Art is not beauty, it is the lie that leads to it. - Leonora Carrington
Hey!, you people from the future: These Challenges are forever! Feel free to add something new.
For links to all the Challenges, just click the P.S. button below:
Challenge #1 - Cut Up Folktale can be found here.
Challenge #2 - Death by Words can be found here.
Challenge #3 - Utterly Mistaken can be found here.
Challenge #4 - Word Dog Run can be found here.
Challenge #5 - Queen's Dreams can be found here.
Challenge X - Bucket Brigade can be found here.
Yesterday (which is today for another 10 minutes in Texas), the U.S.A. celebrated the birthday
of Martin Luther King.
Martin Luther King:
"As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi my skepticism concerning the power of love
gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time its potency in the area of social reform.
Prior to reading Gandhi, I had about concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in
individual relationships. The “turn the other cheek” philosophy and the “love your enemies”
philosophy were only valid, I felt, when individuals were in conflict with other individuals.
When racial groups and nations were in conflict, a more realistic approach seemed necessary.
But after reading Gandhi, I saw how utterly mistaken I was. Gandhi was probably the
first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals
to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale."
Writing Challenge #3: "I saw how utterly mistaken I was." ( Moral revelation? Personal epiphany? )
Future Challenges, Dates and Timing:
Challenges will be posted slightly before 6am GMT which is 1am in New York City,
6am in London, 2pm in Manila, 5pm in Sydney, and 7pm in Auckland.
There will be 6 more challenges. The fourth challenge will be posted Friday Jan 19.
And the rest will follow, one every 3 days: Jan 22, 25, 28, and 31.
IISZ Team:
rayheinrich: Head Chief Executive Head ( HCEH )
lizzie: Senior Executive Vice President for Creativity and Chaos ( VPCC )
quixilated: Executive Vice President for Narratives and Perplexity ( VPNP )
vagabond: Executive Vice President for Quonundra and Qwertyness ( VPQQ )
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
01-17-2018, 02:46 AM (This post was last modified: 01-17-2018, 07:28 AM by Todd.)
Married Without Children
I gaze down upon the young parents
in the restaurant with their child.
His clothing, a Jackson Pollock painting, Number 3, 1950 (Scrambled eggs and grape jelly).
He is less murderous doll and more
necromancer with shrill incantations.
Adjacent tables ask for their checks.
Over screams and animistic pleading,
his parents are a mountain brook.
Their breathing slows to a Zen state.
The child hurls his spoon at the waitress.
Now, an Olympian seeking a laurel.
He twists his hips to release
the plate, a shattered discus.
I put down my cup, and diagnose
with the sheer certainty of the childless,
what they should be doing.
Woke up first thing this morning,
fed the chickens, milked the cow,
made breakfast for the family,
for their hospitality,
for giving me a living,
fresh from scratch and told them how.
Dropped his glass, told me to go...
They didn't have a cow, they had a bull though.
my wish for this task be forsaken!
to write about how i´m mistaken...
the choices, sure, vast,
but asleep in the past
and now i should have that awaken?
(01-17-2018, 06:08 AM)nibbed Wrote: Pidan
We've all done it
sang rock songs to false lyrics,
called someone by the wrong name,
judged without all the facts,
mispronounced words;
but I want to sink my head
like an ostrich
remembering how sophisticated
and intelligent I sounded when I told him
a buried egg
left in the dirt for a century
is a delicatessen in China.
don´t worry i thought they were a thousand years old once. seems to not make a difference concerning the question whether i´d eat them.
and thanks for a laugh, the topic reminded me of a scene from that movie "welcome to the ch´tis"
"this cheese tastes much better than it smells - now eat"
...
*bites off a bit and chews*
" it tastes exactly as it smells!!"
(01-17-2018, 09:21 AM)vagabond Wrote: i wish for this challenge forsaken!
write about how i´m mistaken...
the choice is sure vast,
soundly sleeps in the past
and now i should have that awaken?
(01-17-2018, 06:08 AM)nibbed Wrote: Pidan
We've all done it
sang rock songs to false lyrics,
called someone by the wrong name,
judged without all the facts,
mispronounced words;
but I want to sink my head
like an ostrich
remembering how sophisticated
and intelligent I sounded when I told him
a buried egg
left in the dirt for a century
is a delicatessen in China.
don´t worry i thought they were a thousand years old once. seems to not make a difference concerning the question whether i´d eat them.
and thanks for a laugh, the topic reminded me of a scene from that movie "welcome to the ch´tis"
"this cheese tastes much better than it smells - now eat"
...
*bites off a bit and chews*
" it tastes exactly as it smells!!"
I'm glad it made you laugh!
I changed the title because it troubled me.
I like your limerick, too.
It fits perfectly to the challenge
and holds the wisdom of a sage.
I lived in the baby's room
too long. The bright, yellow-felted
moon
and stars
of the mobile
hanging over my head
got within reach
and I tore out the stuffing.
I used to think Mom and Dad
had something on me:
remembering how crass,
how know-it-all
their offspring had been,
not to mention certain
embarrassing experiments.
Then, at some recent point
in time, I saw how utterly mistaken I was.
Not only did they not remember
any of my sins or follies—
some days, unless reminded,
they didn’t quite recall
they had a son. Of his qualities
faint traces, at the most, persist.
Instead I only can remind them
of the past, their past,
that something called “the past”
existed for them: houses, children,
work, vacations, suppers,
marriages, grandchildren,
yesterday’s lunch.
Where once I knelt in shame,
fear of remembering, reminded,
now I kneel to hold their hands,
anchor them to earth and time—
selfishly? For if they slip
on past and upward, what
is life they live now
but precocious
Nirvana?
(01-18-2018, 12:22 AM)dukealien Wrote: Mistaken Fear
I used to think Mom and Dad
had something on me:
remembering how crass,
how know-it-all
their offspring had been,
not to mention certain
embarrassing experiments.
Then, at some recent point
in time, I saw how utterly mistaken I was.
Not only did they not remember
any of my sins or follies—
some days, unless reminded,
they didn’t quite recall
they had a son. Of his qualities
faint traces, at the most, persist.
Instead I only can remind them
of the past, their past,
that something called “the past”
existed for them: houses, children,
work, vacations, suppers,
marriages, grandchildren,
yesterday’s lunch.
Where once I knelt in shame,
fear of remembering, reminded,
now I kneel to hold their hands,
anchor them to earth and time—
selfishly? For if they slip
on past and upward, what
is life they live now
but precocious
Nirvana?
there´s something forgiving about dementia. i think it tends to bring out the basic things (memories, emotions, character) from behind their complicated logical curtains of inhibition.
i probably don´t get the meaning of precocious in your context right, but i definitely like how its sound is similar to precious.
01-19-2018, 10:13 AM (This post was last modified: 01-19-2018, 11:54 AM by Quixilated.)
say what?
My daughter loves to sing the song "Havana"
but sometimes children jumble up the lyrics.
When she belted "half my heart is a banana"
I couldn't help but fall into hysterics.
It reminded me of when I too was five
and always listened closely to the teacher.
After a field trip to a church my mother tried in vain
to convince me that I hadn't seen "the creature."
special thanks to nibbed for the “false lyrics” prompt. :
The Soufflé isn’t the soufflé; the soufflé is the recipe. --Clara
My daughter loves to sing the song "Havana"
but sometimes children jumble up the lyrics.
When she belted "half my heart is a banana"
I couldn't help but fall into hysterics.
It reminded me of when I too was five
and always listened closely to the teacher.
After a field trip to a church my mother tried in vain
to convince me that I hadn't seen "the creature."
special thanks to nibbed for the “false lyrics” prompt. :
The son of one of my friends once belted out some modified Bon Jovi lyrics, "Doesn't make a difference if we're naked or not." (instead of: doesn't make a difference if we make it or not, from Livin' On a Prayer). He was 5 so it was super hilarious.
(01-17-2018, 02:46 AM)Todd Wrote: I put down my cup, and diagnose
with the sheer certainty of the childless,
what they should be doing.
In two years, my son will be born.
I heard that. Your kids "will never behave that way" until they do. And there's always one kid that burns the house down.
(01-17-2018, 06:08 AM)nibbed Wrote: remembering how sophisticated
and intelligent I sounded when I told him
a buried egg
left in the dirt for a century
is a delicatessen in China.
(01-17-2018, 12:02 PM)Tiger the Lion Wrote: A Toddler's Testimony
I lived in the baby's room
too long. The bright, yellow-felted
moon
and stars
of the mobile
hanging over my head
got within reach
and I tore out the stuffing.
Layers of potential meaning in this one. A coming of age story.
I find the use of formatting appropriate and not gimmicky. Well done.
(01-18-2018, 12:22 AM)dukealien Wrote: Mistaken Fear
What's compelling about this one for me is the speaker's ambivalence toward the forgetting of sins. It's not the same as forgiveness.
When you leave the church as an adult,
marry for love like a good woman should,
you wonder how many folks were faking it:
the verses, flannel graphs and sermons
proposing marriage as God's solution
to the problem of loneliness.
You wonder if the pastors lied
when they told you that they received
from God what he promised--
whether they merely gave or limply allowed;
how they felt about themselves
when they told teens that married sex
was too fine a thing, like intimacy is scarce
and you don't want to waste a single drop.
You wonder what it means
when orgasms don't coordinate--
whether that's all Satan's fault,
or some missing link between husband and wife,
and what it says about God
that there's always so much room for more.
this is the voice of one crying in the wilderness
listen to the man whimper like a pup
his robe is rags, his hands are covered in stings
he dips his hands into the river, hoping for a miracle
he wants to make the river straight
he wants to build a dam and a canal
the first to give power, to supersede fire
the second to prepare the way for his lord
his head on a platter, his body in a ditch
the king full of fear, the daughter of lust
a city rises in the wilderness
it smells like wet dog
With all his weight he rammed down the kick start of the Norton Commando. The bike spluttered but didn’t catch. Under his breath he cursed the bitch and threatened to swap her for a Jap bike with an electric start. “Now just fucking start”, he shouted as he bounced once more. The bitch complied slowly at first until the choke did its job. ”Hey Pan Head, where you off to?”, asked one of the chapter's younger members. “Got to sort out some trouble with one of our own”, he replied, then rode away from the ramshackle sheds that the Forest of Dean Hells' Angels called their home. He never glanced back.
He had always been called Pan Head and most of his people assumed that was due to a love of Harleys; those that had been around in the early days knew that the name was due to the way he cut his own hair. He had joined the chapter at sixteen, a runaway on a BSA Bantam. Even at that tender age they soon learned not to mess with Pan Head. If there was ever any trouble he would be the first in and always the last to leave.
The road and years had not been kind to this now old greaser. Long rides would cripple him for days and sometimes the pain in his knuckles would get so bad he would drink himself into a stupor. He rarely spoke and the members of his chapter had stopped trying to converse many years ago, only the new members asked him questions and only occasionally did they get an answer and that was usually, ”Fuck off”.
The Norton's parallel twin thumped its way out of Gloucester through heavy rain and up onto the spinal trail of the M6. He rode like a zombie into an apocalypse stopping only to feed the bike. He tucked in tight to the tank, hardening against the cold and the foreboding giants that stalked the road as he entered the Jaws of Cumbria. He started to lose the light around Lockerbie but roared on towards East Kilbride and took the ring road round Glasgow heading for Stirling.
The bike had been thrashed for nearly six hours straight, through the worst weather God could throw at any of his fallen angels. Pan Head was pretty pissed off as he passed into the Kingdom of Fife and Perthshire. As he entered Bridge of Gaur he was ready to kill anything or anyone that even tried to get in his way. The sleepy hamlet was getting ready to go to bed, the rain had stopped and the street lights reflected orange on the rain-soaked road. The Norton was now moving slowly, searching out its prey. Finally it stopped, slumped to one side like a horse on its last legs as the rider climbed off.
Inside Rannoch church the congregation had just started evening prayers; two small children at the back were giggling and snatching prayer books out of each other’s hands. Pan Head slammed open the doors at the back of the Church and stepped inside, the steel segs in his boots clicked on the cold tiled floor and pools of rain collected at his feet. The whole back row of the pews were now wishing they had sat at the front as they turned to see the Hells' Angel that had descended onto their sleepy hollow. “What the fuck are you looking at?” he spat. “Where is she?” he hollered above the faltering pipe organ.
The vicar tucked up his robes and trotted towards the crude stranger that had broken his routine. As he passed the front row Alan Edgar, a man well respected for his generosity about Gaur, spoke his mind. "That's right vicar, send the uncouth lout packing”. This prompted others to join in with ayes of agreement.
The Vicars' stride broke, he turned to face his congregation. "I can't believe what I'm hearing, is this the way we welcome strangers? tell me, what do you make of this man who visits our church?" he asked. “It needs a bath. Coming in church dressed like that, it’s not right". "Aye who does he think he is?”. “Someone that’s not welcome, I would say”, voiced Alan Edgar, getting braver with the support of his townsfolk. “Why Vicar?. What do you see?”
“Alan Edgar! I'll tell you what I see, I see a man that has travelled a great distance to be beside his mother when she needs him most. Come in Michael, you must be frozen, let’s go through to the back. I’ll make you some tea. Mums' in bed; she’s very weak but at least she’s home”.
With his arm around his son the Vicar turned to look at his flock. ” I think you've held your own sermon tonight; see yourselves out”.
If your undies fer you've been smoking through em, don't peg em out
With all his weight he rammed down the kick start of the Norton Commando. The bike spluttered but didn’t catch. Under his breath he cursed the bitch and threatened to swap her for a Jap bike with an electric start. “Now just fucking start”, he shouted as he bounced once more. The bitch complied slowly at first until the choke did its job. ”Hey Pan Head, where you off to?”, asked one of the chapter's younger members. “Got to sort out some trouble with one of our own”, he replied, then rode away from the ramshackle sheds that the Forest of Dean Hells' Angels called their home. He never glanced back.
He had always been called Pan Head and most of his people assumed that was due to a love of Harleys; those that had been around in the early days knew that the name was due to the way he cut his own hair. He had joined the chapter at sixteen, a runaway on a BSA Bantam. Even at that tender age they soon learned not to mess with Pan Head. If there was ever any trouble he would be the first in and always the last to leave.
The road and years had not been kind to this now old greaser. Long rides would cripple him for days and sometimes the pain in his knuckles would get so bad he would drink himself into a stupor. He rarely spoke and the members of his chapter had stopped trying to converse many years ago, only the new members asked him questions and only occasionally did they get an answer and that was usually, ”Fuck off”.
The Norton's parallel twin thumped its way out of Gloucester through heavy rain and up onto the spinal trail of the M6. He rode like a zombie into an apocalypse stopping only to feed the bike. He tucked in tight to the tank, hardening against the cold and the foreboding giants that stalked the road as he entered the Jaws of Cumbria. He started to lose the light around Lockerbie but roared on towards East Kilbride and took the ring road round Glasgow heading for Stirling.
The bike had been thrashed for nearly six hours straight, through the worst weather God could throw at any of his fallen angels. Pan Head was pretty pissed off as he passed into the Kingdom of Fife and Perthshire. As he entered Bridge of Gaur he was ready to kill anything or anyone that even tried to get in his way. The sleepy hamlet was getting ready to go to bed, the rain had stopped and the street lights reflected orange on the rain-soaked road. The Norton was now moving slowly, searching out its prey. Finally it stopped, slumped to one side like a horse on its last legs as the rider climbed off.
Inside Rannoch church the congregation had just started evening prayers; two small children at the back were giggling and snatching prayer books out of each other’s hands. Pan Head slammed open the doors at the back of the Church and stepped inside, the steel segs in his boots clicked on the cold tiled floor and pools of rain collected at his feet. The whole back row of the pews were now wishing they had sat at the front as they turned to see the Hells' Angel that had descended onto their sleepy hollow. “What the fuck are you looking at?” he spat. “Where is she?” he hollered above the faltering pipe organ.
The vicar tucked up his robes and trotted towards the crude stranger that had broken his routine. As he passed the front row Alan Edgar, a man well respected for his generosity about Gaur, spoke his mind. "That's right vicar, send the uncouth lout packing”. This prompted others to join in with ayes of agreement.
The Vicars' stride broke, he turned to face his congregation. "I can't believe what I'm hearing, is this the way we welcome strangers? tell me, what do you make of this man who visits our church?" he asked. “It needs a bath. Coming in church dressed like that, it’s not right". "Aye who does he think he is?”. “Someone that’s not welcome, I would say”, voiced Alan Edgar, getting braver with the support of his townsfolk. “Why Vicar?. What do you see?”
“Alan Edgar! I'll tell you what I see, I see a man that has travelled a great distance to be beside his mother when she needs him most. Come in Michael, you must be frozen, let’s go through to the back. I’ll make you some tea. Mums' in bed; she’s very weak but at least she’s home”.
With his arm around his son the Vicar turned to look at his flock. ” I think you've held your own sermon tonight; see yourselves out”.
amazing. the first and following reads are like two different stories, both captivating.
the medications listed out
in quantity and price
it doesn't say just who was served
whose cries prevented or incurred
how many of the pages numbered
off to blurry ends and eyes
reduced by me from aid to injury
reduced to numbers counting
all the dollars itemized and quoted
in each page and line and dot
i counted up their worth with marks
of what's and why's i counted up
and down and never added
- - -
Todd: Married Without Children - a concrete, secular parable - this poem "faithfully" fulfills the challenge Tiger the Lion: short, sweet, perfect... the white space worked well dukealien: "his qualities / faint traces, at the most, persist." so much in those eight words Quixilated: "half my heart is a banana" i laughed; and the poem, such a genuine portrait
Lizzie on dukealien's poem: "What's compelling about this one for me is the speaker's ambivalence
toward the forgetting of sins. It's not the same as forgiveness."
Yes. The poem moved me, but I couldn't put it into words; you did. Lizzie: "proposing marriage as God's solution / to the problem of loneliness."
"like intimacy is scarce / and you don't want to waste a single drop."
- an insightful essay in the brevity of a poem
RiverNotch: "a city rises in the wilderness / it smells like wet dog" - perfect Hemingway Keith: Pan Head - and we're not just poets, some of us are "real writers" CRNDLSM: "They didn't have a cow" -
vagabond: you cheated, you wrote a meta-answer... deviously clever
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions
![[Image: CloudSky.jpg]](http://wordbiscuit.com/im20/CloudSky.jpg)
![[Image: CloudSkyRev.jpg]](http://wordbiscuit.com/im20/CloudSkyRev.jpg)
