A pinprick of light - haiku

A pinprick of light
among the hills. A haven
or a dire warning?

~~~

Pinpricks of light
in the night sky. Divine souls
or indifferent stars?

~~~

Spurts of freedom – tanka

I wonder sometimes
if the blood rushing through veins
wishes to be free

to rise, to rain in glorious
red arches of liberty

~~~

For the photo prompt at Mindlovemisery's Menangerie -

Photo credit – Paulix8

Winter is here - haiga

(View of ice-clad Rimutaka from our window)

Tears of the Moon

(100-word flash fiction)


“These are tears of the moon.” Alice’s voice is tremulous.

Jenny snorts. The seven-year old cynic, who no longer believes in Santa.

“The moon is sad because dolphins are dying.”

Jenny stops in mid-snort when she notices the tears in Alice’s voice.

“And whales too. And … and polar bears.” Alice’s tears are as clear and glassy as the drops on the leaf.

Then, 10-year old Jenny with her ‘Save Alice’ campaign, trying desperately to save a dying Alice.

Now, at 16, firebrand and founder of the organisation ‘Tears of the Moon”, valiantly trying to prevent wanton killing of animals.

~~~~~~~~~

Second story submission for the Friday Fictioneers photo prompt below –

The sign

(100-word flash fiction)

“No rain for four years.”  The shaman, grim-faced, is bending over a plant.

“It was hard when we had no rain for two summers. We barely survived.” The tribesman standing behind him sounds worried.

The shaman turns away from the clump of thorny brush to gaze at the bleached, shimmering sky.  Already, in his bones he can feel the moisture ebbing from the land like a mother feels the milk drying up inside her.

“But good will come.” His face softens.  “We will survive.  But the white man, he won’t. He will flee. The land will be ours once again.”

~~~

Friday Fictioneers flash fiction for the photo prompt - 

Cricket practice

(100-word flash fiction)

The boys were dumbfounded. They had arrived at their cricket ground as usual with rickety bats and an old tennis ball and Charlie was halfway through the tunnel under the wire fence when they saw the ‘structure’. They gazed at it in awe and fright.

“How could anyone have erected something so big in one night?” Pete whispered.

“Tall crane,” Tony, the know-all.

Meanwhile, AK782164 was furious. Not only had all systems failed, he had to scramble through the whole night in pitch dark, to reach the only window to find that the ruddy spaceship had landed on its side.

~~~

My story for the Friday Fictioneers photo prompt below -

2AM - haiga

(click on photo for larger view)

For the dVerse prompt ‘2AM’ 

How can you be bored with being?

Thoroughly thought-provoking .....

"Finally, the game of life as Western man has been 'playing' it for the past century needs less emphasis on practicality, results, progress, and aggression. This is why I am discussing vision, and keeping off the subject of justifying the vision in terms of its practical applications and consequences. Whatever may be true for the Chinese and the Hindus, it is timely for us to recognize that the future is an ever-retreating mirage, and to switch our immense energy and technical skill to contemplation instead of action. However much we may now disagree with Aristotle's logic and his metaphors, he must still be respected for reminding us that the goal of action is always contemplation—knowing and being rather than seeking and becoming.

As it is, we are merely bolting our lives—gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in—because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being. If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable? But suppose you could answer, 'It would take me forever to tell you, and I am much too interested in what's happening now.' How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment—from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies — how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?" 

~ Alan Watts.
Excerpt from the book - The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

After the rain

(Photo taken at : Martinborough, NZ)

Phenomenal woman

Phenomenal poem!

PHENOMENAL WOMAN

By MAYA ANGELOU

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Maya Angelou

Rainwalk - tanka

rain falls like feathers

sashaying down the catwalk

of sky air

I suspect the trees clapped

and the rain god was made proud

~~~

All night rain falls

in the hills

an owl calls out for a mate

 all night rain falls

~~~

sleep sprites unreel

dream movies on closed eyelids

 all night rain falls

~~~

I wake from this dream

into a dream more real

 all night rain falls

the moon is an orange

the sound of rain a warning

~~~

Mountain mystique - haiga

...

time stashes secrets

into the folds of mountains
only the wind knows

(photo : Rimutaka mountains, Upper Hutt)
Click on photo to view larger version

~~~

Creation - haiga

all of creation

smiles from a single bloom

joyous as a child

There is Buddha

in the still space

between each thought

the Buddha waits

~~~

For Carpe Diem's Santoka Taneda's 'There is Buddha' prompt

in the ceaseless sound
of the water
there is Buddha

© Santoka Taneda

Subsumption

This being a woman

This being a woman
is a holding back

words caught in the throat
pebbles, rocks, boulders,
but isn't it the stones
that make the river sing?


This being a woman
is a flowing around

a liquid grace,
a sinuous tenacity,
what obstacle has ever
stopped a river in flow?


This being a woman
is a relearning

no matter how much
the world breaks you,
were you not always
unbreakable and whole?


This being a woman
is a discovering

amidst a world that
denies you your dignity,
finding a world inner,
pure, precious, powerful.


This being a woman
is always about love

you may love one
or may love many,
but above all
you must love your self

~~~

The Heart of a Woman

by Georgia Douglas Johnson

 

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,

As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,

Afar o'er life's turrets and vales does it roam

In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,

And enters some alien cage in its plight,

And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars

While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.

 

 

~~~

 

Awesome!

 

 

The nut cracker - haiku

sparrows cheep 

cheep cheep me awake

into a dreamworld

of mirages
I, an unwilling
participant

carrying

a body so burdensome

so burdensome

the desiring mind

transfixed by illusions

of its own making

yet, something waits

to be found, for the shell

to be cracked open

the other me

beckons with a nut-cracker

called silence

~~~

The wealthiest place in the world

The video says it all -