Napowrimo18 on A Geek's Life

#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 15, Cry

Sun, 15 Apr 2018 22:29:51 +0000

– Cry for the riven country. For the ones for whom doom descended from the skies in Douma, spreading death in the wake of its yellow green tendrils.

Cry for the dead and the dying. For the ones culled from the living, whose blood, like a libation rejected pools at the altar of the sixth fleet.

The whine of drones, swish of tomahawks and boom of hellfires pounding earth into tired dust assail their ears, lighting up the night sky.

#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 8, Transubstantiation

Sun, 08 Apr 2018 22:33:37 +0000

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

--- With bowed heads and clasped hands we come In quiet supplication, knees bowed, flesh unstrung- Hearts humbled, at the feet of the priest For bread broken. Blessed. Becoming crackling body And wine. Slipped into silver urn. Spilt blood. Divine liquid.

Pange, lingua, gloriósi Córporis mystérium, Sanguinísque pretiósi,

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 7, Father

Sat, 07 Apr 2018 22:11:09 +0000

My father looms Like a colossus in my mind His voice, tinged with righteous anger The lyric of my powerless youth But now in my season of adulthood, I see him as he is, A man who tried his very best But was human too.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 6, For The Ones The Genes Took

Fri, 06 Apr 2018 22:17:45 +0000

For the ones the genes took. Photo by Wendy Scofield on Unsplash.

We prayed the Jinns would not take you That when the dust from your fighting feet, and the chill of the terror of the night would lift you would return in peace.

With our knees we ground a hole into the ground from constant supplication, in hope that you would be whole again but the genes would not let up

#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

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 3, Name Dropping

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 20:05:53 +0000

For the Day 3 prompt, A list poem of band names. I fear my choices betray my age (and my penchant for Christian Contemporary Music). Photo by frankie cordoba on Unsplash. --- Six Pence None The Richer for you corrodes my conformity into discordant notes.

On Black Street s, six degrees north of Building 429 a Rush Of Fools Switches foot and stops to breathe again.

DC Talks to the Newsboys Ignoring Caedmon’s Call Until the Third Day when the Second Chapter Of Acts is unleashed.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 2, Home

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 20:02:34 +0000

Snowed in, somewhat. For the Day 2 prompt.

I ache in the winter when it rains. When the wind, like the fingers of a malevolent one probe beneath.

Deep down in a place sometimes lost where memories once lived, lies the linger of disquiet.For forgetting.

Some days the smell of fresh wood wafts in, borne as though on wings of the wind. Then, these bones - aching in the cold - rejoice.

#NaPoWriMo18: Day 1, Begin Again

Sun, 01 Apr 2018 22:38:30 +0000

Off prompt for Day 1, Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash --- Let us begin again at dawn. With the stirring songs of the Skylarks ringing in our ears, the dappled light of the rising sun, smell of moist earth and the distant lap of a gentle wave calling us. In the shadows of the stations, along this winding tortuous path we have climbed this mount, where like a seed once dead is reborn, we arise again.