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The end draws near, but there’s unfinished business. Stones unturned, stories unwritten…You know what I’m getting at: Take Two.
To refresh your memories, Take Two lets us go back to those prompts we never got a chance to explore. Or even those ones we could have done better the first time. Think of Take Two as something we don’t get often in life; Take Two is a second chance.
Here’s today’s prompt from Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides:
For today's prompt, I want you to write a travel-related poem. It can be human travel, the migration of swallows, the trafficking of drugs, etc. Some sort of movement from point A to point B.
See you in the comments.
Bearing Witness--The Wall
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Today they started building The Wall. When I woke this morning and went
down to the kitchen, Mum and Dad weren’t there. I followed the low murmur
of the ...
7 years ago
6 comments:
This one's part travel and part rebirth. It's still far from done, but I'm plumb out of time for today.
Spring Walk
A uniform gray drapes the tops of the trees; I don’t like the look of those clouds, but I set out anyway. April showers have painted the grass shocking green, but the green is surface. The past few years have been drought years. Beneath the glowing carpet, the earth is thirsty and anxious.
About a half mile from home, the first fat drops of rain phwat phwat on the road. Soon a more persistent rain slants down in icy needles and the electric, gravelly smell of ozone fills the air. A gush of water pours into the ditch from a pipe peeking out from a thick thatch of grass. Birdsong floats from tree to tree, frrrrrrrr-eeep frrrrrrrr-eeep freep freep freep freep.
I turn around and go back the way I came.
Nice images, Greta. Unfortunately, my day has been full and I'm out of time. And tomorrow assures no relief since I promised my wife that I would paint my son's bedroom. It's beginning to shape up like a no-writing weekend. Blech!
Greta, I love the sensory aspects of what you have. Stephen, I feel for you. Maybe a story about repetitious movements will come out of the paint?
This one's the 'stereotype turned on its ear' not-Six. I spent only minutes on this so far (you can probably tell). We're all in a bit of a time bind it seems:
Tea and Antipathy
We are sitting in the Tea Room, Debussy in the background, rose and yellow tones spilling over us. I’m having the Darjeeling, no lemon no cream and Camilla cradles her cup of Oolong.
“So she says, ‘The Mexicans are taking all our jobs,’ can you believe it? And she’s college-educated,” Camilla said, arching a perfectly-shaped and penciled brow.
“That’s really so politically-un-PC and gauche, just gauche. What did you say back to her?”
Camilla laughed, all honey and velvet and throat.
“I said, ‘Darlin’, I can’t stand fuckin’ bigots so you should shut your dirty mouth,’” and we both took a sip of tea and patted our lips.
Good 6's ladies. Jane, you've got the deft touch going in yours. I loved it.
I'll skip back to yesterday's prompt for today's effort:
I know it’s terrible, but I kind of like hurting people. It weeds out the weak and prunes complacency from the limbs of the stronger ones. Just when you think you've written a brilliant masterpiece, I'll come along with my red pen and highlighter and make you wish you were still diagraming sentences in Mrs. Ferguson's 7th grade English class. You may hate me, but really I'm just trying to make you better. If it hurts too much, quit, and if it makes you feel better, you can imagine you'll be missed. But if you stick around, take your lumps and try to master the craft, maybe, just maybe, you'll come up with something that is fit for me to publish.
Greta, as you can expect, I'm all over second chances so here is my Take Two on yesterday's prompt about hurting people. I enjoyed the six from you, Stephen (cliche and all) and Jane. (I just posted my six on yesterday's comments. Perhaps a blog mishap on my part.)
Grimace in the Ear
by
Michael J. Killips
Brian started crying, yet another victim of Nathan’s. Distracted from the game, Coach Dave saw Brian slumped on the ground holding his ankle, Nathan standing over Brian with his hands in the air and his face showing nothing but angelic innocence.
Circling past Brian, Coach stepped in front of Nathan, gently putting his right arm on Nathan’s shoulder and curled his large hands around the back of Nathan’s neck. Nathan felt cornered but as he tried to move away Coach’s arm pressed down hard and his hand constricted against Nathan’s neck.
Pushing Nathan’s head down slightly forcing acceptance of dominance, Coach moved his head towards Nathan’s ear and with a gravelly sound in the center of his voice said, “I want you to stop picking on your teammates because if you don’t I’ll be taking great pleasure in rolling you into a ball and kicking your sorry round little ass up and down this field until the moon rises.”
Coach released Nathan just enough so they were face to face and Nathan could see Coach’s friendly smile turn into a cold, hard, grimace; Nathan suddenly thought about his bladder.
Dropping his death grip, Coach strode over to his assistant saying calmly, “I’ve been waiting all season to be mean to that little prick and I think I really enjoyed that.”
Good efforts, all. Nicely done. Mike, glad you stopped back.
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