War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself. Benjamin Franklin
Tag: war
d’Verse Prosery: When it comes to Katherine Riegel- Beyond Balance
Here’s how to take part in the Prosery Prompt:
- Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose up of up to or exactly 144 words,
- Including the given line from the poem.
- Post your Prosery piece on your blog and link back to this post.
- Place the link to your actual post (not your blog url) on the Mister Linky page.
- Don’t forget to check the little box to accept use/privacy policy.
- Please visit other blogs and comment on their posts!
This evening I would like you to write a Prose piece which includes the line:
“I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace.” from the poem, “What I would like to grow in my Garden.”
“Total all-encompassing darkness even though the midday sun burns my face!”
Brian paused as he processed those opposing disorienting sensations.
But as he crossed his legs and sat, he could smell the rich microbial communities in his newly tilled garden soil and felt balance return.
The wartime sacrifice of his sight wasn’t going to rob him of living fully. At that moment, he realized perhaps more fully than he’d ever known.
His father had dug a donut-shape and seated Brian on sod in the center with a trowel and 2 pre-selected seed packages.
Brian wanted sturdy sunflowers so their growth could be witnessed by his flesh as cool shadows, yet his fingertips would not bend them.
His other request was for aroma.
His Dad shed silent tears when Brian proclaimed, “I’d like, too, to plant the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace.”
144-words
https://dversepoets.com/2022/09/12/prosery-when-it-comes-to-katherine-riegel/
d’Verse Prosery Monday- Bloody Hope
Here’s how to take part in the Prosery Prompt:
– Write a piece of flash fiction or other prose of up to or exactly 144 words, including the given line.
– Post your Prosery piece on your blog and make certain to link back to this post.
– Place the link to your actual post (not your blog or web site) in the Mister Linky site.
– Don’t forget to check the little box to accept use/privacy policy
– Please visit other blogs and comment on their posts!
Remember: You must use that entire given prompt line for your Prosery piece. You may change punctuation and capitalize words, but you are not allowed to insert words between parts of the sentence.
Prompt line:
“For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May”
–From “May Day” by Sara Teasdale
___________________________________________
Bloody Hope
The bloody battle suddenly paused because of an unusual mid-April blizzard.
A tempest of icy crystals obscured visibility to a few feet as the under clothed soldiers huddled in small groups.
Jimmy’s tour-of-duty was due to end in thirteen days but his gut was warning him otherwise.
He felt compelled to scratch a short letter to his mother with numb fingertips and place it in his pocket.
Dear Mother,
We’ve been in a most bitter fight today.
Victory will be ours as soon as a brutal snowstorm lifts and offers my company its due.
Our resolve is solid and my discharge is imminent yet I wanted to let you know my heart is already home.
I am not afraid and I love you.
For how can I be sure I shall see again the world on the first of May?
Your loving son,
James
144-words
https://dversepoets.com/2022/05/09/prosery-sara-teasdale-and-may/
In The Lake of the Woods- Book Review
Just finished this book and I’m in the usual fog that follows. Gripping and disturbing are often adjectives applied to books. They fit completely in this case.
There are historical references, many of which I remember in real-time. The old understood fact, that society is forgetful, certainly has me reeling. I had also forgotten those events.
Forgetting is necessary in order to carry on after atrocities. But when we forget, do we place understanding in the hands of historians? Then again, there are some things, like the recent tragedy in a Connecticut school, that can never be understood. It will never be known how many people were wounded…scarred forever, and the lack of understanding of such events fester forever in our subconsciousness. Never Solved…Never Resolved…EVER.
So what do we do? We wait. Time doesn’t ever heal anything. It just allows for those scarred individuals to, one day, all turn to dust and, with them, the direct, hurtfulness of the unimaginable.
This book returns us to the time of the Vietnam War through the life of John Wade. It reintroduced atrocities that have yet, in 2013, to become dust. It skillfully asks the question, How can we forget? It produces characters that are directly and indirectly victims of things that they don’t understand. Most of those things, they don’t want to understand but the effects are real enough to destroy their lives. The horrific ripples are toxic and live on and keep destroying as if the horrors faced are living beasts attached by an umbilical to the witnesses.
Tim O’Brien obviously was/is one of those scarred by the war. He makes a case for living beyond personal nightmares, especially when they are the only ones faced in a lifetime. But John Wade has endured a piling on of nightmares. His hauntings intermingle and grow larger and fiercer with every attempt he makes to forget them. Not having answers, as an adult, is troubling. Needing answers, as a child, can leave a person hopelessly lost.
I couldn’t put this down. I was a deer in the headlights of an oncoming car. Some might say, the ending asks more questions than it gives answers. I believe this book was about the gray area between what is real and what we cannot understand. It certainly made me feel powerless to ever make things right. Happiness is an illusion after tragedy and the best survivors are merely “magicians”.
Random Word Story #26~Not for Profit
profit…ticket…old man…vet…sofa…war
There was a battle going on and Ben, this time, was only a spectator. He felt powerless…
As he wrapped himself in the afghan and settled into the sofa, he automatically probed the spaces for his TV remote. He considered what to watch realizing, only then, that he was unaware of the day and date. How long? His mind scrambled for a recent event that he could use as a landmark. Nothing… He was a military vet, now at war, with himself.
A chopper roared overhead and as the dust cleared, he was back on base. The US flag gave a crack, as the wind wrestled with it, straight above his head. #1 mess hall was emptying. There were fly boys everywhere. He was momentarily startled but smiled broadly when his “brothers” approached him. They were cackling with laughter and he couldn’t wait to hear the joke.
Ben raised his hand to wave and brought the remote from between the cushions. He wasn’t quite sure where he was until he noticed that Comedy Central was on. The TV was blaring laughter … now applause. Clap, clap, clapping…
Snap, snap, snapping went the artillery. It was dark. He was so afraid.
Covering his face with his hands, he felt wiry stubble and tried, oh so hard, to remember his last shave. An image of himself in the bathroom mirror pressed through the fog. He was wearing his Air Force uniform. Blood trickled from a shaving cut at the corner of his lip. He was no longer a ragged old man. His posture was stiff and his eyes were steady. As he wiped the blood with the back of his right hand, he noticed the TV remote was still in his grasp. Behind him was the sun coming through the living room window. He was wrapped in the afghan and standing beside the sofa. He licked his lips. They tasted like iron.
Benjamin decided to make himself some tea to calm his nerves… the warmth and flavor always helped to anchor himself in the “here and now”. Whatever and where ever that was.
As he returned to his well-worn place, he felt steadier. It was Monday…yes, he was sure of it. He had reached to the bottom of the tea container for the famous quotation ticket and noticed he still held it in one hand. Ben shook, a bit, as he read it. Then he tore it into tiny pieces and tossed it into the air.
“Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.” Henry Miller
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