The Usual

The only sounds in the room were the quiet tinkling of washed glassed being put back on the shelf, creating a beat for the soft murmur of conversation.  Soft lighting and muted colors completed the picture.  Her Manolo Blahniks clicked with each syncopated step across the terrazzo tiles. She placed a lozenge on her tongue and inhaled the scent of cardamom and cinnamon.

Glancing at her reflection in the window, she knew her exacting routine had paid off in sumptuous skin, flat belly, and slim muscular legs. Tori smiled to herself and closed her eyes for a moment.  The shiny brass trimmed bar was unoccupied except for two gentlemen watching a muted football game. Tory leaned against the bar, and delicately reached for  a napkin.  The bartender nodded at her and she listened to the two suits circular masturbatory speeches. Neither was listening to the other, just making noise. Their conversation degraded and tapered off completely as they became aware of Tori standing a few feet away. Blue suit, brown hair smiled slightly and his friend turned to get a better look.  Blond hair, gray suit smiled too.

“Sweetheart, you have saved me from a very boring afternoon! Can I buy you a drink?  Bartender!  Please bring the lady a libation!”

He leaned forward as he spoke and Tori had to control herself so that her disgust didn’t reach her face.  His breath smelled like he had gargled with whiskey.

She smiled and nodded.

“Wonderful! I promise my intentions are nefarious.” The fool waggled his eyebrows and then winked as though they were two old friends sharing a joke. Tori smiled at the bartender.  “My usual please.”

She held her clutch bag tighter under her arm. taking pleasure in the shape of the knife deep in the inside pocket.  My usual indeed.

Writing Challenge from http://www.creativecopychallenge.com/writing-prompts-creative-copy-challenge-182/

Create a cohesive story using the ten words that are bolded above. Go to the site and check it out – some wonderful short stories there!

Goodnight

I stand and watch
at even tide
they wait in shadow
of timberline
I watch. they watch
we wait each night
and when the fullness
of the light
lay on the field
in gentle glow
they turn and silent
as the stars
like twilight ghosts
they go
and left alone
in dark to dream
and yet bereft
I turn away
and wonder if
they miss me too
and will they come
tomorrow

I leave it here

curled around hunkered over
covering the soft the pale
the unshelled inner
on the ground all the sound
that beats around my ears
and all I hear is my own screaming
dreaming of a silence deeper
feel the vines, a slippery creeper
wraps and strangles off the breath
my heart, my heart
oh God, my heart
It swells and shrinks and now
I think that it will burst no maybe
not just petrify and calcify the bony cover
pull it over shut the door
stay on the floor it’s safer here
the air is clear and even in the darkness
falling over me just cover me
like angel wings just shelter me
while I am torn just hear my prayer
I let it out a little bit
protecting it while healing happens
you will see the sun will come
I will it – Come! I’ll stand again
and take you with me
hold my hand I know you can
I know you can
You can.
I say this now
and leave it here.

Romance is Not All Flowers

The years of living tell the tale of proof.
A second glance is not enough to know
If all will hold beyond the blush of youth,
with more than memories for each to show.

Through crisis, childbirth, bills and petty fights,
the truest tests of how we’re really made,
Of bed-spanned chilly shouldered angry nights
when words cut deeper than the sharpest blade…

Yet when the dark gives way to clocks and sun,
I know who shares the day throughout the years,
And who will meet me when that day is done,
stick through the heartaches, laughter, even tears

We chose to put down roots in close confine,
As tree limbs over years grew intertwined.

1.  3 quatrains of alternating rhyme and a couplet all written in iambic pentameter. In this sonnet form, the premise of the poem is established in lines 1-8, a turn (or volta) toward its resolution begins at line 9 and the resolution is revealed in lines 13 & 14.
      a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g

2.  A total of 14 lines,

3. 10 syllables per line.

 

The main thing I am unsure of is the pentameter.  It gives me fits…

Run For The Money

The Terrible Minds challenge this weekend was Three Sentences.  These may have been a bit long…

Ivy knew taking this case was a mistake but they needed the money which is never a good basis for decision making. Bishop promised double fees, but now that she was the prey instead of the hunter, she was seriously rethinking the whole monetary gain issue. The smell of rotting flesh was all around and she could hear feet slapping the wet pavement as she felt the stirring of the touch as Sam reached out to her.

 

The Insect Ball

 

Everybody’s doing it dancing it
Shaking it getting down and dirty with it
Bugging out hugging out
The band is really rocking out
The crickets singing back it up
All the little ants will hack it up
Their mandibles will chew it up
The honey bee is sunny
And my money’s on the wasp
With the stinger
She’s a singer gonna put
The hurt upon you
Close your eyes you
Never see her
Only hear and in the clear
It’s not your year the hive
Is buzzing quit your
Fussing stay away from that one
She’s a playa and the preying
That she does is all the buzz but look
At widow she’s in black
And looking fly
But don’t you try she loves
And leaves you
In a web that’s gonna
Weave you right into
The mainline she’s a mantis
And she’ll school you
Then she’ll fool you
Into thinking that you’re
Drinking at the party
Insect madness
Hopping gladness
Think you love her
Her agenda is to end you
She will take and when
She’s sated you are fated
Make your exit from the ball
Her love bite ain’t just a nibble
She wants all and let’s not quibble
Ladybug is nice
And gives the best advice
Just
Fly away just fly away
Fly away home

 

for a contest on AllPoetry 🙂

also Sunday Scribbling prompt: Plan B

image credit:

http://shadowness.com/waugh/kroma-02

Kindle Versus iPad Musings

Amazon has slowly rapidly been changing the way people read. I won’t even attempt an opinion about the long term effects on book stores and publishing. I could not say if it will eventually be a good thing or not. It is what it is. As a friend if fond of saying, you can’t put the poop back in the bull.

That said, I am interested in some of the changes that are happening now. I have been a fan of the Kindle for several years and use an IPad for work. I also use the iPad to read books from Amazon that are more than just text. The non-back lit Kindle is my preference for night reading but for things like cookbooks, tutorials, basically any book that has a lot of pictures, I utilize the kindle app on the iPad or iBooks.

I will be watching the roll out of the Kindle tablet for just that reason. The iPad has been the most useful piece of technology I have had in my hands since the MacBook. It is lightweight and wireless so I can carry it everywhere and take care of many tasks on the spot which saves steps up and down stairs. With Wunderlist, I can quickly add or check off a task, it syncs with the website and even sends me a cheerful email if I let a priority task wait too long “Ahoy Matey! You have some tasks to complete!” I can go to the website and print a list of completed tasks so I have documentation of what I have done and when. I get a very satisfying feeling from checking things as done.

I have both Pages and Keynote (not free but still reasonable at ten bucks each) but so far, I utilize the little free Notes app for that comes pre-installed more than any other. Just click a plus sign, get a new page with the date, type and click out of it. It’s like a huge legal pad that I can search, send, or share. Simple and handy as sliced bread.

I read articles on the Zite app. Zite is an application that comes with a few preloaded categories but you can add your own. It then searches for news and blogs that fit the categories. But wait! There’s more! It has a like/dislike button much like the Facebook icon that helps it “learn” your preferences. You can choose to see more articles like the one you are presently reading and/or more articles from that particular source. Zite gives you the ability to share, email, or add the article to several apps (my preference is instapaper). It is pretty – think google reader in glassy magazine format.

Dropbox is one of my favorite web apps but with the iPad it really shines. I can upload a PDF from any computer, open the dropbox app on my iPad, click the file, then one more click to open in iBooks. Now I have it in a nice readable form even when I am without wireless. Things like the master schedule, instructions for tasks that I do not use frequently enough to memorize, the entire gradebook manual…all are in my iBooks now. Macs have had the ability to save anything as a pdf as long as I have used them and now with Office 2010 having the option to save as pdf, I can put any document that I think I might need to refer back to in iBooks. Bam.

The highly addicting Words With Friends game is pleasant on the bigger screen and I am also hooked on scramble which has a social aspect to it but so far I play it solo – just a screen full of letters. You find words from letters that are next to each other until the time runs out. You are scored according to how many words you find and get extra points for using certain letters.

There are tons of pretty apps that are useful and free or very reasonable. Interactive books and all of the educational apps are going to be a big force in education. I tried using a vga connector to connect my iPad with the data projector and it was incredibly easy. I have read a few articles that say you are not able to project everything but the few things I tried worked very well sharing your screen is an option and at twenty-nine dollars for a vga connector, a reasonable solution for a classroom that has a limited number of iPads.

Running through the list, the apps I use on a daily basis are all free. I read, I write, play a few games, utilize the internet. If the amazon Kindle table will do those things it will be a viable option for me and at half the price of an iPad.

Amazon is doing a couple of things that could make it even more attractive. They have opened up the ability for public libraries to lend ebooks via Kindle. Huge!

There is also buzz about a “netflix” like subscription service where, for a fee, readers will be able to download books.

If the Amazon Kindle tablet is able to do the same things that I regularly do on my iPad, hook to a projector (or my tv) via vga connector, then it will have my vote – especially at half the price of the iPad.

I Am Right There

In words I am laid bare for all to see
though often more than I would mean to be.
The truths sneak out in thought and crafted phrase,
I hope to hide my soul in verbal haze.

I look between the lines and lose the key
that locked the parts away I would not see.
I’m tangled in the syllable divide,
no hidden meaning ever on my side.

In punctuated periodic ends,
The parenthetic mysteries abound.
I duck below the message that it sends,
Pronounced alive in melody of sound.

 

working on iambic pentameter…I hope 🙂

* evidently, it is not iambic but it is rhyming quatrain composed in decasyllable…back to school!

Dreams In My Hand

When I was young
and the universe sung
past the stars and the moon
in the sky gently hung

I could stretch past the edges
balance freely on ledges
felt the life force within me
honored all of my pledges

Now as I get older
things seem a bit colder
the universe smaller
Those younger seem bolder

the outside world shrinking
but never my thinking
my internal world growing
though outside is sinking

The ground where I stand
may be sinking sand
but my heart flies in clouds
I hold dreams in my hand

 

 

Image credit: Diego Arrigoni

Lollipops and Corpses

Sam and Ivy followed the restaurant owner.

“The body’s back there.  I’d rather not see it again.” He pointed at the back door. They opened the door and light spilled out. Reflections from the police bubble rotated colors across the face of the corpse.

Sam stared at the body. “What kind of wound leaves blisters around the edges?”

“I don’t know.  Bishop said something about enzymes.” Ivy took a lollipop out her jacket pocket and unwrapped it.

Sam frowned. “How can you eat with that stink?”

Ivy grinned at him. “I’ve smelled that before. In Chicago.”

“Holy shit. He’s back?”

Enzyme.
Ivy.
Bishop.
Blister.
Lollipop.

100 words only.
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/09/16/flash-fiction-challenge-the-numbers-game/

Bam!

Statuesque

weep for us
you stone and steel
for we have lost our way

rough weather
cast patina still
your age cannot conceal

that what you were
and what we are
our fates both would be sealed

For we are frozen
hardened cast
scars that will not heal

your outside matched
our inner hearts
we’ve lost the will to feel

Sunday Scribbling prompt: Sensation

White and Gold

there was a girl
she held the light inside her
the darkness tried
to cover it
the sadness tried
to put it out
she held and stuck and waited
she held the light
waited for the dark
to erode away to dawn
from broken heart
it shone and spread
to all who observed
tenuous connections
of paper and wires
a silence so loud
it crossed time zones
until gold stuck to synapse
white wrapped round
and round and held
the light to all
pieces shared
light shared
held by a thousand fingers
can’t be extinguished
and all help carry
the light
the gift
the heart

 

prayers for a friend

Gratitude

The robins are back.
I thankfully pick my way, careful
to not disturb;
as though I mean anything to them;
as though they were there to welcome me.
A blackbird admonishes from his branch
as I pass below.
He knows how self-centered I am
and he laughs.
He would steal bright things from me
if I stopped paying attention.
We revel in the coolness.
The blackbird, the robins,
and I.

 

I somehow let a milestone pass.  This is my 1002nd post on this little internet island. I wish I had something deep and profound to say but I am simply grateful to have this place to set my thoughts, a crooked path that seems to circle back on itself and then wander to the edges, moving from shiny thing to shiny thing, folding and scribbling and peeking behind in case I miss a prize.  I am forever grateful to the wizard (Tony) for allowing me to perch here, making sure that the nest stays high in the branches away from predators. The magic that was cast at the beginning still holds though it is mercurial.  The world was there all along, but you left the door open, and I thank you.

A Moment

there is a palpable moment
when the dark holds on by fingertips
then lets go with a sigh
velvet gives way
to cotton on the line
and every living thing
uncurls and shakes off sleep
birds sing the dawn devotion
and I hold my breath
waiting for the finale
of sunlight

She

nature is a fickle woman
you love her and then
she messes with
your circadian rhythms
and your appetites
Storms you awake
when you should sleep
lulls you in midday heat
when you would work
withholds favor when
your flowers need rain
breaths on leaves
that need raking
laughing as she runs away
leaving you small
and helpless
clinging to the rake

A Simple Life

day after day
babushka tied round
cropped white hair
stretchy pants and rubber boots
she swept the dirt of her yard
humming memories
in the autumn air then
leaning the broom by the door
sat down on an old wooden chair
and pulled off her boots
set them on the
saggy scaly porch
under crumpled shingles
soon to be a ghost
that last fall
her children would pick
through the scarves and cards
finding nothing of worth
they would lock the door
leaving behind
a yard covered with leaves
and a worn out broom