Prompts on A Geek's Life

Kneeling in the Light

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 02:52:21 +0000

For The Sunday Muse Prompt #234. Image source: Rosie Ann Prosser.:

Still, in the silent solitude of repose,
I survey the face that peers back at me.
Three candles flickering in the dark,
a space suffused by a mellow, yellow light
pushing back against the dark.

The ghosts of grief, railing against delight
fight the light, their dissonant sounds
a constant clang. But in light, there is delight
to know this is to rest, here.

3 Day Quote Challenge - 2

Sat, 19 May 2018 18:06:58 +0000

Image Source

Not all who wander are lost

For the second day of the challenge for which Mrs T nominated me, this J. R. R. Tolkien quote comes to mind. A line in a poem in the first volume of Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings, it refers to the Rangers who although often considered vagabonds are actually protectors and bulwarks against evil in Middle Earth.

For me it speaks of hope, a reminder that despite times and seasons in which life conspires to rock my faith and unresolved questions bubble to the surface, I am not lost. Just wondering, pondering and finding my way home in the end.

Liquid

Fri, 18 May 2018 19:11:16 +0000

Rovinj, Croatia. For the WordPress photo challenge prompt, Liquid

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 27

Fri, 27 Apr 2018 18:37:33 +0000

For S. Six months.

Beneath the light of the autumn sun, perched on the edge of that seventh hill we quivered in the chill of the breeze, basking in the delight of a promise shared. I walked away with your name etched on my skin, a weight borne in my heart like an anchor in an uncertain storm. Moons ago there was trepidation there,but now like a once floundering ship finally headed home, there is a whole, where a hole once was.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 26

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 19:02:10 +0000

Sensed, for the Day 26 prompt. --- Sometimes joy is the rush of wind past skin, as one finds a rhythm in which feet pound pavements, the sight of the night sky tinged pink, like a splash of paint on a vast canvas. Sometimes joy is the scent of bread on a cold winter day, an invitation whispered on the wings of the wind to hunker down before a fire and be. Whether in the brush of soft breath on skin, the quiet reassurance of a song remembered, heard in the bottom of the soul, and the warmth of spices on the tongue, joy sometimes is, what is not uncertain is that home is there.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day24, An Elegy for the 'Feeble-minded'

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 18:05:07 +0000

Image by M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University at Albany, SUNY (via NPR’s Hidden Brain Podcast), for the Day 24 prompt. Inspired by Emma, Carrie and Vivian’s stories.

--- They branded them the feeble minded, when all they were were the wronged ones.

Once a face begins to fade into the fog of otherness, doubt begins to assail the humanity of the other.

We wished we spoke for you when they came - before your lives were stashed behind that cordon of red brick

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 19

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:46:50 +0000

After the sun, for the Day 19 prompt. --- A lone man stands in front of the bus shelter, his bag slung across his shoulder, hands stuck deep in his pockets, staring out towards the square, at the space where the bus should be.Behind him, four bicycles lie in various states of harness. Before him, the square liessuffused with light. The calm, strange for this time of the day, is broken when as though dumped from an arriving train, a flood of people begins to traverse the square. After that comes the rain, after which it becomes clear that the quiet that came before was only the calm before the storm. Alone, his bag slung across his shoulder he stares. The square lies suffused with light. Calm, strange day. Then the rain.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 18

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 22:47:44 +0000

After Eduardo C. Corral’s Ceremonial, for the Day 18 prompt. --- Here I am lord, crouched behind the door of this sanctuary, wedding dress crammed into a closet, clenched fist clutching a rosary hoping the bite of its ragged edges will bring absolution for this fleeing. Like a dream hovering just beyond the reach of remembering the taste of sugared rancid sweat lingers. This war within, between the ghosts of things once thought and things now heard rages. These thick thighs and belly fat belie the assignation of beauty. Prayer cannot assuage this tumult, this self flagellation. I pinch and pull, cry myself hoarse In deliruim.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 16, Springing

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 20:22:11 +0000

Photo by Ruxandra Mateiu on Unsplash, for the Day 16 prompt. --- Where once we Wrapped ourselves in heavy Furs and coats

We now skip Free, drawn by the warmth of the Reborn sun.

The scent of Daffodils, chirp of spring birds Unfurls joy

Spring has sprung And like children, giddy with Joy, we play.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 12

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 19:33:49 +0000

A Haibun, for the Day Twelve prompt. --- The greyness subsumes everything, water filled skies allied to grey granite blocks defining the sky line. Sometimes, a mist will drift in from the sea, shrouding the city in a gloomy pall. The winds howl incessantly, its fingers reaching through every gap and every crack spreading chill and forcing a quickening of the footstep of all who brave the elements. The defining characteristic though is one of just getting on with it. Sometimes - for two days of summer as we say - the sun comes out.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 11

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 23:07:15 +0000

Image source: Huffington Post. For the Day 11 prompt. ---

Time tinges the Future with death and demise Certain end.

Each day is A war won by birthing the Self anew.

The claws of Time etch themselves in our skin Separating

Desire from Response,bending will to reality.

The world ends Not with a bang but with a Whimper*.

– \* T.S Elliot, The Hollow Men.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 10, Transubstantiation

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 16:46:33 +0000

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash, for the Day 8 prompt, revisited.

--- Sanctify my body as I pray; with clasped hands, bowed head, kneeling here, before this altar of remembering.

I come for the broken bread, blessed, become shredded body. And wine in urn, become blood, spilt forty times but one.

Sin seethes beneath the surface of this body, this flesh from earth descended, unravelling like a thread roughly yanked from frayed yarn.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 5, Foot loose

Thu, 05 Apr 2018 19:54:49 +0000

Image from Great Inspire, for the Day 5 prompt, only partially fulfilled. ---

Come let us dance our discordant thoughts to calmness, joined by the rhythm of our joyful hearts, and a song welling up from deep within.

Like a bird loosed from the tenuous grasp of gravity’s hold, let us float away. With the spring of defiant Freedom in our steps.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 4, What It Is

Wed, 04 Apr 2018 23:10:26 +0000

For the Day 4 Prompt, a challenge to describe an abstraction with concrete nouns. Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash --- What it is is something smouldering A tiny reed, slowly taking flame That perchance with time might Burst into a raging flame

What it is is a call and response A place remembered and returned to In a season of despair

In its light one sees the self in all its glory warts and all, and learns the painful truth that one is human too

#7 - Sweet

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 18:30:53 +0000

A throwback of sorts to Lagos in 2015 and catching up with D at Hans & Rene. For the prompt, Sweet.

#5 - Beloved

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 19:30:48 +0000

St Alban’s Cathedral, December 2016…. For the Word Press photo prompt, Beloved, for which there can really only be one response.

#3 - Silence...

Thu, 18 Jan 2018 21:02:44 +0000

Silence, Solitude and some beach-side scholasticism

\\\* For the prompt, Silence.

#2 - Weathered

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 18:08:30 +0000

– Aberdeen’s City Centre is a panoply of old, weathered buildings, seasoned – as Yusef Komunyakaa so eloquently puts it in his poem, Ode To The Drum – by wind, dusk and sunlight. To that trio of elements, one would have to add snow and rain, given they are hardly ever in short supply in this corner of the world.

Before oil – and some would add, the EU – there was fishing and an entire industry of fish processing in and around the harbour area. These days, gleaming buildings - and car parks - share the skyline, a curious juxtaposition of old and new, brick and glass and perhaps the reinvention of a city.

WordPress Photo Challenge: Serene

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 18:37:29 +0000

The wee hours of the day and the first dusting of proper snow of the year here. For the Wordpress photo challenge, serene.

Wordpress Photo Challenge: Peek

Fri, 03 Nov 2017 12:48:39 +0000

The view that meets my eye on day 1 of 10 in Paphos, Cyprus. Truly looking forward to chilling and bonding with S, and catching my breath after what has been two weeks lived on the very edge of sanity (A Nigerian Wedding will do that to you).

--- For the Wordpress photo challenge, Peek.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Glow

Thu, 19 Oct 2017 17:57:12 +0000

More shimmer than glow but I suppose the view of the sea from the Beach Esplanade as I headed out to last Saturday’s Aberdeen Park Run counts. I am only five official runs in but it is very quickly becoming a key part of my Saturday mornings, when life allows me spend the weekend in the ‘Deen.

Next step the Baker Hughes 10k next year.

--- For the Wordpress Photo Challenge Prompt: Glow

Weekly Photo Challenge: Pedestrian

Fri, 06 Oct 2017 05:09:42 +0000

Lone walker in the distance, grey granite walls, a bit of wetness and a path I take on my way home everyday from work. Pedestrian, both in the sense of someone walking rather than driving or taking the bus and also the sense of something mundane, repeated and without excitement; Quotidian for what its worth.

– For the WordPress photo challenge, Pedestrian.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Windows

Thu, 28 Sep 2017 18:32:00 +0000

Somewhat fortuitously - long story for another day - I have somehow found myself working bang in the city centre for most of the last six years, the chief joys of which include being able to stroll leisurely into work in twenty minutes tops, and this - views of the harbour through the window of the canteen on the third floor.

Between the middle ship and the green ship, if you look hard enough you’ll see the remains of seagull poop. For now at least, these two are constants, ships and seagulls.

Weekly Photo Challenge - Waiting

Thu, 07 Sep 2017 05:35:17 +0000

The downside - or some might say it is an upside - of having family on three continents is I spend quite a bit of time in airports waiting; to board, for baggage, to be picked up or sometimes to catch my breath after what can sometimes be a battle to get through immigration and customs, no thanks to the power of my passport.

The interplay between costs, stopover lengths and distance sometimes mean that only the very earliest of flights are workable for me, which is how I ended up at the airport at about 6.00am on this day. All in a day’s worth of waiting, I guess.