MAGPIE TALES - STEADFAST

“A fallen lighthouse is more dangerous than a reef.” - Navjot Singh Sidhu
 
“La Jument, off the coast of Brittany”, a photograph by Jean Guichard, is this week’s visual stimulus to followers of her blog for all sorts of creative writing pieces, as hosted by Magpie Tales. Here is my offering:
 
Steadfast
 
To stand firm,
While all around me wild storms rage,
When furious winds make oceans roil,
That is my purpose.
 
To send out light,
While darkest night quickly falls,
When even hope drowns in inky blackness,
That is my role.
 
To sound my horn,
While fog rolls in, enveloping all in cottonwool stillness,
When clouds come down to drown in stormy seas,
That is my function.
 
To be there,
While all betray you, and you feel unloved,
When none it seems has need of you, none wants you,
That is my reason for existence.
 
To be steadfast,
When all is lost, when you’re deserted,
While night falls and stars are all extinguished:
My love, a lighthouse steadfast,
There for you – a safe haven in stormy seas.

NEED TO FLY

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” - Voltaire

A dark angel has been provided by Magpie Tales as the creative spark for all who will take up her challenge. Here is my offering:
 

Need to Fly
 

The wild flapping of feathered wings,
Caged and desperate to escape;
Cries in the night, powerless
To make the moon approach closer;
No amount of war paint can make you
Fearsome enough to overcome your foe.
 

Memories of a distant flight,
Some place in the past;
The freedom of air rushing by you,
Caressing your every fibre;
No amount of struggle can make you
Break your chains and escape.
 

The faint glimmer of sunlight
And visions of broken chips of blue sky;
Remembrances of green meadows,
Flowers: Do they still exist?
No amount of wishing can make you
Fly, liberated, untethered, free.
 

A gilded cage is still a cage,
Your every need taken care of
Is no guarantee of happiness;
A captive soul imprisons heart and flesh, too.
No amount of solid earth can make you
Forget the lightness of air…

AUTUMN EVENING

“Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.” - Robert Browning
 

An 1889 painting, “Autumn on the river “by John Singer Sargent is this week’s stimulus for the weekly creative writing challenge organised by Magpie Tales. Here is my contribution, with apologies to the artist for the creative cropping and other image manipulations:
 

Autumn Evening
 

As evening falls so softly, cold
Memory’s scent I follow,
And life grows dark and old.
 

Leaves die, as they turn to gold
The sound of voices hollow.
As evening falls so softly, cold
 

I try to break its stranglehold;
My spirits fall and ebb, so low –
And life grows dark and old.
 

I try to be so resolute and bold
To make my song again to flow
As evening falls so softly, cold…
 

The wood attacked, consumed by mould
Decay eats into it so slow,
And life grows dark and old.
 

My dreams to highest bidder sold
Love’s ghosts in sadness wallow:
As evening falls so softly, cold
And life grows dark and old.

REMEMBERED SONG

“The power of a handwritten letter is greater than ever. It’s personal and deliberate and means more than an e-mail or text ever will. It has a unique scent. It requires deciphering. But, most important, it’s flawed.” - Ashton Kutcher

An old letter is this week’s stimulus for the weekly creative writing challenge organised by Magpie Tales . Here is my contribution:
 

Remembered Song, After the Fact
 

“And then you left me
Like a broken toy in a deserted playground
That no child will claim as its own.
And if I sit and write to you now,
It is all because I’ve loved you so.
Take care that you dress well,
The cold weather is still ahead.
And put your mind at ease,
I have not told anyone about us...
 

And then you abandoned me,
Like a stray kitten none wanted,
Preferring me to die slowly rather than dealing the death blow yourself.
And if I still persist in seeking you out,
It is all because I’ve loved so much.
Look after yourself, mind that you dress well,
The worse of the cold weather is still ahead.
And you know it well,
I tell none about the two of us...
 

And then you turned away from me,
As if I were a mistake
That nobody admits to having made.
And if I still remember you and cry
It is all because I’ve loved you so much.
Tell her to take good care of you,
The cold weather is still to come.
And put your mind at ease,
Nobody will ever find out about us...
 

And now I am alone, forgotten,
Like a lost letter
None wants to claim.
And if I still care about you
It is all because I’ve loved you so.
Mind that you dress well, you are so weak
The coldest weather is still to come.
And you know full well,
I shall not tell anyone about us...”

TO DANCE

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” - Carl Sandburg
 
An Edgar Degas photograph, “Danseuse ajustant sa bretelle” has been provided by Magpie Tales to function as the creative spark for all who will take up her challenge. Here is my offering, with a slightly modified image (with apologies to Monsieur Degas!).
 
To Dance
 
To dance, her limber body
And her supple limbs, prepare;
The rhythm now part of her,
The melody like blood running in her veins.
 
Her feet, accustomed as they are
To practiced movement,
Step through their paces
With the ease familiarity brings.
 
And as the final preparation
Before the closed curtain is made,
Adrenalin rushes forth,
Like a fountain, firing up her every cell.
 
The music starts, the curtain parts,
And her body begins its own song:
A counterpoint of motion, adding
A new line of melody to the orchestral strains.
 
Each fibre, finely tuned, each muscle taut,
Each sinew stretching tight;
Herculean efforts made to seem effortless
As she pirouettes, and jumps, and nimbly dances.
 
The dancer manufactures her new world,
Her body a magic wand transforming sound
Into movement, and music into graceful gesture;
To dance, and make of flesh and bone, gossamer.

LOVE'S SACRIFICE

“We don’t live in the Garden. We live far from Eden. Every life is full of heartaches. Every life, frankly, is unspeakably sad.” - John Eldredge
 
“Le Jardin de la France” by surrealist painter Max Ernst is this week’s visual stimulus for Magpie Tales’ followers who take the challenge to  create verbally a suitable response. My offering follows the artist biography.
 
Max Ernst (born April 2, 1891, Bruhl, Germany; died April 1, 1976, Paris) was a German artist. He enrolled in the University at Bonn in 1909 to study philosophy, but soon abandoned this pursuit to concentrate on art. At this time he was interested in psychology and the art of the mentally ill. In 1911 Ernst became a friend of August Macke and joined the Rheinische Expressionisten group in Bonn. Ernst showed for the first time in 1912 at the Galerie Feldman in Cologne. At the Sonderbund exhibition of that year in Cologne he saw the work of Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh. In 1913 he met Guillaume Apollinaire and Robert Delaunay and traveled to Paris. Ernst participated that same year in the Erste deutsche Herbstsalon.
 
In 1914 he met Jean Arp, who was to become a lifelong friend.Despite military service throughout World War I, Ernst was able to continue painting and to exhibit in Berlin at Der Sturm in 1916. He returned to Cologne in 1918. The next year he produced his first collages and founded the short-lived Cologne Dada movement with Johannes Theodor Baargeld; they were joined by Arp and others. In 1921 Ernst exhibited for the first time in Paris, at the Galerie au Sans Pareil.
 
He was involved in Surrealist activities in the early 1920s with Paul Éluard and André Breton. In 1925 Ernst executed his first frottages; a series of frottages was published in his book ‘Histoire Naturelle’ in 1926. He collaborated with Joan Miró on designs for Sergei Diaghilev that same year. The first of his collage-novels, ‘La Femme 100 Têtes’, was published in 1929. The following year the artist collaborated with Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel on the film ‘L’ Age d’ Or’.
 
His first American show was held at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York, in 1932. In 1936 Ernst was represented in Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1939 he was interned in France as an enemy alien. Two years later Ernst fled to the United States with Peggy Guggenheim, whom he married early in 1942. After their divorce he married Dorothea Tanning and in 1953 resettled in France. Ernst received the Grand Prize for painting at the Venice Biennale in 1954, and in 1975 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum gave him a major retrospective, which traveled in modified form to the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, in 1975. He died on April 1, 1976, in Paris.
 
Love’s Sacrifice
 
When first my heart was opened up
A garden blossomed on my lips;
Love did my selfishness eclipse
And sunshine filled my empty cup.
 
I was an angel soaring high above
I gave you wings, a key to paradise;
While you disdainfully raised your price,
Selling your heart, and spurning love.
 
To love and you, all did I sacrifice
I severed wings, and fell to earth
Believing in your innate worth,
Yet all I gave you did not suffice,
 
And your voracious greed would not be sated
Until my very soul was in your hands.
Now is my garden buried under burning sands,
My angel wings lie broken, desecrated.
 
What was so pure, so holy, freely given
Discarded lies in some dirty gutter.
The candle flame will flicker, sputter,
My very soul wrested from me, riven…

TEMPUS EDAX RERUM

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” - William Penn
 

Magpie Tales has selected this week an image by Crilleb50 to act as a stimulus for creative endeavours. Here is my offering:
 

Tempus Edax Rerum
 

Infinite Time forever rushing forth
You run, you never stop, never to die.
In, out, unendlessly you weave a cloth,
A wily web in which we fall and helpless lie.
 

Time, tireless traveller, you never tarry
Unheeding to our cries of: “Mercy, stop!”
You hurry forward and Death you carry
His sickle sharp and ready for the crop.
 

Unending Time, the one without beginning,
How weak we be, if we should try to fight!
You only can the victor be, forever winning;
Glory for you, fame light; for us an endless night.
 

Even the strong you break as forth inexorably you fly;
Time in the end only surviving, all other things to die.

PORTUGAL

“I’ve got two places I like to be. Portugal is one.” - Cliff Richard
 
Magpie Tales has given us a Mark Haley photograph to inspire us and stimulate some writing for all those who take part in her challenge. Here is my offering, based on a detail of the image.
 
Portugal
 
Some day I’ll summon enough courage to flee.
Flee from your grey skies, grey days, grey people,
Hard, heartless land.
To Lisbon where sun shines in sky azure like satin,
Where flowers garland ancient walls,
To Portugal.
 
People still sing the fado
Dance in the streets,
In Portugal...
Guitars ring out, caressing nights of velvet
In Coimbra, Lisbon and Portó.
There’s love still to be found
In honey-coloured skin
And sparkling raven hair,
“Ay! Mi Amor!”
In Portugal!
 
Festering wound, my heart, in exile will not heal
Unless I feel Spring coming -
For Spring still comes
To Portugal!
 
Ah! But to roam the streets of Lisbon,
To drink red-wine sun,
To breathe sea-flower air,
To love warm-honey skin,
In Portugal...

FALLING...

“Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what's in a name?” - Helen Hunt Jackson
 

“The Moth and the Lamp” by Cesar Santos (detail above) is this week’s visual stimulus for Magpie Tales’ followers who take the challenge to verbally create a suitable response.

The artist, Cesar Santos, (b. 1982) is a  Cuban-American. His art education is worldly, and his work has been seen around the globe, from the Annigoni Museum in Italy, the Beijing museum in China to Chelsea NY. Santos studied at Miami Dade College, where he earned his associate in arts degree in 2003. He then attended the New World School of the Arts before travelling to Florence, Italy. In 2006, he completed the “Fundamental Program in Drawing and Painting” at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, studying under Michael John Angel, who was a student of artist Pietro Annigoni.
 

Santos’ work reflects both classical and modern interpretations juxtaposed within one painting. His influences range from the Renaissance to the masters of the nineteenth century to Modernism. With superb technique, he infuses a harmony between the natural and the conceptual to create works that are provocative and dramatic.
 

Among Santos’ solo shows are “Paisajes y Retratos” in the National Gallery in San Jose, Costa Rica; “Syncretism” in the Eleanor Ettinger Chelsea Gallery in New York; “Beyond Realism” with Oxenberg Fine Arts in Miami and “New Impressions” in the Greenhouse Gallery in San Antonio, among many others>

The artist has received numerous accolades, including first place in a Metropolitan Museum of Art competition. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Latin America, including the Frost Art Museum in Miami, the Villa Bardini Museum in Florence and the National Gallery in Costa Rica (from his website).
 

Here is my offering:
 

Falling in Love
 

Your mouth, a flower,
A sweet flower full of nectar.
Your mouth a trap, a spider sitting on its web.
A spider waiting for a victim –
And I, a weak incautious butterfly
That flies, hovers and falls
Into your fatal mesh.
 

Your eyes, as double suns shine,
Transmitting rays of light effulgent,
Attracting me to their deadly fires.
The suns hot and indifferent,
And I, a moth, helpless, impotent
Who flies there itself to immolate,
Without alternative or choice.
 

Your arms, fresh branches
Of the greenwood tree;
They seem benign, innocent.
Your hands offer caresses
But in the end mete out death.
A little sparrow I, fly into the darkness,

Only to perish immobile in your birdlime.

THE VOYAGE

“A ship is safe in harbour, but that's not what ships are for.” - William Shedd
 
Magpie Tales has selected this week a fragment of a map showing St Ninian’s isle. This is a small tied island connected by the largest active tombolo (a bar of sand or shingle joining an island to the mainland) in the UK to the south-western coast of the Mainland, Shetland, in Scotland. The tombolo, known locally as an ayre, from the Old Norse for ‘gravel bank’, is 500 metres long. Except at extremely high tides, the sand is above sea level and accessible to walkers.
 
Depending on the definition used St. Ninian’s is thus either an island, or a peninsula; it has an area of about 72 hectares. The nearest settlement is Bigton on South Mainland. The important Early medieval St Ninian’s Isle Treasure of metalwork, mostly in silver, was discovered under the church floor in 1958. Many seabirds, including puffin visit the island, with several species nesting there.
 
Magpie’s followers who take up the creative challenge will pen a suitable response. Here is my offering:
 
The Voyage
 
I am readying myself for a long voyage
On an ocean of tears wept long ago.
Dry-eyed now I fashion out of the fragments of my heart
A new, sea-faring ship with sails unfurling.
 
I am readying all that I shall take with me
Wrapping it in a cloth woven of old sorrows -
Would any other contain loss, despair, defeat?
Would any other wrap bitterness, pain, regret?
 
I am readying myself for the stormy seas ahead
By burning my remembrances, tearing my maps,
Scraping my tablet’s wax, denying all that I have learnt
Effacing dearly paid for past experience.
 
I am readying flesh and soul that they endure
New hardships, new sufferings, new betrayals.
I take with me the same knife that wounded me before
Resigned to let it test my scars for yet new pain.
 
And then what if before my voyage ends,
Even as I set my eyes on distant and welcoming new shores,
What if it should come to pass
That my feeble craft fail and sink?
That would not stop me boarding it,
I am ready for the shipwreck,
For after all I have survived a shipwreck once before...

LAUGHTER AND TEARS

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” - Norman Cousins
 
Magpie Tales has given us a Jeanie Tomanek painting this week to inspire us and stimulate some creativity for all those who take part in her challenge. Here is my offering.
 
Betwixt Laughter and Tears
 
How easily the pure white wedding dress changes to a shroud,
Mad laughter from sobbing tears cannot be distinguished.
The drunken revelry of feast only a step away from blackest desperation
And always, loneliness my most faithful companion…
 
Look at my eyes that pretend to laugh,
My lips that ostensibly stretch widely in a smile;
My hands gesticulating wildly,
Running after the jests that my mind imposes upon them.
 
If you could look into my heart, you’d understand:
You’d see the tears that fill it to the brim
Torrents that threaten to break all dams of pretended gaiety,
To spill over, drag down and drown feigned smiles.

Jeanie has this to say about herself and her art:
“Throughout my adult life I have always painted – sometimes only one painting a year.  Several years ago I escaped corporate life.  Since then I have concentrated on developing my style and voice in my work.
 
I paint to explore the significance of ideas, memories, events, feelings, dreams and images that seem to demand my closer attention.  Some of the themes I investigate come first in poems I write.  Literature, folktales and myths often inspire my exploration of the feminine archetype.  My figures often bear the scars and imperfections that, to me, characterize the struggle to become.
 
In my work I use oils, acrylic, pencil and thin glazes to create a multi-layered surface that may be scratched through, written on or painted over to reveal and excavate the images that feel right for the work. In reclaiming and reconstructing areas of the canvas, the process of painting becomes analogous to having a second chance at your life, this time a little closer to the heart’s desire.”

THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS

“Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes; vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas” – Ecclesiastes 1:2
 
“Passing Place” by photographer Steven Kelly is this week’s visual stimulus for Magpie Tales' followers who take the challenge to verbally create a suitable response. Here is my offering:
 
This, Too, Shall Pass…
 
This fleeting moment
Of our time in the sun,
This, too, shall pass –
Remember; for the happy man shall be made sad,
And the sad man made happy.
 
This mortal coil,
All of our suffering,
This, too, shall pass –
Remember; for the pain shall be made joy,
And the joyful made melancholy.
 
This grand love,
Our all-consuming passion,
This, too, shall pass –
Remember; for the flame shall be made ash,
And the dust made into fire.
 
This glorious fame,
The greatness, this prestige,
This, too, shall pass –
Remember; for the renowned shall be made unknown,
And the obscure will be celebrated.
 
All is fleeting, all is vain;
Life, youth, love, beauty,
Riches, luxury, your bed of roses;
These, too, shall all pass –
Remember; for the last will be first,
And the first will be last…

MAD KATE

“Heaven is comfort, but it's still not living.” - Alice Sebold, ‘The Lovely Bones’
 
An Elena Kalis photograph has been provided by Magpie Tales to function as inspiration for all who will take up her creative writing challenge. Here is my offering:

Mad Kate
 
‘Mad Kate’, they called her
When she walked the fields alone,
Her hair undone and flowing,
Her dress windblown
And her hands full of the wild heather she had plucked.
 
Mad Kate, they said, was wayward,
A maid with a savage nature and a wild streak
Defiant of every rule and convention;
She lived alone, after all,
And did what she wanted – just to please herself…
 
Mad Kate, with windswept hair,
And freckled face, and sunny smile
Ready to turn to mirthful laughter;
With breath as sweet as the wild honey she ate,
And a bosom that smelt of lily and lavender.
 
Mad Kate, they said, would come to no good –
And even the village idiot was wise
Compared to her, so headstrong was she;
The woods more home to her
Than any confining village cottage that would cage her.
 
And when a village lad,
Resentful of her firm refusals, lay in wait,
And forced himself upon her in the green wood,
Mad Kate’s futile wails only echoed pointlessly,
As he ran away, his guilt assuaged easily enough, for she was mad.
 
Mad Kate, they said would come to no good –
And when her lifeless body was found in deep water,
They shook their heads, so satisfied they were proven right:
The girl was looking for trouble, she was daft,
And all her gallivanting did do her in at last.

THE SCRIBE

“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” John W. Gardner
 
Maurits Cornelis Escher (17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972), usually referred to as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations.
 
He worked primarily in the media of lithographs and woodcuts, though the few mezzotints he made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed mathematical relationships among shapes, figures and space. Additionally, he explored interlocking figures using black and white to enhance different dimensions. Integrated into his prints were mirror images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings and spirals. Escher was left-handed…

Magpie Tales has chosen M.C. Escher’s “Drawing Hands” of 1948 as a stimulus for the creativity of the followers of her meme. Here is my poem inspired by this Escher drawing.
 
The Scribe
 
I create with hands clasping pencil;
With pencil drawing lines
That define the hands that guide the pencil,
That is driven by my desperate soul.
 
I write with hands holding pen;
The pen that dips into the inkwell of my heart,
Giving my lifeblood a voice of its own,
And my vehement emotions an outlet to vent.
 
I limn with hands that guide brush;
A brush that takes breaths from my lips
And rebreathes them in colour on a page
That outlines my spent desires and vain hopes.
 
I sketch with hands blackened by charcoal;
The charcoal not black enough to compare
To the blackest thoughts of my mind’s vacuum,
The emptiness of the void that was there
Ever since you left.

MEAD MOON

“It’s my friend Jimmy Lynch. But there’s much more to this painting than Jimmy. When I was young, I used to ride horse and motorcycles at night along with the local farm boys - in the middle of summer in the middle of the night, all of us naked. I was intrigued by the bodies of those farm kids - their faces so tanned, their bodies, covered up by their work clothes, looking like they were covered with wax. Nude bodies streaking around at night always impressed me. When I was doing this painting, I’d take off my clothes and, together, Jimmy and I would drive around - at two in the morning on his big Harley-Davidson. It wasn’t cold, for it was late August. The mist at night was fascinating. It combines the mystery of my youth with the shock of today. I have to laugh, for this one turns most people off.” - Andrew Wyeth
 
Magpie Tales has chosen Andrew Wyeth’s 1990 painting “Man and the Moon” as a stimulus for engendering creativity amongst the community of Magpie Talers. Here is my contribution:
 
Mead Moon
 
And when the wild ride was over,
He stood beside his steel steed, naked as the truth,
And looked up to see the Mead Moon rise.
 
The moonbeams tangled as they touched his skin
Knitting a translucent chain mail shirt,
Cooling his white-hot flesh, but not dousing his ardour.
 
And when the others had all left, he alone stood there,
Brave enough to confront his solitude,
The headlight paling into insignificance as moon shone on.
 
She smiled at him, the moon, amused by his feebleness
Although his young body concealed taut muscle, tough sinew,
His hands strong enough to squeeze the life out of one.
 
And when his thoughts finally had run out of his head,
Swarming around him like a hive of buzzing bees, he looked up
And invoked ancient spells, extracted from his latent femininity.
 
The night was mystic and the moon a witch bewitching,
And the sky tore like stiff cardboard and stars fell, like silver rain,
And the moonlight screamed while streaming down,
And his heart beat like huge bass drum, insistent.
 
And when the spell was done, he looked at himself with new eyes,
Able to admit at last his innermost desires, they too naked;
And he mounted on his steed and chased after the reality
Of what was some moments before, only a dream.

APOCALYPTIC MOON

“The moon puts on an elegant show, different every time in shape, colour and nuance.” - Arthur Smith
 
A supermoon is the coincidence of a full moon or a new moon with the closest approach the Moon makes to the Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest apparent size of the lunar disk as seen from Earth. The technical name is the perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system. The term “supermoon” is not astronomical, but originated in modern astrology. The moon will not be so close again until August 10, 2014. Supermoons occur about once every 14 full moons in a full moon cycle. Magpie Tales  has provided an image of last month’s supermoon by Julio Cortez, to inspire participants in her creative writing challenge. Here is my offering.
 
Apocalypse
 
One day I’ll tear
The thin gauze of the passing seasons,
Transcending time
I’ll pass into the infinite.
Stepping on bleeding moon
Expiring in its death throes
I’ll merge with dying breath
Of supernovaed sun
And travel through Armageddon.
 
I’ll fathom the true meaning of eternity
Seconds, days, aeons being identical,
My soul will fill to bursting
And still yearn for more;
Forever on until my eyes resemble seas
My brain engorged with newness and
With increasing understanding.
 
And ever onward,
To know,
To learn,
To understand,
To seek,
To find,
To see the reason why...

THE SOLUTION

“More than 820 million people in the world suffer from hunger; and 790 million of them live in the Third World.” - Fidel Castro
 
Magpie Tales has provided a photograph by Yohan Musin, a talented artist to act as inspiration for followers of her blog. Here is my contribution (including my edit to the photo) to the creative writing challenge:
 
The Solution
 
A promise, a vision, a solution –
All preferable to
The present, the reality, the misery.
 
Her nails, her hair, her clothes
All ache, due to
The never-ending work, the drudgery, the need.
 
In the village, in the fields, in the house,
A constant demand for
Her contribution, her labour, her input.
 
Her sex, her caste, her age
All conspire to
Discrimination, prejudice, unfairness.
 
A city, a job, a new start,
Will they make possible
The promise, the vision, the solution?

THIS MOMENT

“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” - Aeschylus
 

Magpie Tales has provided us with a photograph, “University of Michigan fraternity party” by Stanley Kubrick for “Look” magazine. This is the springboard for several creative endeavours that followers of her blog embark on. Here is mine:
 
This Moment
 
This moment will be the moment
That will be sweet remembrance,
As the years pass, and we shall be reminiscing.
 
The acrid smell of a lighter just struck,
And the billows of aromatic smoke,
As burning menthol of cigarette just lit, sublimates.
 
The glow of your moist eyes
Illuminated by the flame of love,
Or is it lust, perhaps, or maybe just pure desire?
 
The song that was playing,
Just before it became “our song”,
Will remain forever special, even beyond our separation.
 
This moment is the moment
That right now makes time elastic
The moment lasting forever, only because we wish it so.
 
The warmth of your body,
Because of its nearness, or is it mine?
Or perhaps the fire burning, crackling in the fireplace?
 
The sound of voices,
Uttering sweet susurrations
That vocalise our innermost thoughts and desires…
 
That moment was the moment
That we remember now,
Complete in every one of its myriad of details.
 
The moment has been the moment
That defined us and our separate lives;
A photograph just found, less accurate than our sweet memories.

THE FLIGHT OF LOVE

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.” - Henry David Thoreau
 

A Marc Chagall painting, “The Promenade” (La promenade), of 1917-18 (Oil on canvas. 169.6 x 163.4 cm. State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg, Russia) has been provided by Magpie Tales to function as the creative spark for all who will take up her challenge. Here is my offering, with a slightly modified image (with apologies to Mr Chagall!).
 

The Flight of Love
 

When first we touched,
My heart sang and my spirit rose;
Pink madder tinting my dreams,
And colouring my reality crimson.
 

When first we touched,
Our thoughts coalesced;
Droplets of water fusing,
Our emotions merging seamlessly.
 

When first we touched,
You flew up high, soaring;
A bird with wings spread wide,
Carrying me with you, effortlessly.
 

When first we touched,
Our flesh melded, amalgamated;
As gold dissolves in mercury,
A precious blend of our uniquenesses combined.
 

When first we touched,
It was but our fingers, intertwining;
And yet our souls commingled too,
And our hearts beat to the same rhythm,
And our bodies could hardly wait
To become one flesh.

LILITH AND EVE

“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” - George Bernard Shaw
 

Magpie Tales has presented us with a painting by Mary Cassatt (1844 - 1926), the American impressionist painter, to stimulate our literary creativity. The painting is “Young Woman Picking the Fruit of Knowledge” of 1892. Here is my poem that was inspired by this painting.
 

Lilith
 

Eve reaches out to pluck the fruit;
Forbidden – yet so tempting.
She hesitates and thinks
Of Lilith’s fate:
Wild-spirited and wilful,
Free, yet doomed to be alone…
 

The blush of ripeness
The fragrance of maturity;
Low-hanging, inviting,
Ready to be plucked.
Lilith would not have hesitated,
But look at her fate, damned…
 

Eve touches the swollen ovary
And feels a burst of power.
Even its touch is forceful,
How can one not taste its flesh?
Lilith surely bit into the fruit
And tasted its juice…
 

She picks it and her head explodes
With inrushing knowledge.
Her breast swells as her heart beats fast,
And she is struck dumb by the guilt.
Lilith would have not minded
The realisation of her nakedness…
 

Eve bites the fruit, and the sap
Tastes sweet, but has a bitter aftertaste.
Knowledge is useless
Without the company of wisdom.
Unlike Lilith, Eve harvests foolishness
But her wiles will trap Adam,
Who willingly must share her iniquity.
Eve, more cunning, more guilty,
Than the emancipated, wiser, more genuine Lilith.
 

(Lilith is a female demon of Jewish folklore; her name and personality are derived from the class of Mesopotamian demons called lilû (feminine: lilītu). In rabbinic literature Lilith is variously depicted as the first wife and mother of Adam’s demonic offspring, who left him because of their incompatibility. Three angels tried in vain to force her return; the evil she threatened, especially against children, was said to be counteracted by the wearing of an amulet bearing the names of the angels. A cult associated with Lilith survived among some Jews as late as the 7th century AD).