ten you’d find me typing away between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., getting a blog post or two finished to be scheduled for the following day. Now that I’m going to bed around 11, I don’t get that 2 hours so I end up using my early morning writing time for blog posts and email, etc.

I have managed some writing in the afternoons, a few (very bad) poems and I’ve been working on a couple of short stories. But even when I do make it to my office after babysitting I’d rather read than write. And forget sitting outside – outside is just too distracting what with its trees, and birds, and nature and all.

So this week’s focus will be to get my blog posts done earlier in the day (afternoons) so that I can do other writing in my big chunk of time in the mornings (usually at least two hours). And I think one of the ways to do this will be to spend more time in my office or at the dining room table, and less time in the recliner.

Wish me luck – I think I’m going to need it.

Forest Realm

Today we have the third of my Seven Realms excerpts, this one (as the title suggests) is from the beginning of the forest realm story. If you missed the other two, you can find the jungle realm HERE and the desert realm HERE.

In a nutshell… three friends on their way to a vacation catch some teenagers hassling a little old lady – of course they come to her rescue. But it turned out the little old lady was a fairy godmother and granted them a wish as their reward. It was to be used for something personal, and the three wished to meet the men of their deepest desires.

Fiona could hear birds chirping. She opened her eyes, frowning when she realized it was still dark out. Blinking rapidly she sat up, feeling around for her glasses. She could feel dirt and leaves and small sticks, but no glasses. They were heavy enough that she'd know if she was wearing them. God, she hoped she hadn't lost them, they were expensive as hell.

The last thing she remembered was sharing a bottle of wine around the camp fire with her friends. Or was it two bottles of wine? It certainly wasn't enough alcohol to cause her to wander off by herself into the woods. She was more careful than that.

Wait, there was something else ... that old woman they helped earlier in the day. What was her name? Estella? Esperanza? No ... Esmeralda, that was it!

They saw a falling star and for some weird reason they could hear the old woman's voice. Something about being given a wish to use on a star ... "To reward your kindness I promise you this: whatever wish you make tonight upon that star will come true. But mind it's a personal wish, something frivolous that will benefit only you. None of that world peace nonsense."

After hearing Esmeralda's voice the three of them had laughed it off, deciding to wish for their dream lovers to come to life, or some such rubbish. Fiona didn't know what the others wished for, but she'd always had a thing for the elves in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings movies, so it seemed only natural to wish for an adventure to help a dispossessed Elfin lord who would fall madly in love with her.

Fiona snorted. "As if."

The birds continued to chirp and she could hear a breeze rustling the leaves above her. She tilted her head back to look up and listen. How deep into the woods had she traveled? Surely she should see at least a hint of the stars or moonlight. Why was the dark so all encompassing?

Squelching down a sudden frisson of panic, she got to her feet. It was just clouds, she told herself firmly. There was a storm front moving in, that's all. Dark, heavy clouds were obscuring the moon and stars. It happened all the time.

Then why were the birds singing, a niggling little voice asked her. And where was the smell of moisture in the air?

"Taylor? Eva?" she called, ignoring the voice. If she was out here then her friends couldn't be too far away. "Guys? I hope one of you has a flashlight, it's dark as hell over here. Wherever here is. Guys?"

All at once she remembered her watch. Raising her wrist to eye level, she pressed the little button that would activate the light. Nothing happened. Holding the watch to her ear, she listened to the faint ticking and then tried again. Still nothing.

"Guys? I'm in real trouble here."

Fiona shivered, despite the warm breeze. This time she was unable ignore the panic starting. Hands held out in front of her, she shuffled forward a few steps, stopping dead when she felt the sun on her face.

"No," she whispered. "It's too soon. I'm not ready."

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Finnovarr paused to get his bearings. This is what came of taking a shortcut. First he lost his horse, and now ... it was a shameful thing for an elf to admit, but he appeared to be lost. Somehow he'd left the narrow trail he'd been following and now he had two choices: continue in the direction he was going and hope he picked up the trail again, or retrace his path back the way he'd come.

Having no idea how far back he'd wandered from the trail, retracing his path was out of the question. He'd already been out here too long, he couldn't afford the time. As long as he kept heading east, he should still be able to find the shrine in time.

A flash of blue caught his eye and he frowned. Too big for a bird, but what else could it be? He became more cautious, keeping watch for anything untoward. Then he scented it.

Finn's head snapped up and went on full alert. Magic. He could smell it on the air. Why would he be smelling magic out here?

He found out a few feet later when he stepped into a clear space in the trees. There, in a shaft of sunlight, a woman slumped next to a tree.

Her long curly hair shone with a fiery glow in the sunlight. The style of her clothing was strange, dark blue trousers and a brighter blue, the blue he'd glimpsed through the trees, strangely designed tunic that clung to her like a second skin. She reeked of magic but it was fading.

He stood in the shadows provided by the trees, watching her. Whatever trouble she was in, he couldn't afford to get involved. He was on a mission; he didn't have time. And yet he lingered, unable to just leave her there.