Dale offers the prompt “lighter mornings/longer evenings” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
Below is my favorite morning photo. It is like a burst of fresh light in my mind.
The final two photos are of evenings. The last one was taken last night about 8 PM.
While looking at LaTeX templates for brochures I noticed LianTze Lim’s PocketMod package which allows one to typeset eight smaller pages on a single letter-size sheet of paper. After printing it one would fold it in half lengthwise, then fold it in half again and then again. That produces a tiny book that fits in the pocket of a t-shirt or can be used as a bookmark.
So, I put together six poems into a book which you are free to download and print, if you wish. Although I added color to the PDF file, I normally print this in black and white and landscape mode and use it as a bookmark.
For those who would like the see the LaTeX commands, I placed the files on Google Drive under Six Poems.
Steven woke from his misadventures in the caverns of Blislisnis lying on the ground by the tents of the homeless where the Caverns Valet Service sometimes parked people who were still alive. After regaining consciousness he asked a man sitting nearby how he got there.
“You must have called upon the name of the Lord,” the man answered, “but they told me to tell you they got tired of feeding you like a dog.”
Steven noticed that his wallet and keys were missing and his phone was smashed.
“Don’t go back to those caverns, son,” the man said.
Steven left the man walking in a direction that seemed as good as any to reach home if he would only persist this time in going there.
______
Denise offers the word “valet” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Steven’s story continues from last week. It will be completed next week.
Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Dale offers the prompt “an Easter walk” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
The two photos are from from a walk we took yesterday along a trail through the neighborhoods.
The last is a graphic I made using LaTeX which I posted on MeWe to celebrate Resurrection Sunday.
Steven followed the thread until it broke which made him worry that he might not be able to find his way home. Fear of shame kept him from crying out for help since he had no business being where he was.
The creatures from the caverns of Blislisnis where he went to waste his time approached to collect additional fees. They lured him back to the pleasure rooms of their little Babylon by offering him piece after piece of wormy delights like one might lure a largish dog when it refuses to go where you want it to.
Forgetting that he dreadfully wanted to leave only moments ago Steven lapped up morsel after morsel consuming as much of the delicacy as they would allow him to eat. With him secured deep inside his accusers, those scornful, lying mockers, induced him to vomit, surrounded him with derision and gloated that now he could never leave.
______
Denise offers the prompt word “thread” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Steven’s story continues from last week and will continue next week. I don’t have the heart to leave him in Blislisnis.
Romans 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts…
______
Dale offers the prompt “art for art’s sake” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
I took the two photos below of ancient flooring inside a structure in Jerusalem. I cropped and adjusted the color and brightness of the originals. Outside of making sure the horizon or other flat surface, if there is one in a photo, looks flat that is all I normally do to photos.
If you forget what these are photos of, hopefully they might be viewed as abstract art or art for art’s sake.
With heartfelt thanks
and joyful praise
we have forgotten
wayward ways
that once obsessed
our anxious days.
Forget that now.
Remember praise.
In the good old days when your grandfathers were dating your grandmothers and your father and mother were still a twinkle in their eyes students used computer labs where each could interact with a boxy screen through a noisy keyboard.
Seated in one of the lab chairs was Steven losing his composure when he faced instructions to press some cryptic key sequence. Pressing the wrong key generated an error message normal human beings could not understand which led him to press other (wrong) keys which took him through a labyrinth filled with dead ends and booby traps. I will spare the gentle reader the exact words leaving Steven’s lips as he exposed his heartfelt frustration which his fellow students mistook for demonic possession.
Eventually Gerald got up from his chair and walked over to where Steven was sitting wondering if he could figure out what the problem was while trying not to think of the consequences coming from Steven’s anger if he could not. Gerald pressed what might be called today the escape key, but God only knows what it was back then as peace reigned once more in the computer lab and grandfathers and grandmothers could go back to cherishing the twinkle in each other’s eyes.
______
Denise offers the prompt word “screen” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Dale offers the prompt “little and large” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
The grasshopper sat still for a photo. The table was at a cate in Manitou Springs, Colorado. That is the photo of what is little.
A mile of so away begins the Barr Trail that leads to Pikes Peak. The second photo is a view from that trail showing what is large.
Jake’s fortune read, The best way to mess up a miracle is to take offense, which made him wonder where people came up with stuff like that. The messages his co-workers received in their thin, dry, almond cookies didn’t seem like they were pointing suspicious fingers at them, or maybe he was just being overly sensitive about the one he received.
He recalled years ago around his fortieth birthday getting a fortune that read, A fool at forty is a fool indeed. At that time Janice, a sales manager he had to tolerate, remarked, “The universe is trying to tell you something, Jake, 😂🤣.”
Since Janice was paying for the meal, Jake thought it best to keep his mouth shut. However, his silence couldn’t stop the tension from building up in that noodle between his ears pitting his general unbelief in most everything against his realization that that had been the third consecutive time that he, and he only at the table, received that very message.
______
Denise offers the prompt word “tension” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 