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Content Rating Notice:  Recommended for Readers 18 Years and Older Only
  >> Book >> Writing >> ID #1596864  |   Show DetailsPrinter Friendly Page Tell A Friend
Hello to crystal goblets...
A new book for longer, unpoetic or prosaic texts.
Rated:
18+
by
Avg Rating: (1)
A place to continue storing new items, exercises and studies of longer sorts, without having to continue cluttering my port with new static items.

Enjoy. Read. And please, if you get this far, Review.

There are 4 visible Entries. Viewing page 1 of 1 with 10 per page.
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4.  Some words about rememberingID #667433 
Posted: 9-12-2009 @ 5:02 am EDT 
Edited: 9-27-2009 @ 4:19 pm EDT 

We remember…


What we don’t understand somehow calluses our memories. War, death, abandonment, even unexplained divorce, all inexplicable events, all leave us with a bitter salty taste in our souls and we pine and commiserate, and when the suffering we feel is no longer taken on a personal level, we are able to commemorate our losses. Finally we will try to seek enlightenment so that we may play our part in creating a new situation where these vast, painful elements of reality cannot happen again.

Yet violence is rarely an answer to violence. Our desire for revenge will engender yet more suffering, yet more death that we must honor and respect.

Suffering will happen, tightening its grip on the most tender among our souls. That we suffer for the loss of our loved ones and for the unnecessary loss of the innocent is one of the most common crosses we bear collectively. We must constantly remind ourselves through this remembering that the next time the unlucky people in the wrong spot at the wrong time could so easily be us. And this primal fear reinforces our need to observe certain mourning on anniversary dates.

Yet if we cannot create an honest sense of peace in our own daily lives, how can we ever believe that as a nation, as members of the entire human race, we will together succeed in replacing the threat of violence, death and war that has been so easily embedded in the reality of our world?

[2009.12.9…a]





In an e-mail exchange with NovaCatherine, I came up with the following change for the opening line which I still feel is weak:
"What we don't understand somehow leaves calluses in our memories."
Any comments?
 

3.  In less than 300 hundred words.ID #667239 
Posted: 9-10-2009 @ 4:13 pm EDT 
Edited: 9-27-2009 @ 4:12 pm EDT 

Exercise for 10 september. With a bit of foreshadowing also.

The storm had left broken branches everywhere, brambles, thorny vines twisting into deadly temptation. There was nothing but desolation left, the majesty of centuries' old tree trunks proudly upright shading the calm mossy underbrush had disappeared in twelve hours of hell's winds and oceans of devil's tears.

He lumbered through this quagmire, a cripple now without a cane, limping, the ache in his right hip excruciating.

The forest was his sole heritage, left to him by his father as a rainy-day legacy when at thirty-five arthrosis had started to maim his legs and he could no longer work the earth. All was ruined now. No longer could he count on the potential of selling a parcel every now and there to survive. This last possibility had been destroyed in a half a day.

In the bank, nothing was left to pay a team of workers to come in and collect the exploitable dead wood. He could mortgage the house again, but his days of losing himself wandering through his trees were over. He was at the end of his line, his soul crushed beneath the hugeness of this loss.

If he died intestate, the state would have to deal with the expense of clearing the land. The solution would surely end two decades of constant pain, and deep as he was in the heart of the forest, no one would find him quickly.

The pain in his legs and hips had never been tamed. Now, at last, the prescription drugs would have a use. Calmly he built a fire to keep him warm as he drifted into his eternal slumber. He watched the last corner of his will catch on a sudden breeze and float away. Silently, the forest bid him farewell.

[2009.10.9...b]


 

2.  Unclichéing the cliché.ID #666394 
Posted: 9-4-2009 @ 5:09 am EDT 

Exercise for 3 september. From

ID: 1589295   (Rated: 18+)
Write On This ... Exercise 
Daily exercise, and boots (or boosts) for the muse.
by Acme


New versions of Clichés
For Acme’s InAndOut


"Not for all the tea in China"
         Not for all the patents in Silicon Valley.
         Not for all the poverty in Africa.
         Not for all the tea in a Lipton factory.

"Free as a bird"
         Free as a millionaire.
         Free as a freshly divorced man.

"Caught between a rock and a hard place"
         Caught between the Democrats and the Republicans. Is there another choice?
         When his wife and mistress finally met, he was caught between the devil’s horns and opening Pandora’s box.

“Don’t rain on my parade.”
         Don’t buy me Wal-Mart trainers when I want Nikes.
         A woman will scorn a cheap husband who offers her sheepskin when she wants mink.

"Silence is golden"
         Silence is only sometimes worth the diamond ring you place on her finger. If she’s truly in love, she’ll learn to let you read the newspaper at breakfast and keep you satisfied in bed.
(OK Ladies, this gay macho man says mea culpa! But we’re talking about clichés here, aren’t we?)

"Worth his weight in gold"
         Worth his weight in trader’s bonuses!

"Love is blind"
         Love removes from our soul anything other than the capacity to feel good; we no longer think, our personal value system is frequently turned topsy-turvy and friends who have been at our side for years suddenly become enemies. Love is blind? Love takes all!

"As cold as ice."
         As cold as the heart of a spurned woman?
         As cold as a witch’s tits?
         As cold as an Eskimo’s nose?
         No, nothing original either, these variants are already cliché in their own rights. So how about: “As cold as my feet when we’re in bed together. Alone, they never bother me!”

"As pure as snow."
         As pure as a child who thinks his parents won’t divorce.
         As pure as angel’s wings. OK, this is almost as cliché!
         Her favorite color white is as pure as milk fresh from the cow. Unless, of course, it’s been genetically altered and slightly pinkish…

"As slow as molasses."
         After his first hundred days as president, the general populace tended to view his progress as slow as any other politician who tries to implant social reform.

"Betting the farm."
         Betting your retirement funds…


 

1.  The Locked DrawerID #666303 
Posted: 9-3-2009 @ 9:02 am EDT 
Edited: 9-4-2009 @ 3:10 am EDT 

The Locked Drawer
[2009.3.9…c]

Aside from his studio in town, the only other place where Nathan Bridgemont felt secure and in perfect harmony was within the four walls of his study. He sat comfortably in a leather swivel chair, and studied his latest portrait of Miriam, his eldest daughter, and his latest wife. Its silver frame reflected in the high gloss of the polished oak wood.

His large desk, an old-fashioned roll top, had nine principal drawers. Only one was locked with a key he kept in a Ming vase on the top shelf of the book case behind the desk Hilary, charming and ever so petite, his delicious newly-wed wife, would never think of stepping on a ladder to look inside of it. She had married a successful photographer and would be content to spend his fortune, with his benediction, it went without saying. When a man has the opportunity of marrying a beautiful woman thirty years younger than he, Cupid’s rule book frequently changes. Together, they would know how enjoy all of the social privileges success had brought him.

Fortunately, she asked no questions and wasn’t interested in roaming distractedly among the thirty-five rooms justifying his worldly success and touching objects with various degrees of curiosity. The only other person to access his study was Agnes, his maid. She had instructions not to clean the top shelves of any of the bookcases here in this room. Faithful, she knew to ask no questions and dispute a standing order.

So his secret, the only secret, was safe.

He unlocked the drawer. A single leather bound photo album lay patiently within its gloom. An album of photos. Nothing unusual here, except… All self-portraits, taken at various moments of his life.

How many more times would he photograph himself, hanging from on of the the thick lead ropes used in the stables, before he finally kicked the stool from the reach of his outstretched feet?

 



© Copyright 2009 alfred booth, wanbli ska (UN: troubadour at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
alfred booth, wanbli ska has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

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