30 Days of Haiga 2016: Day 12: Modern Art

Click to Enlarge

Original Image:

Copyright: halfpoint / 123RF Stock Photo

Words by Aurora Hylton

Photoshop Manipulation by The Real Cie

 

OctPoWriMo 2015: Day 28: Nope!

Image by Peter Hager

Nope!

It's a bright new day

To be doing things my way

But none of those things will be 

Reading aloud my poetry

I'm not confident enough

With my voice I'm not in love

That may make me inauspicious

But at least I am not vicious

Sorry for the gripe

But I'm not the sanguine type

Perhaps it's pessimistic not to try

But I don't want to--I can't lie

Flying into the wind with a smile

Is really not my style

I can't be buoyant at my size

I'm not the type to tell lies

It's not that I'm all negative

I try to live positive

But I don't much like the sound of my voice

So I'll write my poem by choice!

~Aurora~

Notes:

Dear Morgan, I love you and the wonderful OctPoWriMo challenge. However, sorry, but no way! The world will just have to miss out on hearing my voice recorded. Recording myself speaking makes me damn near as nervous as public speaking, which makes me light-headed with terror and I want to throw up. So, I'm going to be chicken and allow myself to continue breathing normally for a while longer!

OctPoWriMo 2015: Day 5: Love Comes Wearing Disguises

Image by Beverly Tan

Love Comes Wearing Disguises

We had been friends for years

You supported me during my divorce

With subtle Nordic style humor and a loyal heart

You needed a date for a New Year's event

I said I'd be happy to accompany my pal

We became aware that night

That there were possibilities between us

I was scared that I might lose my friend

I didn't want to start something that might end badly

My track record in love was abysmal

It was easy to see how I could fall for you

But how could you fall for me

I am plump and plain, and you had dated a model before me

You said you'd rather be with a friend

Someone who offered kindness and support

You didn't want to stay with someone

Who was always trying to turn

You into another person

Someone handsome enough

Sophisticated enough

To be with someone as pretty as she

People who had known the two of you

Wondered how you could trade in the luxury model

For the dumpy economy brand

You told them I made you happy 

I made you feel young again

You became a second father to my children

A great friend to my brother

With your warmth and charm, even my dad couldn't help liking you

You never had to try that hard

Just by being who you are

You made everything better

We've now been together for sixteen wonderful years

Married for eleven of those

The love I thought I'd never find is real

Sometimes the ugly duckling girl

Is beautiful in the eyes 

Of Prince Charming

For my beloved husband Nils

from Aurora (Sandy)

Notes:

I kept choking up while writing this, but in a good way.

The Ballad of Benjamin

(Image Source)

Western Leopard Toad

The Ballad of Benjamin

Benjamin was his name, oh

And a happy frog was he

Despite the fact that he could not see

The rest of the world dwelt in misery

Benjamin wished to share this feeling

That welled up inside his soul

With bird and fox and mole

To spread joy was his goal

Without working eyes

Benjamin dared not travel long

So he sang a heartfelt song

In a voice both clear and strong

The other creatures in the land

Came to listen to the tune

In Benjamin's voice of bassline boom

As he bestowed his gleeful boon

Soon Benjamin's goal was met

Through his song of gleeful mirth

Happiness spread around the earth

Where once there was a dearth

Benjamin's good deed brought him goodness in return

Mother Nature blessed him with the gift of sight

He saw his reflection in the light 

At first it gave him quite a fright

Just a moment later, Benjamin laughed at the surprise

"It seems I'm not a frog at all," he said.

"It turns out I'm a toad instead."

But not a single tear was shed

For Benjamin was a happy fellow

Regardless of his outsides

~Aurora~

Note:

I combined two prompts to create this whimsical poem. The Prompts Blog asked us to speculate happiness being invented by a blind frog named Benjamin. It's Open Link Tuesday at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, and they presented the above picture of a Western Leopard Toad. Thus, the Ballad of Benjamin sprang into being. I hope it made you smile a little.

NaPoWriMo 2015: Day 21: Erasure

Erasure by The Real Cie

Erasure

Move Like Jagger

hand in my heart

Rip it out

spill blood 

lost my head

wanted to put you in my pocket 

wanted to hug you

So I could see the light turn on in your eyes once again

you always looked a little sad

 I could soothe your sorrow

Cuddle away your blues 

Fucking Midnight Confession style thoughts

About a married man

I want to do bad things with you

What the fuck

Is wrong with the Universe?

you don't create something so beautiful

Just to utterly destroy it

my thoughts are

nowhere near close to as wrong

As what's been done to you

Life is pain

Hope is folly

Confession is good for the tabloids

Some things try to be strong

Although they're actually fragile

want to put you in my pocket

And keep you safe 

For Cie

With love from Aurora

Notes:

The term "erasure" reminded me of the picture that Cie created. I thought that I would take something that Cie wrote and try to condense it down to the bare bones.

The original poem, which I absolutely love, can be found here.

The Prompt:

Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is an old favorite – the erasure! This involves taking a pre-existing text and blacking out or erasing words, while leaving the placement of the remaining words intact. I’ve been working on an erasure project that involves an old guide to rose-growing. Here’s an example of an original page, side-by-side with my “erased” page:

One easy way to get started is just to photocopy a page from a book or magazine, and black out words. Or you can copy a text into Microsoft Word, and turn the words you don’t want white. Erasures can feel almost like a game – carving new poems out of old texts like carving statues from blocks of marble — and so they take some of the anxiety out of writing. They can also lead to surprising new ideas, as the words of the original text are given new contexts.

Happy writing!

NaPoWriMo 2015: Day 20: What I Know

Image Source

What I Know

I know happiness

I know sorrow

I know love

I know heartbreak

I know more and less today than I did yesterday

I know that everyone ages

I know that everything dies

I know that I can't know the specifics of what tomorrow will bring

I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder

I know that true beauty is in the soul

I know that we can never truly know anyone--even ourselves

I know this world is filled with injustice

I know that there is opportunity to change this

I know that the fight will be hard

I know that it will be worth it

I know that I am worthwhile although I sometimes feel that I'm not

I know that I will know more happiness

I know that I will know more sadness

I know that everything and yet nothing is real

I know that there is a lot I still don't know

~Aurora~

The Prompt:

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge to write a poem that states the things you know. For example, “The sky is blue” or “Pizza is my favorite food” or “The world’s smallest squid is Parateuthis tunicata. Each line can be a separate statement, or you can run them together. The things you “know” of course, might be facts, or they might be a little bit more like beliefs. Hopefully, this prompt will let your poem be grounded in specific facts, while also providing room for more abstract themes and ideas.

NaPoWriMo Day 7: In The End It's Only Paper

He made a fortune

A hundred million dollars

It couldn't save him

~Aurora~

I chose to write a Haiku for today's poetry topic (money) because sometimes too many words just clutter things up. 

At First Light

First Light

You first came to me

At first light when the snow fell

Stay through the darkness

~Aurora~

Aurora's Notes:

Our team sometimes creates poems on behalf of our characters. These characters come from the work in progress "Fetch," a paranormal romance created by Team Netherworld member Rose LeMort.

This poem is written from the perspective of Pepper Baiij, a forty-seven year old spirit medium (specifically an empath and "spirit anchor"). While attempting to assist the fetch Gerry Clifford, she ends up falling in love with him and he with her.

A "fetch" is the apparition of a person whose body is still alive but is badly compromised, so they effectively function as a spirit.

Gerry first appeared to Pepper on the night that an arctic front moved in. He was badly frightened by a group of entities which operate as a unit and seem to be playing a waiting game, biding their time until Gerry's compromised brain reaches a certain state of deterioration, at which point he believes they intend to absorb the essence of his soul.

Pepper allowed Gerry to "anchor" himself to her so she could try to keep him safe, although she knew that by doing so she was risking a heartbreak of a kind she had sworn she would never allow herself to feel again.

The next day when Pepper woke up, she felt Gerry beside her. It was a day of sub-freezing temperatures and snow. Pepper needed to drive to her son's house and Gerry came with her. He became convinced that he and Pepper were both spirits in some area of hell, but that they could help each other. In working to try and comfort Gerry and help him see that he is not in an actual hell, she finds herself falling quickly and deeply in love with him and hoping that he will stay with her.

Cross-posted to:

Fetch

Poetry of the Netherworld

OctPoWriMo 2014: Day 19

Copyright: damedeeso / 123RF Stock Photo

 Gloom

The rain in spain falls mainly on the

Melancholy musings of my mind

On a gray day spattered with

Drizzle from a dawn that never quite comes

To a dusk that never quite went away

Damp penetrates my very bones

Making me feel like a corpse

Rotting in a moldy tomb

Rainbow makes its way as the sun peeks out from behind

Cloudy curtain of gray froth dripping tears down on the

Grass wet with weeping from the gloomy sky

Somber is the mood on a day gray from a dawn that never quite comes

To a dusk that never left in the first place

~Aurora~

 The Words: 

                  Melancholy 
                  Drizzle 
                  Damp 
                  Rainbow 
                  Cloudy 
                  Grass 
                  Somber

 

Aurora's Note:

I'm honestly not entirely sure where this came from. I like the rain, and although I do struggle with depression, I'm not feeling particularly gloomy at the moment, only tired. 

I was listening to Pink Floyd while writing about an event that takes place in a horrible dystopian future, and then I read the Wikipedia entry about Syd Barrett. I don't know if any of this has a thing to do with my morose poem. The words just came, and I just let them flow.

The dog is British, apparently, as is Pink Floyd, so there's the reason why the whimsical mutt appears with an incongruously depressing poem.

30 Days of Haiga 2014: Day 30

Click to Enlarge

Original Photo:

Copyright: server / 123RF Stock Photo

Vintage Verse:

Aurora Hylton

Palate-Pleasing Photoshop Manipulation:

Cie Cheesemeister

This concludes our thirty day Haiga journey.

Thank you for joining us.

Cheers!

30 Days of Haiga 2014: Day 29

Click to Enlarge

Original Photo:

Copyright: tish1 / 123RF Stock Photo

Wise Verse:

Aurora Hylton

Precious Photoshop Manipulation:

Cie Cheesemeister

Shadorma for the Netherworld

Netherworld

The sixth dimension

Home to its

Myriads

Of things and souls discarded

From the living world

~Aurora~

 A shadorma is composed of six non-rhyming lines (sestina or sextet) and the syllable pattern is 3-5-3-3-7-5.  It can have as many stanzas as you like, just as long as each stanza follows the syllable pattern mentioned above .

For a longer explanation of what the Netherworld is, see this post. 

Cross-Posted to:

Encyclopedia Netherworld

Poetry of the Netherworld

Holiday

 

Holiday

 

A holiday is

Relaxing at last with those

Whom I love the most

 

~Aurora~

 

 

I'm sorry, I wasn't feeling tremendously creative. So I wanted to get right to the point and say it all in as few words as possible!



The Angry Wind

We're having a strong wind storm right now

 

The Angry Wind

 

When I listen to the whoosh of the wind it tells me

That maybe the gods are angry

That they're sending the spirits of the wind

To shake the trees

To send leaves and branches flying

If we're lucky, destruction of property will be minimal

 

When I listen to the whoosh of the wind, it tells me

That no matter how advanced we humans may become

We will still always be

At the mercy of nature.

 

~Aurora~

A to Z Blogging Challenge: P is for Palindrome

A to Z Blogging Challenge:

P is for Palindrome

by

Aurora Hylton

Behold the Power of the Palindrome!

A palindrome is a word, phrase, verse, sentence, or even poem that reads the same forward or backward.

I will attempt to overpower the Palindrome, though I fear I am the one who may be powered over. First a sample from the linked page, and then a creation of my own.

Unseen Travelers

Spoken Breath
Creating flesh and spirit
Souls stirring divine dances
Leaping, joyful with life
Entertaining harmony and grace
Angels of myriads and myriads
Sentinel watchers
Merging unseen
~Travelers~
Unseen merging
Watchers, Sentinel
Myriads and myriads of angels
Grace and harmony entertaining
Life with joyful leaping
Dances divine, stirring souls
Spirit and flesh creating
Breath spoken.

Copyright © 2002 Jerry P. Quinn

Anonymity
by
Aurora

Anonymity
Double-edged sword
Claim to fame
Remains unknown
Grave unmarked
Song unsung
Unsung song
Unmarked grave
Unknown remains
Fame to claim
Sword double-edged
Anonymity

~Aurora~

Spring Puppy and Kitten Love

 

Spring Puppy and Kitten Love

 

I hate to be a killjoy

For I too feel the puppy (and kitty) love

But too many are born

Every spring there's a boom

Many of them die, never knowing a loving home

 

Please, if you have a critter

Keep him or her safe, inside or in a yard

Make sure to spay and neuter

For though I love the little balls of fluff

We have to say enough's enough

 

Until we can find loving homes for every one

We need to do what must be done

Give them food and shelter, and fix them too

To make a happier world

This is what we have to do

 

Don't let their lives end in springtime

In a shelter, or on the cold concrete

Let them live long, to a ripe old age

In a home where they know comfort

In a world where they know love

 

~Aurora~

 

Not the best poem I ever wrote, but when I saw the picture of the puppy, that is what came to mind. Spring is a time when animal births of all kinds boom. There is an increase in litters of puppies and kittens brought to the shelter in the spring.

 

If you are on Facebook, check out Animal Anarchy, a page that shares animals in need. I'm one of the admins.

 

Cross Posted to:

Animal Anarchy

Poetry of the Netherworld

Ronnie Baker's Easter Woe

Image found here.

 

A fellow who liked to bake bread

Was filled with despair in his head

Too many orders he took

Without enough ovens to cook

All the Easter treats for customers live and Undead

 

~Aurora~

 

In and Out

Wad is a French magazine about fashion and culture.

Out of One Mess Into Another