Wrong-Tober 2023: The Fog

 

Photo by and machines (and_machines) on Unsplash

The Fog

The thick yellow fog hanging in the air had real and devastating consequences. The town’s population lay dead in their homes. Animals lay dead in the fields. Flowers hung their heads as their petals dropped away. Leaves turned brown and rotten on trees and vines.

The drone that had released the gas was shot down forty-five miles away from its target. Its destruction would make no difference. Others like it had already been dispatched to agricultural areas all across the nation. A society without readily available food quickly begins to crumble. All the enemy had to do now was wait.

notes

This story is included in The Damned anthology from Dragon Soul Press.

Pick up your copy of The Damned here:

http://books2read.com/DamnedDrabbles

I will be giving away one copy of The Damned and one copy of the Hot and Sticky anthology from Passionate Ink during the Spooky Good Time party. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/renesgetawaypartyroom

You can find out more about the Hot and Sticky anthology here.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5RSJS5M

April PAD Challenge/NaPoWriMo 2022 Day 27

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay

I'm a mess this morning, People. I woke up to a nasty charley horse in my right calf. It's that time of year when I don't need the furnace on during the day but I do at night because the temperatures drop and when the house is cold, I suffer from muscle cramps. 

I lived in a dilapidated mobile home with no heat for many years. It was miserably hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. I lived paycheck to paycheck and couldn't afford to get the furnace fixed. There is a pervasive attitude that some people "deserve" to live in such conditions--or worse--and the fact that people can think that way stymies me. 

Robert Lee Brewer, architect of the April and November PAD challenges at Writers
Digest, has issued the poetry remix challenge, but I'm going to table that until April 30 and make the remix the last poem in my chapbook manuscript.

There are three days left before we stick a fork in this sucker. Let's get going.

Not the Syrupy Kind

Prompts used

https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-seven-8/

Write a duplex poem.

A duplex poem consists of seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2022-april-pad-challenge-day-26

write a love or anti-love poem

I wrote about the kind of love that can save the world. Forget that moon-June-tune nonsense. The world needs altruistic love, charitable love. The world needs tolerance. I often think that tolerance is a more vital quality than absolute acceptance. No human will find every person's way of life acceptable, but we need to tolerate even those whose ideas we disagree with. 

Hence, I may find tRump supporters odious, but it is unacceptable for me to burn down their house or even vandalize their oversize truck covered in tRump 2024 stickers and flying two big tRump flags in the back. In order to maintain peace in my community, I need to coexist with these people even if I loathe their ideology. 

Things are too violent these days

We need to remember that peace is the way.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

https://odysee.com/@xcmusic:4/ibiza-deep-house-2020-vol-35:8?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

Troiku Challenge 2019 #4: Spring Snow

Spring Snow

spring snow
purifies earth and heaven –
our enemies perish

spring snow
hearing the army's approach
grows red with spilled blood

purifies earth and heaven
the god of war triumphant
the bodies burning

our enemies perish
we see our enemy's face
when looking in glass

Mizuhara Shûôshi & Cie

Notes:

The "sleigh" in this grim Troiku was written by Mizuhara Shûôshi (9 Oct 1892–17 July 1981) . The three horses of the Apocalypse were created by me.

30 Days of Haiga 2017 Day 26 + OctPoWriMo 2017 Day 10: Seeds of War

Original Background Image:

Copyright: barbulat / 123RF Stock Photo
Verse and text manipulation by The Real Cie

NaPoWriMo 2017: Day 8: Fallen: A Poem in Three Parts

Copyright: tntemerson / 123RF Stock Photo

 Never forget our fallen soldiers

Fallen in battle

Fallen in the name of freedom

Fallen in the name of greed

Fallen to help the helpless

Fallen to feed the need of megalomaniacs

Some fallen by the wayside

When they return home

Never forget our fallen soldiers

Black metal vocalist Per Ohlin 

January 16 1969 - April 8 1991

Death by self-inflicted shotgun wound to head

Never forget the fallen

Fallen by their own hand at the end

Fallen victim along the way

Fallen at the hands of bullies

Never taught empathy for those who are different

Fallen victim to the deceptions created

By a mind that works differently

Never forget the fallen ones

Fallen into the dark night of despair

 Photoshop art by The Real Cie

 Never forget those whose memories have fallen away

Those fallen into the lonely twilight of a mind

Ravaged by devastating disease

 Never forget those fallen victim to dementia

Whose souls have fallen away from the world

While their bodies are still living

Never forget that the fallen deserve compassion

That the fallen deserve to be treated with respect

Never forget those who can no longer remember

Never forget the fallen

Don't let them fall away

Just because it is uncomfortable

To talk about the things that caused their fall

~Rose~ 

 

Notes:

Team Netherworld does a tribute to Per Ohlin every year on April 8, the date of his suicide. This year marks the 26th anniversary of his passing.

I thought about finding a picture of Per without makeup because one year someone remarked that he looked "creepy". In the end, I decided to use a picture of him in his stage makeup because I feel that people need to learn to look beyond appearances.

Per came into the world with a lot of strikes against him. He was born prematurely and had severe sleep apnea during his early childhood. He was likely on the autism spectrum. His younger brother stated that he had difficulty multitasking and would become upset if anyone bothered him while he was focused on something he was doing.

When Per changed schools after his parents divorced, his new classmates were not accustomed to his unusual behaviors and at one point ganged up on him and beat him so severely that he sustained a serious head injury and nearly died. This injury may have caused him to develop Cotard syndrome, a perception dysfunction in which the sufferer feels that they are in a body which is no longer alive. Per expressed feelings that he was not alive, that the blood was freezing in his veins. 

Although Per did not perform well scholastically, he was highly intelligent and had a gift with words. His powerful poetry and song lyrics create a rich atmosphere and a metaphor for the struggles which he endured on a daily basis. The following is one of my favorites.

I hope that in the Afterlife, Per was able to find a peace impossible for him to achieve in life. I feel it is important that we learn compassion for him and others with cognitive and psychiatric differences.

Freezing Moon

Everything Here Is So Cold
Everything Here Is So Dark
I Remember It As From A Dream
In The Corner Of This Time

Diabolic Shapes Float By
Out From The Dark
I Remember It Was Here I Died
By Following The Freezing Moon

It's Night Again, Night You Beautiful
I Please My Hunger, On Living Humans
Night Of Hunger Follow It's Call
Follow The Freezing Moon

Darkness Is Growing, Eternity Opens
The Cemetery Lights Up Again
As In Ancient Times
Fallen Souls Die Behind My Steps
By Following The Freezing Moon

OctPoWriMo 2014: Day 8

Copyright: audiohead / 123RF Stock Photo

The True Madness:

A Set of Acrostics Addressing Extremist Attitudes

Full Moon 

Freedom is one of those words that people like to bandy about

Until they are confronted with thoughts different from their own

Love between two people of the same sex, for instance, or

Liberal political agendas

Madness sets in when those who close their minds to

Opinions other than their own

Opt to try and destroy the one they've deemed their enemy

Negotiation is the furthest thing from their mind

Moon Madness

Madness prevails in today's troubled world

Obstinate fixation on a set of twisted values

Oppressive values that leave no room for variation

Not values designed to protect people from harm

Moral depravity is decried

Atheism is said to be the worst of immoralities

Deism speaks to me more than atheism

Nonetheless, I believe in freedom to believe or not

Extremists would take away the freedoms of others

Satan may be something whose existence could be argued

Sadism, however, certainly exists

Creativity

Certain factions would like to limit creativity

Reactionaries want to ban certain literary works

Evil has its roots in ignorance

Absolutist ideas never served any population

Terrorism exists on many levels

Ignorance and intolerance are twins

Vain hopes of controlling even the very thoughts of others

Ignite a passion for power in the souls of those with small minds

Terrorism is not only guns and bombs, it is also

Young people whose minds have been filled up with hate for others

Water

Wish upon a star

Ask the heavens to bring peace; however

Take it upon yourself

Ending hate must be your primary priority

Reactionary agendas never served any population

Nostalgic

Nostalgic wishes for bygone eras

Only soothe those who fail to realize

Some things look better when they are behind us

Tragedy has existed throughout history

All times have had certain aspects needing improvement

Love has always been the answer

Greed has always been the deceiver

Ignorance has always been the match

Catching the tinder of hateful ideas afire

Impulsive

If you think it might be empowering

Meeting with terrorist organizations

Plotting to destroy those who do not follow your agenda

Undoing anything that does not suit your narrow view

Laying waste to those that you would subjugate

Strewing dead bodies wherever you set foot

Incinerating the homes of those you call enemy

Vandalizing, terrorizing

Evil is the only word that can describe what you are

Dynamic

Death comes to every being

Yet why be in such a hurry to dispatch another living soul?

Nothing gives you that right

Atrocities are being committed every day

Murderous individuals

Ignorant ideals

Cruelty reigns supreme

Bold

Be the change you want to see

Only sow kindness

Let others be who they are

Dream of and create better days

~Wanda Psycho~

Wanda's note:

I am not trying to target any religion as bad or wrong. I am targeting extremist attitudes. 

In my time in this world, I have met kind people who are Christian in the truest sense; they want to behave in the pacifist and loving manner modeled by Christ. I have also met people calling themselves Christian who are anything but; their souls are rotten with intolerance and hate.

 I have also met kind and tolerant Muslims. Following the 9-11 attacks, I listened to a talk by a man who stated that the Greater Jihad is the war fought against one's own lower impulses; the lesser Jihad is acts of war within the world. Such acts of war, he stated, were to be in defense of one's homeland; not attacks against other nations. 

The actions of ISIS are horrific, and I was certainly dismayed to learn that people from the U.S. have seen fit to join in aiding this terrorist organization. I feel that these misguided souls are seeking some sort of glory in a world where it is difficult to feel that one's actions have any meaning. However, I most assuredly do not feel that the members of ISIS represent the beliefs of the majority of Muslims. I would say, in fact, that the opposite is true.

I have come to identify as a Buddhist; however, I by no means claim to be an expert or adept of any kind. I haven't yet been able to achieve full vegetarianism, for instance. However, I have become more conscious when I do eat meat about choosing meat fro a source where the animals are treated humanely.

Nobody is perfect; however, if we all try, even a little to take more right action, the world can become a better place.

30 Days of Haiga 2014: Day 11

Click to Enlarge

Original Photo:

Copyright: rolffimages / 123RF Stock Photo

Verse:

Dolly Marionette

Photoshop Manipulation:

Cie Cheesemeister

30 Days of Haiga 2014: Day 3

Click to Enlarge

Original Photograph:

Copyright: luislouro / 123RF Stock Photo

Verse:

Eleonora Usher-Rigby

Photoshop Manipulation:

Cie Cheesemeister

For The Passengers of Flight 17

Photo source, with news story

In memory of the passengers of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Men, women, babies

All gone in a flash of fire

Hate destroys all things

~Tempest~

A to Z Blogging Challenge: W is for Wrapped Refrain

A to Z Blogging Challenge:

W is for Wrapped Refrain

by

Spectra Ghostseeker

The Wrapped Refrain, created by Jan Turner, consists of 2 or more stanzas of 6 lines each; Meter: 8,8,8,8,12,12 and Rhyme Scheme: a,a,b,b,c,c.

Refrain rule: In each stanza the first 4 syllables (or 4 single-syllable words) in the first line must be the last 4 syllables (or 4 single-syllable words) at the end of the last line. This is what wraps each stanza with a repeated refrain ...thus, the Wrapped Refrain.

First the Example, then my Burnt Offering.

Let’s Steal Away to Meet Again

Let’s steal away to some place cool,

     with rivulets that foam and pool

beneath a wooded, shady shore

     that frames the rocks with sycamore.

The afternoon has just begun; without delay,

let’s meet beneath the shaded sun...let’s steal away.

Let’s meet again where once we knew

     the buttercups with golden dew;

we scurried to our hidden spot

     where I recall forget-me-not.

And, we shall have the promised dreams that we did then,

as we revisit hideaways...let’s meet again.

Copyright © 2007 Jan Turner

Doom

Foolish people hell-bent on

Making ourselves be dead and gone

Always hurrying off to war

With prideful need to even score

Bombs have no regard for monument or steeple

What the hell are we doing, we foolish people

We think warring is righteousness

In our proud short-sightedness

We believe in our agenda

It is weakness to be tender

Taking peaceful actions is nothing but boring

When asked "what action should we take?" we think warring

~Spectra~