What do you see # 80 – May 3, 2021
(For the visually challenged reader, the image shows Sphinx in the desert of Giza, Egypt)
The Sphinx, a lonely reminder of an age
Long gone from the sands of Egypt.
Secrets yet to be revealed.
God, give me a way to look back, to watch the building,
to hear the conversation, to know the truth.
Buried for so long, it’s back to tease us.
To stir the mind, to wonder at the many secrets
Hidden beneath hot sand.
Time will push them out…
© Anita Dawes 2021
I had been walking for a while, and it seemed like a lifetime.
The woods all around me were quiet, almost brooding in the gloom. Weak sunlight struggled to find a way through the dense canopy above me.
The damp air smelled old, musty, full of life lived. Life that lingered among the trees, much like me today.
How much further had I to go?
The rambling, overgrown path seemed to indicate the way to go, but was it the right way for me. Would it lead me home?
I needed to rest awhile, more to determine my future if this path was yet again the wrong one for me, so I found a mossy bank with a friendly tree to lean against and made myself comfortable.
Did I want to leave the peaceful security of these woods, take the obvious path and take my chances?
I knew that this path was possibly the wrong choice, the last of a long list of mistakes in my life.
I looked around, hoping to see a better way, but the woods intended to keep their secrets. The filtered sunlight was making me sleepy – maybe I could postpone my decision for a while…
© Jaye Marie 2021
Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #115
For the visually challenged writer, the photo shows a man wearing a fleece hoody walking through snowy woods and casually carrying a shotgun on his right shoulder.
Faceless hero, or menace?
I could not tell
The snow blinding my vision
The sun gave him an eerie glow
as he walked towards me
My heart beat a tattoo against my ribs
I turned to run when I heard the shot
that crossed over my left shoulder
In front of me, I could see a fallen wolf
His hindquarters badly mauled
His mouth a mass of white foam
As if he had eaten a bag of marshmallows.
A hero after all…
© Anita Dawes 2021
Through the wire, I see snow-capped mountains
The wire sharp, I cannot leave this man-made hell.
The guards, they march outside my cage.
Time has forgotten me, skin and bone
I cling to life.
Help will come on metal wings.
Some in iron boxes on caterpillar tracks
New soldiers to break the wire down.
Outside I stand, with souls beside me.
Does the ground beneath my feet feel strange?
Does freedom echo through my bones?
Is someone out there with my name?
Will they find me,
take me to walk on snow-capped mountains?
© Anita Dawes 2021
#WRITEPHOTO – The Secret in the Stone
For visually challenged writers, the image shows a stone or a tomb with a key-like inscription but no words upon it.
Earth holds many mysteries
None more so than the stone I stand before
It does not belong here.
It’s one half of a door to an ancient mausoleum
a copy. Now hiding a secret bound by time
they lie beneath, arms entwined
they no longer dream in colour, their hour has passed
they wait for a certain kind of magic
that he can bring when he returns
to wake, to walk the cliffs they once called home
for now, their bones lie cold, wrapped in earth
the monk’s chatter, asking if they can bring back a legend
to hold the people together, to give them more
than the dry crumbs that life offers
so many years later, we stand and wonder about the dry bones
that lie beneath the cold black stone…
© Anita Dawes 2021
I am a ghost of my former self
Thin as will o the wisp, the fog in London
I feel people rush by, their touch alien.
They see me; they make no sign
They’re busy walking to nowhere
Leaving nothing behind
Life in an air bubble
Pop a few; the world feels buoyant.
I hear the sigh of relief as it breathes
At the altar of death, they leave flowers, messages of love.
Tell me where the heart is when they are brushed aside too soon?
Their handwritten messages floating in rain-filled puddles.
Where is the love to pull me back?
© Anita Dawes 2021
I am used to dreaming, to have one dragged into a nightmare,
kicking, and screaming, is a step too far.
I am half spying on Pa, as he sits in the shady part of the workshop.
I know what he is doing, and it’s not good.
The black shadow of my nightmare is chasing Pa across our field.
I am firing at him with a small crossbow that I grabbed from detective Snow.
Snow has no place in my nightmare, he belongs in Jaye’s mind.
Covered in blood, a small bolt sticking out of his chest, he calls for pa to stop.
I scream, as I let fly a bolt, it goes wide of pa’s shoulder.
Making him turn to look at his only daughter, trying to pin him down
with a stolen bow that belongs to a character from Jaye’s book CrossFire.
Something is very wrong.
I could see it on pa’s face. I love my pa and don’t want him harmed.
I must turn with my last bolt to kill detective Snow. I don’t care if he’s not mine to kill off.
It’s him or pa, and I choose pa.
The last bolt leaves the bow. I hear the sound, which wakes me from my nightmare.
My first thought, did Annie save her pa…
© Anita Dawes 2021
#TANKA TUESDAY WEEKLY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 222 #EKPHRASTIC #PHOTOPROMPT
This challenge explores Ekphrastic writing inspired by visual art and/or photographs. Anita Dawes from last month’s challenge has provided the photo for this month’s challenge:
Sand
They say
Hide’s horror
Unspoken pain
Dead things are planted
Dare you enter the bus
Hear soft whispers from dead lips
Spend a night in the broken shed
Where soul eaters wait, shrouded in black
All things swallowed by time, under hot sun…
© Anita Dawes 2021
I left my love in a broken field where no flowers grow.
This, written on a card with a red rose lying on top, I found on my doorstep.
Who left it or why means nothing to me.
I popped the rose in a small vase, dropping the card in my pocket.
I left for work and the who drove me mad all morning.
There are so many fields where no flowers grow.
The unknown author must have a place in mind.
Over lunch, the word ‘broken’ struck me, lodging itself in my mind,
until I came up with the graveyard.
That is the broken field where no flowers grow.
I am the ghost the rose belongs to…
© Anita Dawes 2021
