Category: Photography

Fall – Décima

Dark witches of the winter know
Some spells they heard in full-moon fall.
Their Ba’al doesn't know it all.
His shadows flicker where they go
When morning light lets failings show.
Those who wake in time may see
How ignorance loves mystery,
How feelings masquerade as good,
How petty sins start ticking. Could
They all explode mechanically?

Linked to Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge where the challenge is to use “fall” as a rhyme word in the B lines where the rhyme pattern is ABBAACCDDC. The photos are from around October/November of last year.

Gray Sky
Gray Sky
Ronovan's Decima Poetry Challenge Image
Ronovan’s Decima Poetry Challenge Image

Kettle – Six Sentence Story

George and his wife escaped from their burning apartment. Local politicians, some of whom he voted for, and reporters, labeled the rioting a peaceful protest, but he couldn’t see anything peaceful about the looting of his small store while the police were told to stand down. It would take years for them to recover from this toxic self-righteousness.

Standing apart from the rioters in an alley George tried to identify the mistakes they made that led to their decision to settle in this city three decades ago. He couldn’t think of anything fundamentally wrong with their decisions. He might still be wondering how they could have done things differently were it not for a large kettle containing fluids that exploded, scalding him and his wife, bringing them to their knees and then laying them on the ground.

Linked to Six Sentence Stories where Denise offers the word “kettle” to use in a story having six sentences.

Two Blossoms
GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley's six-sentence-stories icon
GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley’s six-sentence-stories icon

One-Liner Wednesday – The Hidden Battle

Whenever people sin it empowers the devil.

Peter Warren, Sermon on September 13th at Calvary Chapel Miami Beach, author of “When the Shooting Stops: Where is God When We Suffer?“

Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday.

Trail at the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado – I don’t want to topple any of those stones either.
Badge by Laura @ riddlefromthemiddle.com

As Summer Fades

Slip from summer into fall.
Then winter brings us cold, white days,
But spring, that wonder of it all,
Leads back to summer anyway.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Prompt where Dale offers the theme of “as summer fades”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. It was raining this past week and so I worked on a puzzle in computational number theory. The challenge was to verify the 3x+1 trajectory-length records by running a different program to find them. Using Python my best time for integers under 670,617,280 had been over 700 seconds. Last week I was able to reduce that to 352 seconds. That made me smile. If I believe what others have achieved, they can do it in under a few seconds. That’s my goal unless it stops raining. Even if I get it below 10 seconds, it is about as significant as solving a 1000-piece jig-saw puzzle, but at least I will be able to verify the larger records that have been found.

First Leaves to Fall
Cosmic Photo Challenge

Songs One Can’t Forget – Flash Fiction

“I hope the kids don’t remember that song you used to sing to them about the bird and the word.”

“I didn’t sing it for long. When they got older, I pretended to be the voice of their doll, Sweetie Baby.”

“You know, we still have that doll in case they ever want it.”

“It’s good to keep stuff like that. Actually some of those old songs aren’t any goofier than the ones they sing today. No wonder we’re all messed up.”

“At least the grand kids don’t know the song.”

“Unfortunately I sang it to them as well.”

Linked to Carrot Ranch’s September 10th Flash Fiction Challenge. Charli Mills offers the prompt to use something heard on the radio now or in the past.

September’s Yellow

Blend

I feel as if I ought to send
A warning out to one and all:
Beyond the bend's a cliff, a fall,
A tragedy, a blur, a blend
Into a gorgeous, awful end.
And then inconsequentially
What would become of you and me?
Ah! Let it come here anyway.
Yes, Come tomorrow. Come today!
Embrace the opportunity.

Linked to Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge where the challenge is to use “blend” as a rhyming word in the A lines. The poem has ten lines with rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC.

Trail at Palmer Park, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Ronovan's Decima Poetry Challenge Image
Ronovan’s Decima Poetry Challenge Image

Gallery – A Six Sentence Story

“All those tiny people in the gallery don’t know it but they’re at the center of the universe,” Mark asserted.

George protested, “The universe doesn’t have a center.” 

And so the claims and counter-claims of George and Mark came and went, often nowhere. Where would one want them to go? Should they flutter to the whatchamacallit radio source at Sagittarius A*?

“And,” Mark continued, “if those tiny people in the gallery are at the center of the universe they’re right smack dab where they ought to be.”

Linked to Six Sentence Story where Denise offers the challenge word “gallery”.

Tiny Shadows at the Center of the Universe
GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley's six-sentence-stories icon
GirlieOnTheEdge Denise Farley’s six-sentence-stories icon

Look to the Skies

Look up. Look down.
Reflecting water shows
The sky as all around.
Morning sunshine grows.

Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “look to the skies”.

Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. It’s midnight. Soon it will be Monday morning. I can’t think of a good reason (that I haven’t already reported) why I’ve been smiling this past week. Being able to calmly watch the sun rise over the pond below is a blessing that reinforces the default smile. Although the August wildflowers are past their peak in the Forest Preserve, the forest and trails are still there and sometimes I am as well.

Look up. Look Down. The sky is all around.
Cosmic Photo Challenge