Magpie # 89

      Every week, Tess Kincaid provides a bit of visual inspiration. Those who participate in Magpie Tales create a vignette, a poem or whatever their muse dictates...

     After your piece is completed, you thank Tess and comment on her piece, you get linked to all the other pieces via Mr. Linky, and comment on the others. A fun time for all.

      So, without further ado, here is the photo and my poem:

she began with an old fashioned pen.

safe inside

was a tube of ink,

as black and glinting as her eyes.

the audibleness of it,

the scratching sound

of pen on paper,

was comforting.

crap!

pure crap!

she wadded the paper

and dropped it in disgust.

she hurled the pen.

it hit the wall, a splatter of writers' blood

sprayed and splayed in protest.

she then turned to a pencil.

its point broke as soon as she touched it

in contemplation.

dropping into onto the floor,

she ground it into pulp with the heel of her boot.

turning to the contraption, 

electrified and eager,

she whispered,

"third time better be a charm,"

as she caressed the keys...  



Magpie Tale #74

         Every week Tess Kincaid hosts Magpie Tales. She provides the photo, we provide the creativity in the form of a vignette or poem. This is the 74th Magpie.  Being consistent for more than a year is awe-inspiring. There are probably weeks that Tess would like to devote her time to something else. Replying to the Magpies is a large investment of time; every week Tess lures in dozens and dozens and dozens of writers. And yet she continues to cast her line out and we take the bait...oh, so eagerly.

        Thanks, Tess. And below is my Magpie.

      
      a map of africa
      or a mask

      it makes no difference

      the dark continent
      should stay there
      in-the-dark-and-out-of-our-thoughts

      egypt
      and all its rich history?
      it's in africa?
      i don't think so

      the cradle of civilization
      is in africa?
      surely you jest

      all that apartheid stuff
      and those mass killings
      and the boys 
      who get stolen into soldierhood
     
      it's so far away...
      does it really affect us?


And finally...Lisa Ricard Claro is hosting a contest to celebrate luring in her 200th follower. There will be more than one winner. If you don't already follow Lisa and her blog, it's well worth the meandering over. She's offering copies of a Chicken Soup book with beautiful Golden puppies on the front. Be sure to follow (if you're not already) and enter...

For all the details about the contest, go here.  

Magpie 72

        
       
        Every Monday (is it Monday already?) Tess Kincaid offers up a delectable dessert: Magpie Tales.

         Go to Magpie to read the other delicious tales---poems and vignettes--and link your own to the bountiful buffet of dishes.

Wheat Field with Rising Sun, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

       A special exhibit of his paintings. Unbelievable! Like it was a religious pilgrimage, she went to the art museum. Past the massive doors, across the marble floors of the cavernous main gallery, she headed to where canvas had been touched by god...

      Going from piece to piece, gazing, genuflecting, getting lost in where he had troweled paint onto cloth.

      Waiting until the guard was gone, and ignoring the velvet ropes, she leaned forward and touched one. Just one spot where he had been...

      And then she left with a blissful smile.

This is a true story. I have loved Van Gogh for more than 4 decades and when a special Van Gogh exhibit came to town and I was way-too-old-and-should-have-known-better, I went and, uable to help myself, touched one of his paintings (even though I knew the oil from my finger would help hasten the painting's decomposition).


Somehow I think he would have understood. Or at least forgiven me...


Please don't tell my city's art museum. They just might decide to dust it for fingerprints and then put me in jail. Wait... Long jail sentence +  unlimited free time = the luxury of uninterrupted reading and writing. Umm..

Magpie Tale #70

        Tess Kincaid brings it every week. Every week, another photo, another invitation, another chance to hone our writing craft.

       This is the 70th Magpie Tale, and your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to write a poem or a short vignette, using the photo as inspiration.

        After you write one, link it via Mr. Linky at Magpie Tales and read and comment on the others' tales.

         Following the photo is my Magpie for this week.

         She held the photo in her hand. The number meant nothing to her. Last summer, her great-granddaughter had gone through the dusty, thumbed-edged portraits and together, they numbered them chronologically. She said, "Nana, now we'll have like a timeline of you and what you looked like. Isn't that tight?"

          Tight? What was constricting about it? She let it pass, not understanding, but just nodded a bit.

          Photo # 199 was Margaret at 19, already a mother, but still so beautiful. (Even if she did say so herself!) Her eyes clear, her skin flawless, her face unlined.

           More than six decades had slipped between her fingers since that portrait was taken. Now her eyes were a milky blue. Her skin was as fragile as crepe paper. Her face was cross-hatched with deep crevices.

         Where had the time gone?  And how many other photos were waiting in the wings, still untaken?

(Only after I read Tess Kincaid's Magpie did I examine the photo once again, and felt silly. Of course it is a price, not just a three-digit number!  Since I realized that too late, I went in another direction when I wrote my Magpie Tale.

Which is okay, because as long as we're writing, we're using our writing muse-cles, which means we're working on our craft.)

Magpie Tales #69

          If you want a weekly reason to write, go to Magpie Tales. The terrific Tess Kincaid provides a photo/illustration, and dozens of poems and vignettes come pouring out from all over the blogosphere.

       Write one, link it via Mr. Linky, and then read and comment on the other Magpie Tales.

too late for the phalarope
too late

a man destroyed,
a family slayed,
soil red-brown with blood
and damp from tears

too late to turn back
too late to wail in warning

a brick house crumbles,
turning to sand in an hourglass
that disappears

too late to avoid
the inky-black night

too late for the phalarope...
too late

Note: The seashell made me think of Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton. It's a book about a family in South Africa; they were destroyed because of apartheid. One single seashell took a man from his family forever... (The phalarope is a South African bird.) I won't say it's a feel-good read, because it certainly is not, but the rhythm of Paton's writing style, the fact that it is a window into what was life like then in South Africa---it makes for a worthy read.

Magpie Tale #68

     This is written for the prompt on Magpie Tales; it was a photo of a fake (let's hope it's fake) eyeball. I could not save it and post it here, so I found something on flickr.com as similar as I could.

       Try out a poem or vignette. Try out a Magpie Tale. (And you'll be delighted with a crystal-clear photo, along with inspiring writing...)

photo by fakebread

Randy's Eyes

Out of his head
for their occasional cleaning,
they sat.

Blue,
unseeing,
just like Randy.

Wallowing in sorrow,
strumming angst-filled songs,
he fled...

Blind to all he left behind.

(Poet's Note: My first boyfriend---the first one I did not stalk, the first one who returned my affections, the first one who did not give me, as a sign of their affection, an Army jacket pin to wear--was Randy who was blind and who did have his eyes taken out occasionally for "cleaning.")

Today's Magpie Tale

          Magpie Tales--every Tuesday---has a photo or drawing to inspire you. Write a poem or a vignette. Tess Kincaid makes every Tuesday special. Below is mine.



                                                                        That photo,

the one from our trip

through the woods

to find Flat Creek...

it was crammed at the bottom

of a drawer.

Almost forgotten...

I pulled it out yesterday,

(the coldest day

my heart's ever seen)

and absently began to dig a line

into the slick surface.

The more I dug,

the more I thought:

Some change has to come.

With markers and white out,

I made the tree branches reappear

and allowed the arrow to surface,

ghost-like,

hovering over where we once stood.

If only real life was that easy---

having a giant sign in the sky,

pointing the way...



       Usually I look--hopefully--at my followers every time I post, to see if I have a new follower.  Imagine my surprise when my vigilance lapsed, and I then found not one but four new followers!

        Kim Sloggett and Lynn Obermoeller have just joined as followers.  Thank you.  Lynn, if you have a blog, please let me know and I'll slip in a link.   From the blogs she follows, I presume Lynn is a writer.  Thanks for checking out my blog.

       Kim is a fellow blogger, a writer, a teacher and is into pets big-time. Check out herblog about pets and her blog about teaching.  She's a writer, and after reading several of her posts (about the importance of getting to know your students, rewarding kids, and a humorous take on the mistakes we make), I can say that most teachers would enjoy her blog. Thanks again for becoming a follower, Kim. 

       Cathy C. Hall is a writer with countless publishing credits to her name. She recently included a link to a magazine story of hers. For those who still have their Christmas decorations up, or for those who are looking for a way to streamline their after-the-holiday routine next year, read her piece in Modern Senior Living. (She has a link, so you can read the piece--in the January edition, on page 6, without having to buy the magazine.) It's sharp and funny. Her blog is chocked full of links to contests and stories.  (If you click on her "Finding My Fame and Fortune" button, you can read a funny piece on smoking.) Cathy--thanks for following.

      Pearl writes about riding the bus, she writes about her holiday parties. (Which resulted in me preparing the best appetizer I've had in a long time and blogging about it. Check out my post on January 2 for the recipe and photos of this delicious bit of heaven.) Most of her posts are hilarious, but her warm, intropsective ones are just as good. (We laughed. We cried.)  When she falls flat on her face as a blogger, she is going to launch a new business--Pearl's Pap and Pedi (make sure you empty your bladder before you read that post so there is no "leakage" as you're reading it).  Seriously, she has almost 800 followers, so when you wonder why you don't have as many as you'd like, it's because Pearl is a blog-hog. Thanks, Pearl, for following...

       And if you're one of the 13 bloggers in the country who are not following Pearl's blog yet, peruse her posts. She takes the ordinary, makes it twistedly extraordinary.

A Magpie Tale

      Thanks to Magpie Tales, there is a photo or drawing every Tuesday to prod you into writing.  Check out the site for many, many interesting takes.

      Here is mine:

          Dark song,
          with low, disconnected chords
          played out with a halting limp.

          A dirge.
          A hymn to play
          to honor the dead.

          The past is gone,
          and life as we know it
          will never return...

A Magpie Tale

The gloves were off.

Consideration...tossed out the window.

It was now time to fight free from rules...

Magpie Tales

Only half of the door open,

Allowing the sunshine to flood in

Blind now---

the light too bright

and the wounds too raw

I lower myself to the floor

and

r

e

t

r

e

a

t

into the darkness...

        Try your hand at a magpie tale.  It's quick and enjoyable...Just go to Magpie Tales, take a gander at the photo, and write a poem or vignette.