https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/relax/
Relax, but be vigilant. This is warmth in the sun, Cool in the water, Danger in the depths. Your mother warned You about days like this. Where the happiness in your Heart reaches out to others. You can't resist this moment. Relax, but be vigilant, Life is happening.
Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge – November 30, 2016
Rainbows at sunset, roads to follow. Lined with flowers, cars and noise, In capitols, in the wild, in back, The alleyways, the secret ways, How do we know where to tread lightly? When should our feet pound the pavement And fight the oppression that takes The middle class and the poor from us? We celebrate the shiny, fountain sprinkling Water that gives us a drink of hope, Then take our place, eyes down Shuffling along as we try to Keep the noise down so the neighbors Don't complain. Is this the road of The future? I step outside and look up At the soaring bald eagles who were once Endangered. Their flyways are now healthier. Our roadways should be healthier, broader, Wiser, a step firm with resolve, a hand On the wheel, a place to arrive at. Soon.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/time-of-year/
Can I do without your call? Making arrangements to survive, To ignore the rest of strife, freely given. Can I do without your song? The snow arrived unasked, unsummoned, With the feeders empty and promises, also. Can I do without your cheer? Here in the gray land of between, Where the silver bells of registers Ring the advent of poverty, competition, Fool hardy expectations of man, not beast. Here I find you, still cheerful, still singing, Your small talons grasping at the dirt, Looking for that last pillbug, that last seed. Your flock only humors me, As the camera whirls, clicks, spits and spats, leaving talon prints as they settle for the night in snow. They wait, they linger until sure That the warmth of yesterday is gone And the time to fly free and warm has arrived. I cannot live without your song, Your calling out of peace and forgiveness All for the price of a seed or two. I cannot live without the holly trees, The magnolias that decorate with red seeds, The pines silent except between creaks of wind. I need your cheer of simplicity.
Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge: 2016 Week 47
When the band has the blues,
When the night burns florescent,
Then time collects in pockets
Of memories, greeted with toasts.
Proffered feasts fading into the
Jazz heated spirals of sax,
Yes, sax, and trombone glissandos
As time burns through the bar
As patrons slide to the floor
Melting into the hot blue night.
Whatever we start, Planned by engineers, or not, On the Danube flowing through time Or the Potomac flowing past a nation, We showcase ourselves with light. We fill the cases with the ancient Stones that we stole to teach the world About how important the stones we stole were. Each outrage part of the parade Of tough spirits trying to mitigate The damage done by screaming women, By ranting crows, by bullets and hooks. We sign the papers before we know The length of our enlistment. We face a nation With something akin to fear, pride, glory, And the fish which swim upstream breath In relief at having avoided the bears, Just before we net them. We must finish what we started, the next race Must begin and end and begin...until we realize the race was never ours to begin with.
Thursday Photo Prompt – Passage #writephoto
“What is it?”
The walls were silent. The steps were worn with a banister of varniducshed pine. Lights shone to light the corners and to keep the shadows of the past at bay. Humanity had lived here for a very long time. The garden at the top of the stairs had see lovers come and go, hidden from their chaperones by windows and a willingness to not see certain things that would make life uncomfortable under ground. Life here was cool, but not chilly. Life was quiet without being unbearable. Life was vented so that even in times of trial, the air with the fresh smell of flowers or snow would flow down to those held beneath.
Two sisters walked along the path, moving awkward students before them. Fall was a good time to move briskly through books of knowledge. It kept the students and faculty from being distracted by the uncertainty of winter. The stores from the summer’s harvest rewarded the community at dawn and dusk. Evenings flowed into music, drama and literature. Mornings were resplendent with the study of science and the explosions that sometimes resounded. History, mathematics and languages filled the afternoon, puffing student’s chests out and egos up.
“What is it?” An eight year old child peeked down the hallway at the courtyard. Her brother pulled his jacket close and then buttoned her coat.
“Shh, don’t make any noise. We’ll be heard.”
The sound of metallic doors slamming and booted feet marching filled the hallway. The children were lucky, no one had entered the hallway yet or looked in their direction. The boy pulled the girl backward, away from the light, away from the sound, away from the marching feet. They couldn’t avoid the speakers that blared.
“All persons are required to move promptly to the courtyard to begin deportation screening. Any person avoiding screening will be subject to arrest and prosecution for violation of the Homeland Security Act.”
“Children, come away. Come away now.”
Holding hands tightly, the children followed Sister Cecelia into the dark. As the Sister moved them into obscurity, the sound of gunfire filled the courtyard.
https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/11/15/one-word-photo-challenge-dirt/
You think it dusty from the surface? Try here under the centuries, waiting, Waiting for a moment when I return Made from the elements you so insult With filth and dusty growth. Wait until I arise, here from the Bench of waiting, competing, hiding. I am dirt dignified, a dragon born.
https://ceenphotography.com/2016/11/15/cees-fun-foto-challenge-roofs/#like-20747
The covering of night, of safety,
Here a roof to hide the dark,
Here a roof to mitigate the rain,
Here a roof to believe in until belief
Is gone under a sham of nonsense,
Here a roof to hold our past,
Here a roof to lie beneath and dream
Of one last love…
https://ceenphotography.com/category/cees-challenges/
It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been sleeping like a log. Yes, I’m borrowing these words. After the week we’ve all had, a Knight is what we need to save the spirit, the body, the soul and to snare the sneaking dragons hiding in our cardboard boxes.
It hasn’t been easy, but the spirit of the fight is still in me. Mother dragons are like that. We always find a way to come back from the outside. Since yesterday I didn’t know where I was or when I was, I’ve come a long long way. I picked out a car that I will buy so I can go to therapy, it’s lovely. A 2017 Mint colored spark with a black interior, back up cameras and has been crashed tested by my mother so it’s safe. I’ve read all of the new material on nutrition that they gave me at the hospital. I’ve worked on healing the bruises that the hospital put on ever spot on my body and I’m looking a bit like the dragon below. I’m just a little more scaly and blinking in the bright light. Sleep all day and feel almost normal. Tomorrow is the calling of the dragons, I mean doctors, for new appointments.
I don’t think I will ever go back to an emergency room no matter what the docs recommend. The Techs were great, the nurses swarmed around non-stop, but the docs in this particular employment situation called hospitalers didn’t have the experience with me as an individual and didn’t make contact with my regular doctors. There was only one who interacted with me as if I were important enough to actually meet, the rest blew me off. “You want to go home, don’t you?” Yeah, but I’d also like to know who I am, why I’m there and what is going on. Yesterday morning I didn’t know any of that. I thought I was part of the Mars Exhibition. Either that or I was back in the US Army, or was that band camp. Never went to band camp, but it would have fit the picture. SO here’s my photo. I’m the oddball and off into a new week we go.
I met a friend in a photo, dear,
She didn’t know I was a friend.
I walked in her woods, saw her build smiles
From smiles over hill and dale. She held a bridge
Out to me when I was drowning.
I will build a bridge for her
To travel to and fro where the leaves
Still stand red in amazement,
Where a giant crawls from the Earth
In a great awakening.
The business men who fail to look up
Or down or around while they text,
Should look behind. For great art gives
A great gift and beauty is planted
As the winds grow cold, and winter comes.
I’ll share a moon with you to brighten your way,
Perhaps a rainbow to connect the world again
Where peace is a flower, a snowflake, a smile.
Ann WJ White 