Nuptial Feast

(picture courtesy of flickr.cc)

The city was burning,  the choking smell of war-despair heavy in the streets.  Refugees of a moment’s notice, an hour ago simply people, rushed and stumbled with their hearts in hasty bundles and packs, desperate.   

Quick and lethal, the Duchess’ armies had struck after their mistress had been refused one last time,  rejected by this city’s eleven year old Duke who was, she said, the love of her life.  

Three proposals, three rejections, and now her armies came in like the tide.  Spurned and insulted, she told the world.  She did not mention the city’s gold reserves.

This is in response to three prompts - Write on Edge's quotation (“Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.”), Studio30Plus's phrase ("Quick and Lethal") and Light and Shade Challenge's quotation ("She tells enough white lies to ice a wedding cake")

Shades

(a prompt from Light and Shade Challenge using the following picture)

I wake, with slumber fogging up my  head

And turn to where your sleeping shadow lies

And stretch my arm across the half cold bed

And miss your eyes, and miss and miss your eyes

Coffee for one, and while the water drips

The light moves slyly and I watch entranced,

Upon the kitchen floor, a cruel eclipse,

The moving shadows of the waltz we danced

I need to clear my thoughts, and breathe fresh air

But in the garden there’s no solace found

In silhouette a summer’s kiss hangs there

Upon the fence, and in the past I’m drowned

The car was coming fast, too fast it sped

A thunderbolt, a kraken on the lane,

Then painted new in Rorschach-inkblot red

It left you there, unmade, in shaded rain

The future’s long and cold.  How can I last

So haunted by the shadows of the past?

The Gardener

(a prompt from Studio30Plus using the phrase "It Should Pounce" in 150 words or less)

"The thing about inspiration," Simon said, "is that it is not a tame thing.  You can’t force it, it should pounce on you unexpectedly,"

"From outside?"  I was bored with his nonsense and this dire little bar.  I wanted to get home and write, but I was suffering a bad case of writer's block

"Yeah," his eyes drifted to a woman sitting nearby, shabby and reading a paperback.  "Yeah..."  She looked up and met his gaze.  Her eyes narrowed.

She strode across the room and slapped him hard across the face.

"For the last time," she said, "I am not your muse!"

She stalked away.   I looked at the shocked expression on his face and at the blossoming painflower of red on his cheek.

Painflower I thought, A garden of painflowers raising their heads towards a dying sun.

"See you later," I  told Simon, "I'm away home."

Silence

(a prompt from Studio30Plus to simply address the 3rd 

dictionary definition of "Love" : sexual passion or desire)

It is too tame a word for summer lightning

And the high winds over the moors.

Just a word,

Too small to contain new lives and dreams

And whispered forbiddens shared in smiling seething night.

A single sound

Cannot within it bind the shattering of ease

And its glorious rebuilding.

It should burn

Not sit so simply on the tongue

Lazy and heavy like an easy thing.  It should pounce

And grasp

And bite

And hold so close and for so long

That worlds could rise and fall unseen

And do.

Clear Path Forward

A prompt from Write on Edge based on this image:

to which I'll add the following, just for jollies:

Often she dreamed of towers and dragonback flying and strong hands holding hers, of golden rings blazing with power and of long tracks in the wilderness that led, finally, to nowhere at all.

At precisely 06:15 the screen in her apartment blared out its alarm and dragged her upright and attentive while she was still not yet awake.   Stretching and calisthenics until 06:30 and then a breakfast of souring milk and tasteless Libertyflakes before the long walk to work.  Her bicycle, requisitioned a month ago and, melted down, was helping to secure victory against the relentless inhuman enemies of her freedom to obey and work herself to death.

She didn’t think that thought.

Between 08:58 and 13:01 she sat at a desk with a shiny plastic table whose top didn’t quite look like wood.   Documents arrived on her left and she corrected them using a combination of voice recognition software which didn’t work and a grubby grey keyboard that mostly did.  

She dreamed often of a world of glorious cold dawns and sisters with corngold hair, of incantations and dancing barefoot in forbidden places, and of a lover as wild as drunken lightning and  as gentle as summer waking.   She dreamed of a kiss on her lips, and of wearing the necklace he’d given her, a fallen star sheathed in whispergold.

Between 13:05 and 13:25 she ate with the others in ordered rows.  Noodles and soya cubes and the news broadcast at full volume gleeful with imminent victory and sombre reminders that the enemy could strike at any time and hated hated hated the luxuries and freedom that were so commonplace here.   The noodles were undercooked and crunchy.

Between 13:29 and 17:32 she sat at her desk correcting errors and omissions.  She excised a photograph of a dead eyed man from a ministry bulletin from a year ago, it had been placed there in error.  The man had never worked there, though she was sure she’d seen him just once on the day she’d first been shown her desk.   Another error corrected.

She dreamed some nights of a long trail in the wilderness, through grass, that led nowhere.   She’d held the hand of the man who was her wildfire and told him that if she fell in battle she’d want to be buried beyond that horizon, with his necklace on her cold breast.   He’d smiled and said she would never die for he was a king, and he would never allow it.

At 17:36 she began the walk home, with all the others.   The bulletin had promised sunshine and clear weather for the evening commute.   Someone fell into step next to her, took her hand.   This didn’t happen.     He was lean and grim and she did not know him.

“Let go of me,”

“Don't think I haven't tried,” his accent was Scottish, his voice insistent, “I need your help”

“What?"

“You need to show me where to dig,”

It was about quarter to six and raining gently.

Tuesday's Train

“You don’t get frosts anymore, not real frosts, not here,”

I looked up from my book, surprised at being addressed.   The speaker was sitting opposite me and I hadn’t noticed him arrive, he must have got on at the previous station I suppose.

“Frosts?”

“Your book, Frost.   Just saying you don’t get frosts these days.”

He was an old man, small, tidy looking, with pure white hair and a neat beard, he wore an old but dark suit beneath a thick winter jacket.   His smile had the mischief of a kitten looking at a precious vase.

“It’s not about weather,” I said holding the book up, “It’s poetry.  Robert Frost.”

His smile widened.

“You don’t get real poets any more either,” he said, “I remember poets that could charm summer out of snow, and lightning from a clear sky.    Babies into cribs too, most of them.   What’s this fellow like then?”

“He’s good,” I said, “I like his work.”   It had been a long day and I didn’t feel up to a conversation anyway.    Work had dragged eight hours into twice that and this train had been diverted so far from its usual route I’d be lucky to see my home before midnight.

“Like his work?   A poet’s words should stab you to the heart with florid flame and turn your world to ash in an instant, hah yes, and then build a new and better world an instant later that makes you wonder how you ever bore the last one.”

That was quite an expectation, and I said so.

“Guilty as charged,” replied this exuberant fellow, “and unapologetic.    Words are too wonderful a thing to expect anything but magnificence from them.   So what did this Frost fellow write that was so good?  Do tell me, I adore being proven wrong, it has an enjoyable rarity value about it.”

I couldn’t help but smile in response to his unabashed impudence.   I flicked through the book to find my favourite quotation.

“Here,” I said, and quoted, “I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.  And it is, you know, it was used as his epitaph.”

The old man considered this.

“A lover’s quarrel with the world,” he said, musing and stroking his beard, “A fine phrase, but maudlin perhaps.   I’ve never really understood lovers quarrelling.   I’m more the one night stand sort myself.”   He chuckled at some hidden joke of his own.

“New lovers are easier to find than new worlds,” I replied, nettled at his dismissal of my favourite quotation.

“Now what makes you think that?” he said leaning forward and pressing something into my hand.   A movement at my elbow distracted me, a flutter of wings and an impression of something large and tattered.    When I looked back the old man was gone, utterly gone, and a ring of ancient gold lay in my palm shining with truth and the burning cold of ancient winters.

A response to a prompt from Write on Edge using the Robert Frost quotation mentioned in the text

Metallic Sonatas

The Rapture turned out to be a faulty product recall and we, the remnant, felt as free as mice in a house with only senile felines.  Then the new angels came to play.

The prompt is from Trifecta - 33 words including a palindrome (highlighted).

This is the last prompt Trifecta are running and I was sad to read that the site is closing its doors.  I've not been a member for very long but I've enjoyed responding to the prompts (those strict word counts have really helped me tighten up my prose) and meeting the other members of this great community.   The feedback I've had has been a great encouragement for me to sit down and write, and I've enjoyed reading the work of such a diverse and talented crew.     I'm hoping that I can keep in touch with, and follow the continued work of the rest of you.    To Trifecta and the people behind it - my thanks and gratitude, and best wishes for your future life and works.

Remembrance

(a writing prompt from Write on Edge)

The bells of St Brigit’s are calling tonight

Recalling a trio of baptisms made

One not long past springtime three boys all in white

Soon muddied and grinning they grew and they played

In green hills and wildwoods, valley and stream

Three bold brave adventurers seeking their fame

Then home for their supper, a snug bed and dream

And each new day shines brightly,  life is a game

The bells recall years far too fast as they pass

And three called away, told to fight the good fight

Foreign fields, noble causes, and dreams drowned in gas

The boys of St Brigit’s are falling tonight

Portal

Thomas Leuthard  Foter.com  CC by 

On each walk from slumber to drudgery I pass you.   Free behind glass, learning, lost in the new.   How many worlds would I glimpse if you looked up, our eyes met?   Save me.

(A writing prompt from Trifecta - 33 words based on the photograph above)

Before the Dawn

Clean drinking water commanded a high price in those last days before the dust covered the last outposts.   Jayva moved through the  dark bar with experienced grace, cylinder of water hung over one shoulder, its black nozzle cupped tenderly in her hand.   The patrons, sullen and closed in as family secrets, barely looked up as she worked, just holding up a cup, or glass, or can for her to fill in exchange for a pair of coins.

One man, skin tanned leathery, but with pale blue eyes smiled as she filled his cup.  Smiles were rare and she didn’t have one to spare in return.    The next man who took a drink tried to take more and she pushed him away, swearing at him.

I loathe this planet she thought yet again.   A decade since she’d arrived and learned that dreams could dry out as easily as flesh.

The man was persistent and stood, showing a stubby ceramic knife.  Jayva backed up a step, then another.  She knew nobody would help.  Why would they?  She collided with someone standing behind her.  Nights in the dust could turn bad in a moment.

“Remember your place, sir,” the leather-tanned man’s voice was calm, polite, almost quaint in its formality.  He placed one hand on Jayva’s shoulder and stared at the other man.  That man saw the butterfly tattoo on the back of the leathery hand, flinched, sat down quietly.

Jayva turned, nodding gratitude.  She saw the inked butterfly.

“The founder’s sign,” she said.   He smiled again.

“Are you a believer?” he asked. 

“Only in dust.”

“Perhaps that fellow’s a believer though, in the Holy Founder, and his Nine.”

“Legends,” Jayva said.

“Legends can be useful.   I rarely have to raise my voice, let alone my fists when I show this.”

She nodded and filled his cup again, not asking for coins.

“I believe in dust and heat,” she said, “not in angels and deathless knights.”

He savoured the cool water.  “Very wise,” he said.

*

In response to prompts from Studio30Plus: Loathe & Planet

and Trifecta:  Quaint (in the sense of Pleasingly or strikingly old-fashioned or unfamiliar)

and Write on Edge: "Sometimes legends make reality and become more useful than the facts"