#having a certified Winter Beast moment

[hemipenal-system]

oh, hey, you're waking up! i know this must be strange, so don't panic, you're safe and- why are you panicking? thats the thing i just explicitly told you not to do.

i'm not going to hurt you! stop trying to run, it's too cold outside the cave for your kind to survive. you shouldn't have even been this far north this time of year; you're lucky i was out hunting and saw you fall through the ice!

eat you? no. at least not tonight. i don't care for human meat, it's rather stringy in my experience. besides, i just said i wasn't going to hurt you. eating usually involves at least a little bit of hurting.

no, i pulled you out of the ice and brought you back here to try to warm you up before the hypothermia killed you. i had to strip your wet clothes off, but i built a little fire and they're drying over there. you can put them back on in a little while if you like.

i don't know where you think you're going. this is as warm as it's going to get. i had you wrapped in my wings for a reason - in this weather, my body is the warmest thing for dozens of miles around. you don't have to come back to lay against me if you don't want but for your own safety i'm not going to let you leave.

what are you- hey! don't throw a snowball at me! i just saved your life! human, are you shivering?

of course you're cold. you're naked and your clothes are drenched, and you're in a cave in the middle of a blizzard without your own draconic fire to keep you warm. you're just going to get colder standing over there gazing into the storm. please come back.

thank you. would you like to get back between my wings, against my chest where it's warm? there you go. comfy? i'm glad. try to get some sleep, human. it'll be warmer in the morning.

sweet dreams...

[caitybug]

Hmm here’s a prompt,,,,,, Simon plays ice hockey, baz is a figure skater,,,, chaos ensues

Hi! Thanks so much for the idea, I hope that what I have done is alright for you. Per usual it’s kinda long (almost 1500 words) for a Tumblr post, but I hope that’s okay! I also kind of took it in a wonky direction... but I hope it makes you laugh.

(If anyone else wants to send something in please feel free to! I can’t promise to do every one of them, but I love ideas :). Also, the more ridiculous the better, tbh.)

Simon

I joined the hockey team this year.  

Not because I play, mind you. It’s the only way I could think of to get closer to him. 

Baz Pitch.

I used to work at the concessions stand, but I was let go after the nacho cheese incident.

(We don’t talk about the nacho cheese incident. I don’t, at least. Penny does constantly.)

Baz is a figure skater who goes to the posh school down the road. He has dark hair that, when he doesn’t pull it back, hangs loosely below his chin in soft waves. It’s the kind of hair I want to run my fingers through, it looks so soft. 

Baz has a sense of grace and poise on the rink I couldn’t imagine having even on normal ground.

Somehow he manages to make skating on ice seem easy.

I fall or get slammed into the glass at least five times each practice and I’m accumulating too many bruises. My parents are starting to wonder if I’ve joined a fight club. 

If the hockey team wasn’t so desperate for bodies on the rink, I don’t think I’d have managed to get on. I believe they saw me and thought ‘yeah, he’ll do.’

Baz

I don’t like figure skating. Not anymore, at least. It was great when I was a kid and everyone was stumbling around like idiots, but when I got older and people started to get good at the sport, well, I decided I wanted to quit. 

I would have quit after fifteen when my parents allowed me to if it weren’t for Simon Snow.

He used to work the concessions stand, but now he’s on the hockey team.

I’m not sure why that switch happened, but I heard something about an explosion of nacho cheese and a worker with burns. 

I’m not complaining, however, because he’s still here. I’d endure a thousand figure skating sessions to see his face. 

I try to spin in a circle, but I fall. 

My feet are covered in blisters, and I can’t actually do any of the tricks well. 

Snow always watches me while he’s waiting to get on the rink for hockey practice.

He probably thinks I’m a buffoon. 

We don’t go to the same school, so this is the only contact I have with him. The awkward half an hour where my practice is ending and his is beginning. 

My trainer sighs and dismisses me.

She probably wonders why I’m still here. I see the other people she trains and they are practically Olympic level good. I think Agatha is competing to qualify for next winter even. 

When I manage to grab hold of the rail and leave the rink, Snow is standing there, smiling at me. 

Suddenly my feet don’t hurt so bad.

“Hello,” I say, “how are you?”

“Alright, you know,” he points to the rink, “waiting for hockey practice to start.” 

He gulps, and it’s a show. I follow his Adam's apple with my eyes. 

I wonder if he’d like to be kissed there.

“How are you?” He asks, pulling my eyes back up to his face.

“I’m well, practicing my routine. We have a competition this Friday.” I respond, pulling my hair out from the bun it was in. 

His eyes watch as it falls around my face, exactly as I thought he would. 

“I bet you’ll kill it. You’re so good,” he says, eyes looking at my neck. 

I raise an eyebrow. Does he not see me skate out there?

I definitely fell at least three times. 

A whistle blows, and we say goodbye.

I watch from the side, I always do for a short while. I don’t live far so I can take my time, walk home. My parents think practice ends later than it actually does, so they never worry. 

Besides, I enjoy the show. 

Simon is a beast to watch on the rink. The way he juts his chin out, angrily challenges the other team, and slams bodies into the glass does things to me. 

I take a seat to take off my skates and watch the show. 

Simon

I’m trying my best to skate, but I swear I keep tripping over my feet. 

Baz is on the side, watching me play.

He probably thinks I’m an idiot.

Someone slams me into the glass, and I feel dizzy, but I keep going. I don’t want Baz to think I’m weak. My face feels wet even, probably from sweat. All these pads and gear make my skin boil. 

“Simon!” I hear the coach shout, I groan and skate to him. 

“Yes coach?” 

My head is really starting to hurt.

“Simon you need to get checked out, you’re bleeding.”

“What?” I ask, reaching a hand up.

Sure enough I have a cut on my jawline. 

“Go, now,” he points to the exit. “Hey you there!” He shouts. I see Baz perk up. “Can you help Simon get to Ebb?”

Ebb is the ‘nurse’ on duty. She’s not certified, and can’t do much, but she’ll be able to give me a bandage and tell me if I need to go home or the hospital. She’s nice and helpful, and with my constant onslaught of injuries we’ve created a good rapport. 

“Alright there, Snow?” Baz asks, looping an arm around me and helping me to the nurse.

He hasn’t done this before, touched me like this. We often avoid touching each other, even when I’d hand him a drink from concessions. Our interactions have been casual conversations and brief glances. 

I don’t need help walking, it’s my head that is hurt, but I’m not going to say no to him touching me like this. It feels like there are sparks going up my side, but in a good way. 

Baz

I have my arm looped around Snow, trying to help him to the nurse. It takes me a moment before I realize he’s only hurting on his head. He doesn’t need to be carried.

But he’s letting me hold him, so I’ll be damned if I move. He’s warm and close to me. I’d carry him to Timbuktu if it meant we could stay this close. 

Ebb helps clean him and puts gauze on the wound and tells him to lie down. She goes for ice in hopes to slow down the swelling. 

We sit for a moment in silence, awkwardly not making eye contact. 

“You okay, Snow?” I ask, finally. 

“‘S alright.” He mutters. “Might be out of practice for the day. Coach takes head injuries seriously, even when as minor as this. Besides they just redid the rink, they’ll want to wait for a game before getting blood on it.”

“You’re bleeding pretty badly, Snow. That’s not minor.”

He shrugs. 

“Don’t you need to go? I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than to sit here with me.”

“I’m just making sure you’re alright, is all. The nurse here is incompetent at best, so someone needs to keep an eye out.” It’s true, albeit I’m also staying for selfish reasons. 

He chuckles. 

“I’m sure you’re used to this kind of stuff, being a hockey player and all,” I state. 

“Yeah, a bit. Though I’m not much of a hockey player.” 

“What do you mean? I think you’re brilliant.” 

Simon looks at me like I’m insane.

“Baz, I constantly trip over my feet and can never manage to hit the puck. I’m horrid, let’s be honest. It’s you who is amazing on the rink.”

It’s my turn to frown and be confused. 

“Simon, I fell at least three times in practice today. Figure skating is not my future.”

He stares at me for a moment, then he smiles and starts to laugh. 

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

He is still cackling, making me join in. I’m not sure what’s so funny, but I’ll keep laughing as long as he does. 

When he finally comes up for air he answers my question.

“Baz, look, I am only on the hockey team for one reason. If I joined then I could be closer to you.” He’s looking up at me with wide eyes and a pink tinge to his cheeks. 

“You- what?” I ask, confused. 

“I really wanted to get to know you, Baz, and I couldn’t think of a better way.” He takes a deep breath, looking down at his fingers, and on the exhale continues quietly, “I really like you, Baz.” 

Simon

Baz isn’t speaking, he’s just staring at me. 

This was an awful idea.

“Well I guess I should-” I start, but he grabs me so I can’t move.

“Snow, the only reason I’m figure skating still is to be closer to you.” 

It’s my turn to be confused. 

“What? But you’re so-”

“Awful, Snow. I’m awful. I would have quit three years ago if I wasn’t afraid I’d never see you again.”

I stare up at him in complete disbelief. After all this time, Baz likes me back? 

“Wait, so you mean we both have been staying in sports we hate because we wanted to be closer to each other?” I ask.

We stare for a moment before breaking into laughter again. 

“Yeah, I guess we did,” Baz replies, taking a breath for air. 

“We are so stupid,” I say.

“Speak for yourself, Snow, I’m top of the class at school.”

I roll my eyes. He would be.

I reach up and pull his face down to mine, pausing for a moment to allow him to say no. In that pause, however, he closes the gap, pressing his lips to mine. 

I can’t wait to quit ice hockey. 

Baz

Thank God I can quit figure skating.

[atomicdeke]

Pretenses and Perception (Prompt #8 - Clamor)

Sailing into Limsa after two moons at sea, he stands atop the forecastle to take in his home port with his own eyes. Productive though his time away had been, it’s good to be back. Even better, he’d successfully offloaded the more objectionable cargo a few days back and done quite well by himself and his crew. All that remains is to dock, suffer the perfunctory “inspection”, and release the crew to their own amusements - within reason, of course. Those sailing under the Executioners’ banner have certain standards to maintain, after all.

The thought spins his mind in a different direction as he hears his officers bellowing course corrections and adjustments in the background. The captain needn’t concern himself with such things, so he's free to ponder other, more meaningful subjects. His own course to this point, for example. 

He’d assumed control of the ship over a turn ago and taken his new name, Geisstyma, but every now and again, it still felt new. Certainly, he is the youngest captain among the Executioners, not yet having seen his thirtieth winter. Still, aside from the occasional jibe from a peer that was always repaid with interest, that fact isn’t at the heart of the sensation. Maybe a part of him still casts this new life against his first one, seeing how this new ghost speaker compares to the younger one. Something to ponder later, perhaps.

As the ship slows to a crawl, then stops altogether at the quay, he turns smoothly to where the shore party is preparing the gangway and prepares to be boarded. A smile ensues, prompted by the irony of the situation, though it serves well enough to greet the inspectors from Mealvaan’s Gate as they arrive. Stepping forward, he shakes hands with the head inspector, a bookish sort - aren’t they all? - of Hyuran descent. “Rodermund! A pleasure to see your smiling face, as always! How are the children?”

The inspector returns the smile and handshake with a quiet reservation - not a measure of mistrust, the Elezen had come to learn, but simply how the man carried himself. “Oh, Angus and Alina are quite well, Captain. I’ll tell them you asked after them.” Clearing his throat, the smile fades. “But lest we forget, to business. Have you anything to declare?” 

A shake of his head, and Geisstyma gestures to the ship at large. “Nothing of note but the foodstuffs we brought back from the Cieldalaes, my friend! Well, that’s not strictly true, I suppose. There’s been a bit of a debate among the crew whether the monkey our master of the galley brought back qualifies as a foodstuff. The rank and file seem to think so, but he is quite adamant that it is not. You wouldn’t care to render your professional opinion on the matter, would you?”

Seemingly in spite of himself, the inspector lets out a little laugh as he waves his subordinates forward to look the ship over. “Well, if your cook is keeping the creature as a pet rather than as a future meal, and tending to it accordingly, I don’t think its inclusion on the manifesto is needful. Perhaps you can tell me how the little beast came into his care over a meal at the Bismarck? There are a few new procedures you ought to be apprised of, and there’s no reason that can’t be done comfortably.”

Geisstyma nods and claps the inspector on the shoulder. “This evening, then! I’ll tell you all about the monkey and more, my friend. Otherwise, I’ll get out of your hair and let you do your job.” He starts to turn and do just that, but he feels the weight of eyes upon him and turns his gaze back, settling onto the figure behind the inspector. A younger woman, slight of build - enough that he nearly mistakes her for an adolescent at first glance. Curiously enough, she’s an Elezen of much the same hue as him, but that thought is relegated to the back of his mind as he’s met with an intensity he’s scarcely encountered before. Not hostility, never that aboard his ship, but a force of will to be reckoned with.

Only a moment or two passes before the inspector notices the exchange, and he hastily rests a hand on the young woman’s shoulder as he gives Geisstyma a nervous smile. “Ah, forgive me, Captain! This is one of our new junior inspectors, recently certified for duty. She’s shadowing me as we go about our day. Learning the ropes, if you will, aha...”

The older Elezen stares back at the younger for a few more moments before a sneer takes shape. “See that she learns to study her charges more carefully, Rodermund. It wouldn’t do to have the young lady caught up in affairs that don’t concern because of a misunderstanding.” Turning on his heel, Geisstyma strides back to his cabin. “Remember, Rodermund! Sixth bell at the Bismarck!”

“Of course, Captain, I look forward to it!” Hurriedly, the inspector interposes himself between his junior and the master of the ship, alarm and concern coloring his expression. “What are you thinking, Lucielle? Don’t you know who that is? Who he’s with? We’re here to ensure there are no grievous violations of the law, then remove ourselves with all haste, not to upset...well, someone like him!”

Lucielle regards the smaller man with an appropriate measure of contrition, though she keeps Geisstyma in her field of view for as long as he’s on deck. “Of course, Inspector.” A slight smile now, tinged with embarrassment at an oversight that exists only in her narrative. “I’d heard his name, but I hadn’t realized he was like me. A Duskwight. Rest assured, I will be far more cautious in the future.”

The inspector lets out a sigh of relief. “Good, good. Everybody slips up starting out, Lucielle, but what’s important is how you move forward from your mistakes. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, and I see great things in your future. Now, let’s head below decks. Our compatriots have doubtless gone through most of the cargo by now, but it’s important-”

She nodded and responded as needed, but as they headed for the door to the hold, she looked over her shoulder at the captain’s cabin once more, amber eyes narrowing. It didn’t matter how far he ran or what names he used. He couldn’t hide from her in the chaos on the other side of the world. Not anymore.

[noelacciari]

alright this is kinda bad but I'm gonna ask anyway. so I'm a new/casual hockey fan and this girl I'm friends w is super into hockey and I'm kinda having to bluff my way through convos rn so could you give me a basic summary of the roster and stuff pls :)))

okay babe, so this is how we’re gonna set this up for you… personality quiz style. (also wait I’m assuming you mean Bruins so. im very sorry if this was about another team lol)

Step 1: pick your star

- Do you strive for perfection? Do you look for stability in a relationship? Can you appreciate a good beard? Do you need a perfect man to project all your feelings regarding men onto and then you never have to even look at another man in real life? Then Patrice Bergeron is the guy for you. He’s perfect. Like legit. Has been nominated for the Selke Award (best defensive forward) approximately a gazillion times, eventually they’re going to change it to The Bergy. Gorgeous play maker, dominate on the face-off circle. Quiet leader in the room. A pillar of the Boston community. The only person who can tame Marchand (we’ll get to him later). Every person in New England is AT LEAST 30% in love with him, regardless of sexual orientation. (I’m not even kidding). Future Hall of Famer. Without a doubt. (Forward (Center), #37, first line)

- Do you enjoy carbs? How about charming smiles? Do you enjoy men who toe the lines of fashion? Do you like a show, flashy lights and stunning tricks? Do you like people who make you smile, no matter how bad your day is? Then David Pastrnak is your man. Better know as Pasta (said with a deep Boston accent), he’s been tearing up the ice from the moment he arrived in TD Garden. A member of the Best Top Line in the League (alongside Bergeron - and that other guy who we will get to later). His goals are always absolutely nasty, just. Sexy, sexy hockey. Off the ice he’s sunshine personified, known for his chipped tooth smile, wearing checked suits and floral shirt, and just being generally the best. (Forward (winger), #88, first line)

- Are human sized chipmunks something you think would be pretty cool? How do you feel about Long Island? Would you think it’s funny if a guy who was a star player on a Boston team dated the daughter of a Pittsburgh coach? Do you think it’s even funnier if a guy who tweeted “I hate the Bruins” then proceeds to get drafted by them? Then Charlie McAvoy is your star d-man. At the ripe old age of 21, Long Island native Charlie McAvoy already carries a huge chunk of responsibility on the Bruins defense core. A future leader for the team (captain. imo), Charlie puts up incredible minutes, and is the perfect complement to his d-partner Zdeno Chara (we’ll get to him too). Also known as Cheeks (on tumblr) or Mac (by his teammates), Charlie isn’t afraid to throw his weight around on the ice, and he looks good doing it. Dude is a Bonafide Stallion. (Defense, #73, 1st Pair)

Step 2: Pick your Dad

- Are you vegetarian? How do you feel about EXTREMELY tall men wearing easter bunny onesies? Do you prefer to bike to work instead of taking the train? what about pigeons? If you consider pigeons friends, then Zdeno Chara is your new dad! (Boogie Woogie Woogie). You know how Bruins fans like to say - Don’t Poke The Bear? Well Big Zee is that hypothetical bear. Our beloved captain and father earned himself quite the reputation on the ice, known for his hard AF slap shots and even harder punches. Clocking in at 6′9″ and 250lbs, Zad is still a beast at 42 years old - and he apparently has no plans to retire. While his age doesn’t appear to be slowing him down on the ice, Zee has shown his softer side off the ice with his inspirational and extremely cute Instagram. He came into Boston in 2006 and was named Captain upon signing, and has forever changed the culture of the Boston Bruins. Chara facilitates an inclusive but hard working locker room, and his legacy will live on in Boston long after his retirement. (Defense, #33, first pair)

- Are you a dog person? Also are you American? Those are really the only 2 qualifications you need to chose David Backes as your dad. Although some of us older folks like me (at the stunningly old, reaching retirement age of 26) might consider Backes to be more of a daddy, the majority of Bruins tumblr view him as their Dad. Common nicknames include Dadkes and Papa, and his effect on the team after being brought back into the line-up during the playoffs has endeared him to fans. While his deal is… not great (he’s expensive!!) and he hasn’t performed up to how much money he’s paid, it’s clear that he’s a leader on the team. The young guys look up to him, and the older guys respect him, and that’s what we’s appreciates ‘bout him. Also. He LOVES animals. Backes and his wife Kelly (who have known each other since kindergarten how cute is that shit) have their own charity that helps animals!! (Forward (Winger/Center), #42, currently 2nd line)

- Were you really into magic as a kid (or currently)? Have you always gravitated to your one friend’s dad who was super quiet but super smart and taught you how to play chess at that cookout one time? Then your new dad is David Krejci! Sometimes called The Wizard, Krejci is known to make magic happen on the ice. Between no-look passes and somehow being able to know exactly where his wingers are going to be before they even know, tbh. Krej is probably the MOST underrated player on the Bruins, but he’s always dependable, and always seems to be there when you need him.  (Forward (Center), #46, 2nd Line)

Step 3: pick your weirdo

- Have you never eaten a vegetable willingly in your life? Do you consider yourself a chef - specifically for children? Do you think getting your teeth knocked out is fun and exciting? Then Jake “JD” DeBrusk is the dude for you! Goofy AF off the ice and a sniper on it, Jake is extremely worthy of being your chosen weirdo. He has a lucky winter hat named “tuukka” that he’s been wearing all playoffs, and he might only have one brain cell but we love him for it. At one point called a draft bust, Jake has been proving himself to be an elite player, and has been a steady winger for Krejci all season. Plus. He’s cute af. (Forward (winger), #74, 2nd Line)

- Is getting under other people’s skin one of your favorite activities? Do you like to piss people off by being better than them at everything? Does licking someone’s face in the middle of a hockey game seem like a Good Idea to you? Back in step number one did you chose Patrice Bergeron as your Lord and Savior? Then Boston’s favorite Pest - Brad Marchand - is the guy for you! Brad started off as an undersized fourth liner, and has worked his way up to one of the top scorers in the league. Outside of Boston he’s probably the most hated player in the NHL - earning himself a reputation for being a pest (at best), and sometimes being dirty (at worst). This year we are proud to announce that he did not get suspended once! Though he did come in just short of 100 Penalty Minutes. Marchy was our top scorer this year, and has become an integral part of this team. (Forward (winger), #63, 1st Line)

- Are you secretly an arsonist? Are frogs your favorite animal? Do you have a crush on that Pretty Jock that’s in all your classes and sometimes smiles at you in the lunch line? Then Danton Heinen is the weirdo for you. Danton has been a quietly steady performer for the Bruins this season, spending time on the top line with Bergeron and Marchand when Pasta was out. He’s growing into quite the play maker, and he’s known for making good decisions on the ice that lead to goals. Danton also happens to look like a frog, which is an important character trait imo. He’s a tumblr favorite, but he’s a good person to like even in real life, because he makes an impact on the ice. (Forward (winger), #43, 3rd Line)

Step 4: chose your conventionally attractive white boy

- OKay we’re not doing the questions thing because judging by your ask you may not even be interested in men so i’m just going to dive straight into the description. He’s tall with a strong jaw and perfect curls and pecs of a God. Charlie Coyle is a Weymouth, MA native who Boston brought back home at the trade deadline. He’s been a bit of a hero this playoff run, and he looks damn good doing it. The B’s have been searching for a good 3rd line center, and Charlie has filled the role perfectly. Personally, I am deeply in love with him, in case you could not tell. (Forward (center/winger), #13, 3rd Line)

- an integral member of the Bruin’s all important Line 1A (aka the 4th line), Sean Kuraly has got it all. Piercing blue eyes? Check. Perfectly highlighted hair? Check. Cute little chin? Double check. Though he’s been photographed wearing jorts and an open flannel shirt with nothing underneath it, Sean is still a certified Babe. He’s been Klutch in every playoff run he’s had with the B’s, and is the scoring force behind the 4th Line’s brawn. Not to mention, his signature celly is a leap from the ice! (Forward, (center/winger), #52, 4th Line)

- Brandon Carlo… how do I begin to explain Brandon Carlo? Brandon Carlo is flawless. He has two bible tattoos and a designer bulldog. I hear his hair is insured for $10,000. I hear he does Tri-City Americans commercials… in Washington. His favorite movie is Miracle. One time he met David Backes on a plane… and he told him he was pretty. One time he punched me in the face… it was awesome (’cause he missed). In all seriousness though, Monte is a hardworking, defensive defenseman, who has really shone this season. He doesn’t show up on the scoreboard often, but he makes it really hard for other teams to get goals. Even though he struggles to score empty netters... he’s still a babe. (Defense, #25, 2nd Pair)

Step 5: Chose your shorty

- If you’re thinking - wait, shouldn’t Marchand be in this category? Isn’t he the smallest guy in the World? Then Torey Krug is the Short King for you. An ELITE offensive defenseman, Torey is absolute dynamite on the ice. In game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals Torey made history by becoming the first Bruins player ever to record 4 points in a stanley cup finals game. Krug is quick on his feet and can snipe from the blue line, but isn’t afraid to lay down the law when he needs to. Notorious for loosing his helmet so he can show off that flow, Torey also has a bulldog named fenway and a BABY on the way. (Defense, #47, 2nd Pair).

- Is talk shit, get hit a favorite saying of yours? Can you appreciate biceps the size of your head? Then Noel Acciari is your man. He might be short but he’s built like a tank, and he uses that bod to plow through guys on the ice. Noeldozer is known for laying down the cleanest hits, and we love when he takes out the trash! The Rhode Island Native got married last summer, and has a golden retriever named Thor. His mouth is currently fucked right up but I promise he’s actually kinda pretty. (Forward (winger/center), #55, 4th Line)

- Are you one of the apparent hoards of people that think a Boston accent is sexy? Could you get into a guy who says the fuck word on live television? Are collarbone tattoos a thing you admire? Do you like sexy, tough little son’s of bitches? Great! Matt Grzelcyk is the little guy for you. A BU grad who’s become a cornerstone of the Bruins d-core, Grz is a tough little cutie who works hard and gets shit done. More of an offensive defenseman, Matty G has been there for the team even when all of our other defenseman were injured. His Dad has worked at the Gahden for like a million years, and playing for the B’s is a dream come true for Matt and his family. He got taken out in Game 2 of the Finals, and the Bruins are currently seeking revenge. Dude’s got a good beard going too. (Defense, #48, 3rd Pair)

Step 6: Pick your goalie

- As much as we love Jaro, there’s only one goalie you need to know about when you’re learning about the Bruins... 2 U’s 2 K’s 2 Points... Tuukka Rask! The clear MVP of the Playoffs this year, Tuukka has been a brick wall in the net for the B’s. He’s known for being quick tempered and a little... wild, at times, having been caught on camera beating the shit out of a bunch of milk crates and on time brandishing a skate blade at the refs like a knife. Though some fans seem to never forgive Tuukka for the B’s loosing the 2013 playoffs, around these parts we love and respect and rely on his prowess in the net. Off ice, he kinda looks like the grinch (and knows it), though apparently Bergy thinks he looks like Harry Styles (i wish i was kidding). He’s also got 2 adorable little girls! (GOALIE, starter)

So now you’ve got 6 guys that you know about, right? I would pick 1 or 2 of those to be the ones you pay attention to. Listen for headlines about their goals/play, if you’re watching games, look for their numbers on the ice. All you gotta do is be able to say “Wow did you see that Coyle goal on Saturday night?” and all of a sudden you sound like an expert! (This works even better of you choose a guy not from the first category). 

If you have more questions about specific players or lines, feel free to reach out! I know not a lot but I know many people who actually do know things lol

(Also to any of Bruins tumblr who made it this far, I KNOW i’m missing your faves okay. Wagner, Clifton, Nordy, MoJo, Moore, and half the providence roster deserve a spot on here. But I’ve already written too much)

(Also Also, special thanks to Lil for helping me with Monte’s description) 

[limejuicer1862]

Acknowledgements

Thankyou to Jane Cornwell for designing the front cover.

May 1

..looks like you are drowning..

part one

looks like you are drowning & hope i am wrong. i can see the struggle the turn about in water.

i have done that too pat says that i have paid the price but i wonder

i hope you survive come clean bare your feathers.

fly high

if not i will lay a petal and think of you

as i think of the others that drowned before you that had no feathers

part two,

it looks like you are drowning again shall I jump in to save you and maybe sink myself or shall I wait to see to lay a flower at our feet

part three

maybe you are not drowning really that I made it up and you are dancing like the others

while people die and we lay flowers in memoriam corona

part four

you are floating maybe; I did that for hours went spongy, now face reality and I still think that you are drowning like the others.

-sonja benskin mesher

concrete reasoning

gray day: i am out for a walk when a sidewalk camellia begs myriad questions:

runaway bride?

garden club mishap? rejected proposal? hothouse runaway? centerpiece rebel?

confronted by the unexplained, the human drive to make order from chaos is relentless.

whatever the story, the end is the same: beauty appears and we can only wonder …

with a schedule to keep and no answers at hand i press onward, feeling the inner bloom of nascent gratitude.

-Rich Follett

MF 1

*

Every time I find clay in the garden, beneath a rosebush, say, I find slate too. This is just something I have noticed over the course of a year. It is not necessary to mention these things, especially now, I suppose. I am not happy unless I’m pouring something – tomato feed. I am Philip Levine’s Burial Rights, I recall Bei Dao. These days, I feel the trick to a good carpark, to feel anything, is my proximity to this flower arrangement.

JK 1

*

A story of three fish might be fish bones in a field for birds. Koi feeding, koi feed in a garden centre, at the next junction. Fish bent back over backwards, in blue paint. Scattered to the water’s edge a handful of dirt, to a handful of colour, blue scales at the centre of the field, a water mark, a stone left unturned.

-Alex Mazey

The Life of Petals

We use flowers to mark occasions– Weddings and funerals. The petals linger only briefly, But the sentiment still hangs Heavy in the air, years after Like pollen That settled over and over again On our patio table and chairs, All those long Midwestern summers When heat robbed our lungs of breath. And Wildflowers, not cut-storebought ones, marked a different time, Of an everyday type. Now, cut flowers feel gluttonous to me. And petals bless us with The gentleness of how life ought to be.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/petals.m4a

-st

Utopia Burning

Warnings ignored from many a social self appointed warlord Echoes of dissident discord striking a high-pitched off key note As hungry flames lick and lash causing an apocalyptic molten urban and suburban foretold mess Whispered by familiar oracles their verbal miracles documenting their fiery cautionary chronicles Of systems slowly imploding temperaments exploding fake veneers and smiles exfoliating as ignorant masses squawk for a helping hand from those witnessing their demise and burning squirming shedding acid tears for Utopia burning…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/utopia-burning-mp3.mp3

© Don Beukes

Still Silent

No sound, water jelly flat, so still it hurts my ears. Even sun slides silently into autumn’s metal light.

All jamboree, clang and din now far away in time. Even breath is offensive here, in case of ripple and slapping rocks.

I cannot read or turn a page lest a mumble or paper scrape, escape and shatter the loch. Like a breaking glass to a rousing cheer, as all that knowledge gets out.

So I stare at reflections in late day waters reliable quiet, but maybe their heat is not that hot.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/still-silent.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 30th April 2020.

The sweet flower’s heart Wilting on the cold, hard slab My love’s final gift

-Carrie Ann Golden

Camellia

You lay beautiful and gasping alone on Tithonian stone. A sudden fall from grace, petal broken angel: forage for sweeper winds.

Transient as summer days. Temperate these forevers soon fade to winter grey. Dog-day memories cannot abide short-day cold.

What are you, I wonder? A love certified in Bacchus’s dance or a loved one certified and boxed in tears and brown ale.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/camellia.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 30th March 2020.

The giant fish takes back the myth

The morning before she was to become a story the sea was baited quiet, the kind that silks

all desire down to swish. To decide to leap from one cool world to another just for breakfast

is to bare your colours to the scaling knife of the wind, and she did – her fireback beacon launched

for the brief protein of flying legs. How often we fail to see that dark hull waiting, we beasts so full up

with the rush of living for our risks. And the shape of the poised hero held no meaning, to a fish

but oh the shimmerhook, like all the moons her eye’s nightcoin had ever purchased

from deep beneath the water, and there is the lust, the swish- -and want. The glowworm crescent to silver her belly.

We all want to shine in fullness. Only heroes are given names in these stories.

For her need she was translated into an island, and I am running the delicate gasp of her jaws

in the shape of this coast, forever straining for the hook and still called only fish

even with all we have made of her. Every time I desire to transcend my quiet water, I forget the heroes

and leap from her skin, and hope that landing empty

but with one eye fixed on the moon every night after this will be enough.

-Ankh Spice

Beheaded Camelia’s

delicate red petals last longer on the less travelled path. Flash of disappearing red lace, paper thin survival. Unbroken in bright sunlight, bright on grey stone. Destruction stays at home to avoid destruction.

The red wing is allowed space to revolve reflect in water. “Temporary” like the word “soon”, a duration undecided.

-Paul Brookes

  May 2

..scratching..

quiet now

we can hear the birds no problem one lorry on the road essential travel

then

we hear the scratching

when dark comes comes the scuttlings

flutterings outside

bats fly round our houses

inside others live and die

the fly

&

the moth comes lovely soft and tasteful

nothing distasteful

we saves them lifts them out the bath a dry flannel as assistance

remember that fly in the room you wanted to swat for annoying. left alone it went quietly away

night came full of sounds

mice scratching enough to leave

marks

enough to leave marks

the fly does

buzz when it flies buzz as it dies

zzzzzt

-sonia benskin mesher

*

Inclined to mention the halo of a mountain, somewhere I am fourteen years old. This is a mountain behind a house where I still remain, in this thought-process, every child chews spearmint gum. It is definitely spearmint gum, and the mountain is only a halo, now, this time, elsewhere. Like, I don’t know, like Mark Fisher says, this stasis has been buried – ‘the inventor of the term, a frustrating thinker’.

*

In the summer’s taped shut windows, without seeing flies in years.

Hit mosquitos against the wall, once observing blood left behind.

-Alex Mazey

Geyser

Soul rumbles as grumble dark bellows push their boiling fist. Hot drops, boiled rain.

Angry fats splatter into faint signs, streaks of early mournful light.

Fire waters bubble and churn chained by conventions, damned by convection. In breaking songs of earth’s heat, brash displays of prorogued grief.

Water crouches, fluid evasive. As pain it cannot be broken. Desire free to flow, hurt a haunt of generations.

So strictures die and violence will be a multiple of passing times.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/geyser.m4a

-©️ Dai Fry 1st May 2020.

In memory of those left behind : 9 December 2019

Sun’s first sleep-breath sweets the dropped shoulder of te puia whakaari, her bones

in early mistlight, are all grace and delicate pickings, gulled clavicles of a hard dancer, stilled. Coiled tension, resting.

It is hard to recognise a haunting, in the rose-gilt of sunrise. Do you know her name? When you recognised it, did you forget to exhale? Release your living now to cloud

the pane we do not see – watch deep scratches creep across this vision. The guardians are always here, and the light oh the light may change any moment.

-Ankh Spice

The Yellow Forest

Awakening – Dry mouth burning eyes skin burn, breathe. Pin point vision echoing mission failed fission, inhale. Heavy feet slow reaction no connection – A siren a siren! Wake up stand up react retract, breathe.

Forest Walk – Dislodge move seek react engage stop! Burning embers leaves glowing eagles falling feathers floating, breathe. Listen observe – A lark hark the warning A flash a flash, breathe. Eyes open sight broken, breathe.

Chokehold – Black river dead fish foul odour slow down, Breathe. Soil on fire charcoal roots sprouting rotten fruit – Stop smell retreat, breathe. Dead of night presence sucking remaining air laboured breathing heartbeat slowing – Find the opening, breathe. Look beware – Run!

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-yellow-forest-mp3.mp3

The Gamdroela

Far beyond the Hottentotshuisie Mountains, a mythical creature awaits to reward the chosen one – Elected by the Bokmakierie Korrelkop, a strange elusive soothsayer, traditionally enshrined to make a wise choice – A new ruler for the remote Belhar nation to once again wear the sacred crown of Sekueb Nodmai, she whose voice still echo from deep within the Bolemakiesie marshlands – A treacherous journey awaits the young Tandpyn, Prince of the Bloekomboom tree nation, whose Lands have nearly been scorched bare by the Fiery blizzards of Macassar – Now charged with the ultimate sacrifice, crossing the Moddergat fynbos wetlands to eventually reach the steep trail leading up to Fluweeltjie – Lair of the ancient Gamdroela , a kleurvolle Colourful but powerful oracle who will Decide on the worthiness of the young Tandpyn…

-Don Beukes

The Dream

I had a dream last night Of walking thru a forest-like place Filled with earthy illuminances

I could barely make out the sharp Round edges of branches and limbs Bathed in a heavenly glow

These trees, so strange yet so familiar These giants, so murky yet so real Their aromatic odors filled my essence

And for the briefest of moments I believed to be back home among these ancient pines Until my eyes opened to the sterile white walls

-Carrie Ann Golden

Fly Away, Dream

When television broadcasting Ended after late night news And comedy shows, yellow, blue, magenta hues

On test patterns Would send humanity To bed, to fly away wistfully,

As on insect wings, To a place of dreams And endless possibilities.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/fly-away-dream.m4a

-st

flaiku

what to us is dross is a rainbow to the fly perspective is key

-Rich Follett

Her Splash Of Veins

flutters, is still, proboscis twitch. Flutters, is still, twitch.

Splash of wheat in fields, Flutters as flywings.

Strands of wheat flywalk skin as she passes she swats the touch away.

Till as she treads down more stalks into the unmade bread of the field bunches of wheat stroke her thighs and she smiles at the bright sun of it all.

Snatches a stalk, lets it hang from her mouth a proboscis tremble in the gust of her dreams of flight above the ready to be harvested grain rises toward sun blaze newly risen

warm bread a splash of veins in full colour, breathes in her baked youth like goodness.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/her-splash-of-veins.m4a

-Paul Brookes

May 3.

.severn bridge.

it was a long journey

well you do don’t you. you travel .

you do what you has to do with love

even if things are difficult.

I feel it was just before the bridge

later they changed the name of it

there was this tree in a garden and I guess still there

through april we saw it bud as we passed going down

bloomed as we returned

later petals fell

then the reason for the journey failed and

left

yet

when I see a magnolia tree I remember

I remember sultry days in the long grass dried over

by cuckoo woods over there

catching them, dry creatures singing

looking them over and gently placing them back

the woman on the corner watched, looking over

the back

one arm missing

I remember a lot of things

-sonja benskin mesher

*

To be as impressed with flowers, as other people, is to achieve something worthwhile. Here, Pentti Linkola – deep ecology, disappointment, hands, prying open a bird box. Dead mammals, the small bones of a petal, inside, the entire remit of clichés involving death. Yes, another listy death poem, another regression. Another impressive notion of right and wrong. Cats underwater, drowning, observing these flowers in my hands, the branches, etc.

*

To be as impressed with bugs, as other people, is to achieve something worthwhile.

-Alex Mazey

Tears For Lichen

On the flat stone she wept her thousand regrets. Wax petals, a mother’s confetti of pink tears.

This was a song a descant to winter-tide. Of lighter months, not to the stone of dark grey lands carrying lichen kisses.

And as the lichen looks, death’s breath rattles and waxed tears wash abandoned to stoney seas.

A flower’s shower a softer form of rain. As the tree reaches out, tentative fingers touch her children’s clothes.

Ancient fruits that grew before first flight arced, beetles climbed these trees: ancient crawling bees.

Mitochondrial Eve, as magnolia flowers breathed, oxygen rich and rot from the seas.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/tears-for-lichen.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 2nd May 2020.

Lullaby of the Cicadas

The Flood – Stuck in mourning darkness every twilight sadness for loved ones lost, I weakly attempt to bravely to bravely attempt my inner flood walls but then despair breaks through, Threatening my brittle fading halo, so I let it seep a little- Just to taste the pain once more but as always like before, I allow a faint chorus to penetrate through the dark cavities of my soul as I listen to a lullaby of cicadas calming me healing me comforting me shielding me – Saving me.

Chorus of the Nymphs – We come from dormant Slumber to share our essence with you. Allow us to numb the melancholic hum in your soul. Let us gather notes of eons ago echoing from ancient forest trees to deliver a new symphony – Hoping to set your mind free from recurring soul-eating melodies.

Emergence – The mornings seem to radiate brighter into these faded streets of my mind, where dagger smiles are replaced with hopeful eyes, willing me to turn back into a brightening awakening aura, beckoning my new tomorrow, so I willingly follow the faint strange welcoming sounds of a new song – Joining the throng of lost souls eager to emerge Renewed, healed. Fading sadness penetrated by a lullaby of cicadas…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/lullaby-of-the-cicadasmp3.mp3

© Don Beukes

We Are the Wildflowers

Wildflowers and weeds Bear a striking resemblance To one another, Differentiated mostly By the kindness of time and Human trials. What one calls A weed, another calls a perennial. And, garden walls meant to Contain them are Only masquerading as effective barriers. Aren’t we all held back by Human hands that pull and grab, or Allowed to thrive, By the grace of the benevolent?

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/we-are-the-wildflowers.m4a

-st

Tanka for the last of the magnolias

Long smooth clouds bloom high sugar-pink tower turrets domes open to wind fall reborn – coracles sail lichen archipelago

-Ankh Spice

southern descent

sweet magnolia summer storm wind-strewn petals on lichen and stone

feather-soft gentility belies a core of tempered steel

southern by grace— survivor by design survivor by

-Rich Follett

A Locust

In our oral tales others see us as plague. Let us starve to feed their children.

I don’t swarm.

I contemplate sat on the viscous membrane of this water.

Oppose my senses:

To avoid mirrors. Fly around them not into them as death will be your final image.

I only see an image of myself.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/a-locust.m4a

-Paul Brookes

  May 4

.shrink.

the child psychiatrist and oh how we can spell that lodged up the stone steps at the clinic the air was nice that day and she was shown blobs said they were butterflies watched the dolls act and said that was junk really

that father had just run off with another woman that was how they talked then he probably walked maybe hurried to get away

declared sane at eleven left at half past with the gift of a bible kept for the ages

thought that was rubbish too

she was small in that place

shrink

-sonja benskin mesher

*

So many people give birth to nothing. This line is extremely unimpressive, but knot ties, in some small way, to something tangible, outside of the self, like this painting, like this person, not waving nor drowning; Linkola’s cats, Murakami’s cats, the cats in a Studio Ghibli animation, like the girl-witch from Kiki’s Delivery Service, like the fading behind Mark Fisher, a fisher man, a fisher man like Pentti Linkola, dying in 2020.

*

I am not all that impressed with the technological ability to view, with intricate detail, the delicate impressions of a wing. It seems eyes can form, into the deoxyribonucleic acid, into many things. Enthusiasm is not located in a scientific word. It is not so fascinating – really.

-Alex Mazey

Quiet Please

I take my bow, it is really yours. Proud bends the back of the master. Semaphored arms embrace acoustic gold.

The tenants appraise, heads in silenced rows. Bodies rustle, anticipation is subsumed into soft cough and quiet creak.

All is submission as a pin of fallen angels sprawls across the floor. Equations their silent recitals while music sits patient as an obedient hound.

So now… To elevate a multitude of trailing notes. Spinning of helicopter leaves in a brass breeze. A syncing of vibration and desire pitches each point perfect, till buttercup soft lit hard and sharp, under home’s dull light. Sour as summer lemon trees. Then boom-dark crash, as water calling dead souls to the combe.

And all this while in a discomfort of seats, ears make ready to meet the brightling core that sits within.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/quite-please.m4a

-©. Dai Fry 3rd May 2020.

The Speech

Shadow Nation – We exist in cold shadows where our fading echoes are drowned by your bulldozers in the name of progress – Yet in the dead of night you stalk us hunt us to delete us silence us mock us bury us until we float away as ash a hush – Outcasts

We, the Mothers – We gave you life but your journey crossed unknown paths, bowing down to greedy gods sucking your soul dry but you welcomed promised riches licked bitter molasses with gravy train false preachers, Forgetting your inherent good essence resulting in your Foretold death sentence. Our grief is no relief our warnings Faded into nothing as you left us broken, eternally hurting…

Vision X – Your world is no more. You are here but in another sphere another existence an alternative reality because of your foolish insistence to enact nuclear annihilation, depleting all nations. You stare at me but your voice is muted as you attempt to explain your existential burning pain still searing through your perforated punctured soul – How you willingly participated in a man-made selfish senseless final war to claim the ultimate earthly prize – Ruling the global village, oh how wrong you were! Thinking you would last your nuclear winter but you melted each other deleted each other destroyed your earthly legacy by your insatiable hunger for power.

Well, here you are – Stuck on Planet X, destined to find no eternal rest whilst dead stars of eons ago further darken this existence and the light of exploded suns now blind your new vision…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-speech-mp3.mp3

© Don Beukes

In This Place

Wings do not fly. Mirrors do not reflect. Arms raised ask for folk to lie face down on the floor.

Decay is praised. Illness is needed. Death is requested.

Life is despised. Nurses are criminals. information is disinformation.

Paranoia is wanted. Conspiracies are welcomed. Demands are never met.

Government advice must be ignored. All advice has a use by date. Use by dates are decided by us all.

Control is freedom. Take back control.

-Paul Brookes

inside my name

dream state, Monday, 2 AM mothwing Navajo vagina; Georgia O’Keeffe portal to an alternate universe; Rohrschach montage of feminine puissance with Bette Davis eyelashes and cheerleader breasts

transfixed, i plunge into its pulsing core emerging in grade school where I wrote my name in conté on clean white paper folded and then opened— wrote so carefully, never crossing the midline— then just as carefully colored in the loops and angles, folded the paper back again (folded it like a prayer) and rubbed it with a block of wood

we were told to expect other worlds when we opened that fold again— told that secrets would be revealed

i did not see other worlds i saw only what seemed to be sidewalk chalk art marred by sudden summer rain

i have waited five decades for this morphologic grace— this mothwing Navajo vagina; Georgia O’Keeffe portal to an alternate universe; Rohrschach montage of feminine puissance with Bette Davis eyelashes and cheerleader breasts

dream state, Monday, 3 AM i wake with grateful tears, having seen at last inside my name …

-Rich Follett

Lockdown scored for one instrument

After noticing you have gritted your teeth (these days contain all we cannot bite gone) choose a tuning shape. Knot yourself closed, or petal out your limbs towards the constant poke of the world. Either way you annotate a rest. Either way you are not how you began, and you may hear the breath drawn at the beginning of the stave. Music is always quivering somewhere in the darkness of a body; in a chamber of polished wood in the auditorium of bone (that same clench heavying shoulders). Tune your knot. Turn your wood. Poise the humming star of your frame and play, unbowed or wound, just play until your last string breaks.

-Ankh Spice

Entrapment

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal” –Matt. 6:19

Trapped between Window and pane, Moth wings open and shut Like pages of a book. Dust

Flutters forth From the cover Between which words, too, Are trapped, unable to do

Their work, live and breathe, Seek and find, call forth action, Convey the power to believe. I am a moth. Set me free.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/entrapment.m4a

-st

The Artist, for Day Four, Part One

An artist’s mind Unlike the rest of the masses Is a visionary kind Reality to him May be pretend to others He bends on a whim

-Carrie Ann Golden

  *

My goal in life is the destruction of 5G masts. I cut my sandwich into triangles as a lower-middle class pretension. Back outside, my window, one time, a cream room, a view of the street’s antenna. The problem with David Lynch is how he makes too much sense. Back in the simulacrum, a boy, my age, rangers in North America, first as tragedy, then as… ironing out our balaclavas, filling out our milk bottles; backpacks unattended on park benches, on the bus.

*

A page of Baudrillard, hides the truth to view witnesses fraying little by little into ruins, discernible ruined empire, rotting carcass of the soil double ends simulation, this fabled second-order no longer that of a territory, no longer saturated, a hyperreal map one must

return without origin, shreds unusable a questionable sovereign difference – the charm abstraction, the coextensivity of poetry, the representation produced no imaginary. Operational, in fact, no longer memory radiating synthesis, no space without atmosphere, no worse

curvature. Imitation, nor duplication; leaving room for simulated liquidation.

-Alex Mazey

.the title changes.

there is too much interference things could be left alone things were alright anyway

the battery is low yet plugged in the radio buzzes.

things are distorted

so i did what he says, whilst running up and down the stairs.

source to av, only there aint no av, not on that one anyhow.

press my scart lead, that is probably it.

press the sky button, the sky does not respond.

we still has television snow.

mine are bifocal and can distort gently if i concentrate poorly on the centre i have had help a while grateful at least that i can see unlike some of my family

yesterday I watched a documentary about monkeys

-sonja benskin mesher

The new starboard

Our larvae split their skin in the signal-fry, warmed over by the wire-witched currents of one filigree moon in a hundredweight sky

and if we no longer see the stars how do they counsel a chart for a new grub, or pull a blood’s spirit-iron toward the dissolving north

and if we no longer feel these waves how may we know our own water, what deeps us for the giddy bubble of this sailing. And I know

there are rocks here still, they make chimneys of it to vent everything we can’t burn railing sparks against the sky- silver that meshes none of our tides true

and it will rain hot tonight, the sizzle pelting the new hatchlings

-Ankh Spice

Of Forest And Stick

Foe forest, faux forest fee-fi-fo forest. Where giants hurl their broken stories from broadcast heaven to stone cast ground. Real, this least of things.

Inarticulate metal arms pluck down your dreams, to place within the flakes of soul slow dying desiccation.

Sick insects wave. These metal poles sway clamped to roof and breast.

All point as one, their martyr fingers show. As minds walk psychotic in their circular days.

To stars and planets that orbit our night sleep late night drunk deep on their celestial milky ways.

Antennae wave hello. Behind smudged glass walls as we sit and stare into this aquarium hell of our own making.

As we spread across our furniture of forked cartons, plastic and messy despair We start to take on our corrupt story.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/of-forest-and-stick.m4a

© Dai Fry 4th May 2020.

Reception

Quiet the cluttered airways. Listen. Too many voices reaching skyward, Clamoring for reception, Propelling selfhood upward,

Destroys collaborative Synergy. And interference causes failure. After all, Man-made towers were only Ever meant to fall.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/reception.m4a

-st

Every Stem Is

an aerial, antennae whose signal carries an image and a sound of growth and bloom.

Leaves are directors, flagellum, reach out, test the air and vibrations.

Listen can your hear the messages, or is it distorted,

image overlaid on image, sound overlaid on sound?

It processes fake news, phishing and cyber attacks. discerns real from false. scents and trails.

A filter bubble, an information sceptic decides what diminishes it, what makes it grow.

what makes it turn towards warmth, towards brightness.

More than a conduit.

-Paul Brookes

effluorescence

concrete flowerbed: aluminium amaranths dream of fecund earth

-Rich Follett

These gray structures loom Like a dead alloy forest A mill’s epitaph

-Carrie Ann Golden

The Arrival (EEN)

Blue eclipse sudden shudder silver vibrations strange sensations mauve hues silent screams shattered dreams rainbow screams black void bleak skies pink cries identity hides no way out seek beware who goes there wait stop where no here why there marble hush turquoise crush hide smile cry illusion confusion static wailing connections failing conscience melting blood moon a light alight powder dawn seek destroy rebuild regenerate no rescue failed sight emerald night pyramid flight incoming yellow tongue purple feast horrible sightings a drone atone leave us alone lavender glass chards charge cut chaos comet rush – Reverse

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-arrival-een-mp3.mp3

The Arrival (TWEE)

Falling earth new birth cosmic boom blast break away descend evacuate take position brace brave pathetic beast eject object reject investigate attack no way back hold blinding strobe light up get up move no room fire storm go swerve dive testing resting make haste chase erase record a face strange days delete reboot reverse rethink incoming homecoming survive surrender sharp solar bursts the thirst implosion ration succession orchestration new nation sinking earth toxic rebirth black hole tar soul screeching silence severed signals strange sour suns

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-arrival-twee-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

.

MF6

I run my hand over my past,

Where did the time go?

How trite to ask. How human.

I want to feel where a picture

Made by a child must’ve been

Until adolescence tore it up.

I want to see where a head

Chipped the paint.

Where did the time go?

#6

how I remember mama:

recumbent with cucumber slices

hot stuff on a blazing beach

between her lover,

her life, and others;

that would be her children,

playing ball discreetly

In the lathering surf

with a Portuguese Man of War

-Elizabeth Moura

Abstractions

Making sense of abstract pale green The mind reads as moss Which proliferates into vegetation. Hen and chicks begin again In repurposed terrariums From some old Mother’s Day, Signifying children and growth; Elders and death; Soil and air Until abstract greys and greens Are life force made concrete.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/abstractions.m4a

-st

Yellow Mars

Stretched beyond any story, outside of organic memory. Time lives without passing. It’s life: a slow definition of measure in stain.

When I was young I saw a bright yellow lichen near the sea. I wanted to lick it to sense and to taste it. This bright, lives there still.

Yellow as gorse flower orange as rust. Lichen covers our world.

On the ISS they breathed the vacuum and survived. One day they will turn Mars yellow.

Then: On a clear night you may see a lichen star.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/yellow-mars.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 5th May 2020.

Shift

When what was left of the mountain heaved the men were stroking the ground with their tillers and to the worried horses, whose ancestors had been told for three hundred years that men knew what they were doing it seemed the infant was soothed, that the tired-out dirt had simply sighed and turned over. And so they nodded the great brushbrooms of their blinkered heads and stepped forward onto the grey scree, between the lines of unmade earth, and the unmountain wept as she received them into her hot belly. And swirling with their blades the motes of dust that were only sadness, floating the men said to each other ‘but why were the horses so stupid?’ and the trees, the only wild green left in miles and miles and miles of neatly turned fields shuffled close on the ridge, hiding completely the great wave roaring in, that water briefly the same shape as the mountain’s memory of herself

-Ankh Spice

..faceless ..

faceless

from nowhere, no name nor eyes yet we saw the bloodied halo

angel power and dominion

swept through silent almost biblical if you #readthat note how the layout is columns, numbered stanzas unlike other books tied away in cupboards

here was black and smudges then carefully we drew her out all tidy with reason, wearing us down

wearing the kimono corona wearing the coat corona whatever you wear corona

faced away

only stone set before set like fire in empty barns

#readthat

the social worker was a bitch back then

#didyoureadthat?

gongbi guise

painted silk or weathered stone? where vision ends imagination begins

artist’s paean to nature or nature’s paean to art? perfection neither asks nor answers

-Rich Follett

Tenalp Htrae

Earth Whispers – Light years have passed since leaving our blue planet, only white noise echoes remain of a world imploded by human negligence of a fragile natural existence meant to sustain maintain billions of our former human species but our ancient predecessors plundered misused abused neglected and rejected what Earth had to offer – Yet they were destined to suffer for ignoring existential warnings of natural resources depleted excavated extracted annihilated – To the point of meltdown. Now all we see are the historical images shown to new generations born in a new world a new existence a new consciousness.

Bleeding Earth – Any hope of ever returning to our ancestral home is slowly burning as eons of efforts to detect new life has come to an abrupt end – New footage reveal a dismal reality of a tired planet bleeding it’s waters evaporated by swirling fire tornados rocks melting fauna and flora now long gone fossils – The life-giving atmosphere now a toxic choking layer, So we still mourn our forced lonely new daily dismal Dawn on planet Tenalp Htrae, light years away…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/tenalp-htrae-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

The Many

clocks of her face tick as the world decays and rusts.

Some say to her your clocks have no hands. Some say to her you’ve no idea of time.

Your timing is all over the place, clock arms, clock lungs, clock legs, clock heart but no clock face.

Knows her blood and breath tell the time, beat precision and control her faces watch the world’s decline.

Knows within her time is a rhythm without clocks, a body that tells time every month, her hidden scars and bruises show time passes.

-Paul Brookes

*

The clause in a tenancy agreement states that party B must wipe down the walls – otherwise they begin to resemble shoeboxes. Faded, yellowing entropy. Decay reminds us of those things liberated from the passage of time. Melancholic disposition reminds us to be fun at parties. Back home, alone, right now, wipe the walls, watch a Studio Ghibli animation, at least you had Kiki in the other one. I have photoshopped her in – there.

*

If Baudrillard referred to a liquidation of all referentials – then this must be a liquidation. I should rewrite all history with my profound, transcendental sense of right and wrong.

=Alex Mazey

  psychic caterwaul

one dimension away Hieronymus Bosch’s housecats frolic beneath a papier-mâché moon howling and miaowing in a demonic felid mardis gras

here on earth, a fair trade toyshop window— nothing to fear and yet …

-Rich Follett

Act like you were never for sale

Those were the days in which we felt our flutter hard and bright as a burning, painted thing, and those were the days when we painted our feelings on each others’ faces with pure sugar and unguent-of-anthers, and those were the days when faces would touch cheeks intimately, brief and baked electric with proper unsaids, and those were the days when the electric that moved us moved us in that little pond of footlights like a swirl of young eels, so slender, such good teeth, and those were the days when company meant we played together well and no-one forgot their lines or missed a step, or when they did the painted faces laughed kindly, and not like they had smelled blood in the water or finally seen the glass, the tags, and some of that last part is a lie. But a pretty lie, sticky with fertile anthers, and we bite into it again and again, this cake so sweet we know it only makes us sick

-Ankh Spice

.mouse.

are you dancing there you tiny creatures and are you happy with this music

should I cut it straight and hard in layers or leave it to grow?

are you dancing there together to your own tunes and remarkable tangents

or will you advise on the steps to take while moving ahead

most people’s hair looks gentle natural

there is no need for masquerade or pantomimes we cannot have the gatherings these days

you know he cut my hair for years and we became good friends . visited charleston together the farm house not the jig though the style would have suited the era so the mouse

keeps dancing jim

-sonja benskin mesher

*

A shop window like Hunter S. Thompson, at eleven o’clock, on a week day. A medium to large dose of LSD that I have never tried. In Mark Fisher’s Ghosts, Burial never went to a rave in the 90s, which informs, the apparition, the residue of what’s left. People have a perverse interest in windows, shop windows, specifically, glass operating as both a means of access and exclusion. This is the Baudrillardian analysis.

*

Impressed with the circulation of the body

my entire outlook becomes the deconstruction of the human being

into a clockwork machine.

-Alex Mazey

Little Gods

Artists and scientists are Little gods who make the World make sense, make Things fit together, or do not– At their discretion. Chaos and order, Macro and micro, Beauty and disgust, Must meet, hold hands Like humans used to Before we were all Forced off the canvass, Becoming scattered pieces instead.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/little-gods.m4a -st

Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

Patient quiet shadowed, still. Not blink, but glide wet eyes. My whiskers sing electric song and muscles ripple, as claws give flex, in deep forever breath.

A present, payment for my board. Fresh meat for the clumsy, They that cannot hunt. While I eat flies and wasps that sting.

Pain is fine its just a thing. So busy grooming, hunting and holding my lands. I sleep where I want and how I please. I have no master.

Under sun, on soil paper or wool, its all the one to me.

And to those too big to hunt and kill, I spread my scent. This meat is mine.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/pussy-cat-pussy-cat.m4a

©️ Dai Fry May 6th 2020.

The Gamdroela

I roam this galaxy alone searching aimlessly for signs of my origins with only infinity as my reality but I yearn to touch a dead star maybe even lick the frozen remains of an ancient comet long gone – I sometimes hear the echoes of far flung cosmic explosions and I can feel the empty of nothing expanding yet I am not swallowed up into black holes transporting me to other dimensions –

I once felt the touch of a solar flare kindling my whole being as I absorbed its embracing aura, so I kept it hugged it caressed it, if just to confirm I am not really alone – You might look at me most curiously even curse me with pursed ignorant lips but allow me to gently kiss you and share my multi- colored nature with you then maybe you can realise who I really am but that is not meant to be as I am not destined to be relevant in this reality – Not even in your fantasy, so I roam this galaxy alone,

I came from nothing – Forever waiting…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-gamdroela-mp3.mp3

Chorus of the Haters

Playground Show – Quick look have you seen what she is wearing oh my – Wait, what? Never, no! Surely not? Aw, hey look at that – You’re kidding me! Is he really wearing trainers? Oh yeah, I heard his mom had to sell his shoes so he could have something to eat this morning, jeeze really now! Sorry what? Who gave you permission to squeak? Let me go! He asked for it. Let go of me!

Stranger Danger – Hey, you! Let go of his arm! Uh who the hell are you? You what? Check this out guys, I – What the… Ooh look at ow! I told you so! Let’s get out of here. We’ll get her later, ok? You gonna have your chance later. Why so gloomy? I guess I’m okay but what do I say to my mom? Just tell her the truth. Don’t worry, now hurry! I cannot always save you. You can let go of my hand now. Will I see you later? Got something to say to you…

Backstreets of mind – I wish we could move again but I felt something today. I hate it here though. Those bastards never accept me. I need to be free, To be me…This is not healthy for me. I am slipping but I have finally connected to someone. A warrior a friend – A saviour.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/chorus-of-the-haters-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Petite

abandoned, lives in discarded boxes and bags, bigger, savage males she seduces so they don’t injure, don’t bite wounds, break her delicate bones,

washes and cleans herself, anoints herself brings them live prey, breathing for play. Lives on cold pizza, crisps, rainwater.

Never lost her lioness head, knows ancestors bred for mummification, how worship becomes mass slaughter. Small does not mean less wick.

Chooses who lives with her, whom she dances, who wraps her fur around, curls up in a lawnmower grass box, brings live gifts into her house as presents.

=Paul Brookes

.

fajar

silver yew bows to war-torn stone and brick patchwork— alhaya renews

-Rich Follett

*

Ash-coloured trees, a forest, a liquidated referential, perhaps against the valley wall. There’s a thousand-year-old olive tree, somewhere, in a mountain town, where a child serves coffee, and burgers. Outside, grandmother’s goat stew – blow it first, child, with a cold spoon, intricate handle, intricately handled. There are some parts to this world we will never understand. Ash-coloured trees in the night are like, I don’t want to say it.

*

A page of Baudrillard is a fatal strategy avoid meaning indefinitely, bore them with a senseless finality – reverse evil. Poetry as ecstatic object, secret qualities, sworn to extremes and quiet synthesis, the visible to the hidden, more hidden metamorphosis, (Kafka as a lonely man

laughing at the still living, the digitalised still life – still born). Illusion plays speech instantaneously – the nature of seduction, nostalgic slowness as a merry-go-round. Silenced once; the silent dialogue of signs. Fashioned vapid character, aesthetic form, immoral form, fragile, sentimental desire

shapes superlative power, the objective; an achieved attraction, our only passion.

-Alex Mazey

..albert & Victoria..

how to tell a picture in words? egfrasic & I cannot spell it only in placid moments.

do we describe what we see or maybe tell the tale inside

albert and victoria a safe place now yet round the corner on the wall are the bullet holes while in dublin the same on a statue

blood shed they killed horses too when they fired their guns, dropped the bombs what then oh butterflies wing?

I can spell ekphrastic here but not up there

today there is no image nor a recording of the voice just look at the holes in walls.

-sbm.

Life after all

This is where it happened.

You weren’t there, not that you were ever there

whenever I needed you there.

I’ve often dipped my fingers in the hollows grief makes.

Here is where it happened.

We climb, but our feet slip, we don’t fall, but we dangle.

How I needed you there, to save me from being myself being there.

Whose life was it, after all?

-Elizabeth Moura

Walls Are

Bed bent wall bound, less human now as broken into this square.

Run five fingers feather light, to feel walls behind these closed eyes.

A stony glance holds a soul eternal captive, hate an emotional geometry.

Stone four squared. Secrets whispered ear to ear. Shed tears, wet straw. Awake, a greeting of dawn light under the door.

Dream in winds and creaking trees, a soul free to run and run, until breath is not sufficient.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/walls-are.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 7th May 2020.

The Institute

White noise cracking in my headspace

Phantoms in their nightly forced circus

A horse dancing on a rainbow beckoning

Me to follow – I just want to lie my head

down and crawl through my safety tunnel

where I can hear myself think maybe whistle

my favourite tune – Where I choose the paths

in the backstreets of my mind, master of my

own symphony unlike the invasive unwelcome

poking into my private psyche room where

my mental defences are muted by unstable

needy self-elected pharaohs enacting random

healing punishments – I am so done with this!

Dear Self

I am slowly drowning in this mental haze choking

me repeatedly – I need to hear your voice

again even just a faint whisper to remind me

I am still here. Here comes that choking red

Mist again, darkening my vision – My existential

Failed mission no escape… Are you there?

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-institute-mp3.mp3

The Trees are Dead

Sour earth neglected responsibilities

toxic oxygen the result of inaction by

Clueless wise men waving their untested

theories yet ignoring increasing revelatory

fatalities from untested remedies meant to

heal nations – Our mortality affected by

inept irrational policy makers hoping to

gain one more vote but we are all in the

same boat – Frantically trying to stay afloat

but worrying cracks are deepening our

livelihoods darkening, so we gather en masse

to finally protest along a charred boulevard

hoping in vain but it is of no use when the

guilty refuse to attempt to reverse recalculate

regenerate for future generations all nations

so we keep the faith even though the trees are dead.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-trees-are-dead-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Take Me Around Again

Carousel horses, Are all your circles meant to comfort, or to mock? And, where will you take me today? To that bustling park In West Endicott, Near the house we almost bought?

Or maybe, all the way back to my childhood dinner time, When everyone else had moved from home, And you were three sad napkin rings, Trotting repetitively around the lonely table. You know Your steady pace marks time perfectly, while I’m distracted by the bright colors and scenery, Until I’m caught between once, and today.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/take-me-around-again.m4a

-st

For #1 of Day Eight:

The Shaft

Within the mine’s walls I hear the dead’s calls As my feet pound these halls Blinded by charging fireballs

#2 of Day Eight:

I remember as a child an elder spoke of a ghost town deep in the mountains where a single wall’s all that remained Its crumbling façade brimmed with untold stories Of former residents trapped within the wailing barrier

-Carrie Ann Golden

My Olive

tree is a horse whose mane of leaves shakes in a gust, whose bark whinnies when she moves. When I press myself into her flanks she is the oil that brightens my meals.

I am calm under her canopy of mane. Her favourite place is beside the pitted wall. A Roman wall with close knit red bricks and stone. The stone is sculpted by round ammunition holes, but has not fallen. They did not break through here.

I look down at my horse, the olive tree beside the wall from my balcony. History is always here.

-Paul Brookes

  *

There’s an office, twelfth floor, in Shenzhen, I have stared, many times, I think, looked as far as the South China Sea. These are not the branches of a cathaya forest, three conifers, from this window. I cannot order a happy lemon in the mall, cannot recite Matthew 4:9 in the people’s square in Chengdu. Some days, I read Leo Tolstoy at the back of the public library, III times translated, first to English, then to Russian, and so on.

*

Two eyes appear from a bug detecting misanthropy

forming the same colours as the Khmer Rouge.

-Alex Macey

Mobius musing

those who inhabit cubicles and those who dwell among trees have little in common but there can be no doubt each is necessary to reflect upon the other

-Rich Follett

Pantoum for an isolated princess

In her glass coffin, what had flowed in the bone set sail alone Beyond the bright vault the tree-crowds nodded And meshed their long toes around the bubble That carried the fallen log on down the stream

Beyond the bright vault the tree-crowds nodded The wind stirring branches and passing the message That carried the fallen log on down the stream From synapse to synapse until every leaf knew her

The wind stirring branches and passing the message Threw leaves on the glass to crew up the ship And synapse to synapse, every leaf knew her So the sky caught her name, turned her glass to a star

And the leaves on the glass who had crewed up the ship Of her glass coffin, where what flowed in the bone had set sail alone Saw the sky catch her name, saw her glass as a star And fell to the earth to drift deep in the wound

-Ankh Spice

Gamma-Alpha-Light

Under glass I stretch, out life, not to smell tree sap or leaf. Or breezing wind. Catch rain that drops on tipped toe tongues.

No horizons lead crystal walls. And beyond, tangled imaginations, a hunger of beasts.

I see my knees and look in vain, for the grazing of a life not lived.

Under glass, dry tears, await night’s shadow to take the trees away. Now danger only song in this apocalyptic dark.

Hunters eyes dwell beyond the confines, of my glass walls. I read and watch, food bottled and tinned.

I gather up fear, a glowing landscape into which I can never venture.

Soft song, sang a requiem. Last of my line.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/gamma-alpha-light.m4a

-© Dai Fry 8th May 2020.

Objects of Reflection

Reflections in windows in our hearts Bring us closer to the pain of Mirror images in those panes Until, noses pushed against glass,

Seeking so hard to see, With the steam and the strain, We lose the imagery Altogether, viewing

Only what’s inside. Of course, it’s not what we were looking for. We’re forced To turn around, and find

The truth Was always In the object, Not its likeness.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/objects-of-reflection.m4a

-st

Hum of the Drones

Society now an alternative reality

long adapted to forced acceptance of

a new dimension a stoic domination

of a higher order with murderous

intentions controlling a lockdown human

nation – An evolved consciousness

advanced through carefully engineered

experiments so with the arrival of these

deadly drones spying listening all-seeing

recalculating scheming deleting controlling

a fading tired humanity.

It happened gradually, unseen unheard

Their walls came down surrounding

Major cities concealing a doomsday

Countdown with the intoxicating deadly

Hum of the Drones…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/hum-of-the-drones-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

parakeets in the park, wild now holds up his hands and they fly to take seed

clearly reflected while we stop while we take coffee while we breathe

deeply thinking

of the things we have seen whitworth

it came with fire with ferocity depth that left me floating isolating isolation from the other scheme of things. it was red very very red

he said it was his favourite colour I have never seen him wear it

-sonja benskin mesher

I peered through the glass And saw all these evergreens Guardians of souls

-Carrie Ann Golden

Windows

are single eyed. We move the back projection, make clear the eyes corners. What lies ahead, what lies in wait?

Enter house with hollow eyes Inside its eyes fragrant as bad breath, a dead leaf delicate structure crinkly soft, and wet wallpaper peals like unheard bells.

Doors are mouths, mothers polish, lovers hump over, by which decisions enter or leave, from which dead leaves are brushed aside.

-Paul Brookes

  orange it came flaring while I was minding my business as always looking at to sea hoping for a boat

on the horizon I got this thing whizzing round my face warm emulsifying, wreaking havoc with the serenity buzzed my ears and stayed there until defeated I moved to the wall and sat there a while

undeniably tracing honesty in air with one finger pointing

it came clear later

-sbm.

*

Most people have a penchant for rocks – dry stone walls with spiders inside. I once shook the leaves by a wall to see what fell out, and every night, when I came home, picked handfuls on my way, breadcrumb leaves to tear, carefully, like prayer beads once blessed by spit, by piss, by rain fall. Nobody knows why they do these things, least of all, tear leaves, and tear, and scatter leaves away.

*

I have always imagined / galaxies shaped like / the inside of a pomegranate fruit. / Authenticity interspersed with a tragic sense of irony. / Why do we write / like this?

-Alex Mazey

The Dream

I plunge into the depths of

nowhere, of empty uninhabited

space glowing like s beacon almost

beckoning like an empty womb ready

to cocoon new life – Expectant

nourishing, life-giving.

I fall further reaching unexplored cavities

of my questioning mind, witnessing

memories not even born yet, of

revelations still to come – I hear

faint whispers of familiar voices guiding

me teaching me protecting me.

My vision now clearer as I enter the domain of forever – My former melancholy turning into a joyous cacophony of encompassing love. I breathe again. I laugh again. I live again…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-drea-audio-day-10-1.mp3

Memories of Us

I still sometimes hear the echoes of our laugher as we reminisce of our shared happiness – Our joy of creating new planting borders Of days languishing in the sun until the moonrise beckoned daily reflections of love in various sessions, of togetherness of silliness of happiness.

I feel such a fool not having shared more thoughts with you, or not having told you I forgive you for misinterpreted heated arguments, of hating my foolish pride but I cannot linger on anything bitter as I still feel you with me in poignant memories of us…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/memories-of-us.mp3

-Don Beukes

Wild Imagination

Yesterday I walked down a path in the woods And spied a crumbling cornerstone of a building Lost to past floods Hidden in its base was a hole Nearly encased in the shadows of hardwoods Unsure if it was created by some mole I moved near the edge and spotted a thick coiled string Most of it vanished in the dried mud Vivid images of mystical places down below Filled my mind to the point that was maddening With a headache I reluctantly returned to my neighborhood

-Carrie Ann Golden

Shiva’s Dance

All stones, a conglomeration of illusion and desire. All dawns, pre-set to rise and fall breathe and grow and yet… all are followed by a drowning sun.

Not a stone story or tellers myth. For souls so bound in greed and gold. My house is as opium dreams… in these whispers of life.

No movement, in still darkling corners where life and dust move so slowly that luxing shadows, low and subdued, can hold a spirit in sleeping deeps.

So dance the ring of fire without question, for being must flow in these meriel seas and shaded rivers. Apocalypse and creation my coin. You my currency.

Your hair is made of flowers and death, your breath mud baked yet star sparkle sweet. Your compassion always greater than your parts.

So dance your dance on life’s highest mountain, in low dead seas. No choice no chance All else illusion’s flattery.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/shivae28099s-dance.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 9th May 2020.

colloquy

chestnut and stone wall speaking of patience and time passersby know naught

-Rich Follett

Interstellar Connections

You are a small planet, Unique in every way. I reach out the solid branch Of my being, as far as I can To see if I can touch your greatness, Learn more about the mysterious

Known and unknown parts And the pre-existing orbit Of my earthbound heart, Causing me to overcome all fears, To cross the void of space and find What happens when we collide.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/interstellar-connections.m4a

-st

Ishigaki music (the ballad of Rat and Cat)

Each day of that hot summer the stonemason let the river sing to him as he ate his noon meal, the moonsweet rice the pink auras of salmon and ginger and from his front hedge of rushes crept sleek black Rat with his shinobue tail and from the temple’s gap-toothed wall ambled marmalade Cat with her koto miaow and for a few grains of lunar rice Rat conjured a rill of silver notes from his flute and for a sliver of translucent spirit-fish Cat would wail her strange ghost’s vibrato and the inkbrush river shushed its rhythm onto the clean white page of each day. For a whole season the stonemason laid every rock with songs in his head and his hands and his heart and should you visit the temple you will see the black Rat and the ginger Cat who live forever in his tendered wall and should you put your ear to the sweet stones all placed just so, the music there in the neat grains of them will build and build inside you a thousand years of comfort.

-Ankh Spice

Stars

Stars, are they the lost group of family? Mists as memories, I long to see their faces The navy sky lit by a sparkle of joy ancestors in their glowing blessings looking down, as the perfumed night air wafts gently. A rare manuscript, an album of belonging Generations bound by dna blood sweat and tears A remembrance this darkest day of November I turn the pages of love and belonging a feeling of euphoria before the melancholy sets in clinging like the frost on a rose bud remembering ancestors, the stars in my eyes.

-Leela Soma

My Night

is a bag of nerve dripped stars under lit lamposts.

Silence is a window strummed by shadows.

Stone is a cloud announced as married to dizzy soil.

Walls are rainbowed unicorn skin and bone petrified by virgins.

Sugar is a grumble made by galaxies seen by cardboard homeless.

Darkness is the locked door of a whisper you cannot fully hear.

-Paul Brookes

  Leela Soma

was born in Madras, India and now lives in Glasgow. Her poems and short stories have been published in a number of anthologies and publications, including the National newspaper The Scotsman, The Grind, Visual Verses, New Voices, Gutter, Bangalore Review in India and Steel Bellows in the USA. ‘From Madras to Milngavie’ was her first poetry pamphlet. She has served on the committee for the Milngavie Books and Arts Festivals and on the Scottish Writer’s Centre Committee. Her work reflects her dual heritage of India and Scotland. Author of ‘Twice Born’, ‘Bombay Baby’ and ‘Boxed In’ Available on Amazon and Kindle. Her website is http://www.leelasoma.wordpress.com

Here is a link to my interview of her: https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/04/20/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-leela-soma/

.

eleven is ten continued..

I sat on the wall a while further up a guy was painting a cat I watched him clever I heard a small noise to the left turned found the bloody orange thing was back fussing around colouring up the air smelling slightly warm and damp

mid sucking noises the face appeared black and white

from the bloody orange thingy.

-sbm

Murakami is my favourite Japanese writer, I remember vaguely, a time when he did not show his face in public. Showed his face as a series of cats. Some days, it is like cats are the loneliest animals on the planet. I think, again, of a book, by an author I cannot remember. I think, again, of a time beyond myself, of these dead things, side roads, memorialised, beyond face value; it’s more than we know.

-Alex Mazey

Journey to Fluweeltjie

The secret Map – It has been passed on by generations of Meesters, protectors of their families and heirs to the kingdom of Tiervlei. An existential secret map showing the way to the land of Fluweeltjie, where essence of an eternal life force would only be accessible to a worthy young warrior, who would survive the treacherous Kaapse Vlaktes – an underworld marshland filled with exploding vrekwarm flames from below the sunken city of Fluweeltjie – There to collect essence of the revered Bitterbessie, ensuring longevity for all who deserve it –

The honour of collecting the precious bitterbessie was bestowed on Sekueb Nodmai, heir to the kingdom of Tiervlei. He followed the ancient path shown on the map, and made his way to the secret entrance only he knew – In the distance he spotted a lonely figure hovering just above the ground, guarding the entrance. Sekueb noticed that he hovered just above the ground, waiting.

Battle of the Kaapse Vlaktes – As soon as he crossed over he was confronted by a sonskyn soldaat, ordered to prevent any attempt at entering the dreaded Kaapse Vlaktes. As donderwolke clouds exploded in the skies above, the soldaat suddenly hurled a tokkelos at Sekueb, a fierce creature which could instantly melt him, however Sekueb only had to throw dust of poeier into its eyes to avoid certain death. That opened the path to the gateway to to the borrelende land of Fluweeltjie – What he did not know was that he had to swim through the lake of souls, they who have suffered the curse of failed missions – Looking to welcome one more, as the water started to boil and stir…

(to be continued)

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/journey-to-fluweeltjie-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Hunters

I savor the rainbows on wet streets, and the pigeons without sense who peck at nothing. The streets are empty, dehumanized. As it should be, as it is. I feel the rumbling not of wheels or thunder; it is the precious honey bee, another hunter as effortless as myself. It’s hunting in unkept lots the modest dandelions. My feet dance over faded chalk; I fear nothing.

Elizabeth Moura

Koi feeding

You save the stale crusts from the good brown loaf. On your early walk through the city gardens, there is a round mirror

to crumble them into, and in it an unfamiliar creature, folded and loose in his aspect. He watches you from the water.

You have never met his eyes, although you sense they are kind. This morning autumn has nodded at the trees

and the ember of the squalling sun catches a plume at his throat, and he blushes bright ¬— young

with newborn flame. The wind arrives to spread the blaze outwards in ripples

from the man standing with his hands full of burning bread, and when the fish surface

their mouths make round holes in his body. In one tiny circle after another

the fire goes out. Cool water ¬— O O O ¬— welling dark and smooth. It was always the truth.

What feeds on us that steals our fire. What we feed to remember what we are.

-Ankh Spice

Identity Crisis

Colorful patterns Etched into Our lives, Reveal truths We often try to hide.

Denying reality Doesn’t cease to Make it so. Call a cat a turtle. It won’t hurt his ego.

But it does cause confusion. Then, while we’re all mixed up Arguing over semantics, Inscriptions become clear – Our identity betrays us.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/identity-crisis.m4a -st

Stripe’s the given name Latched on anything ‘till me Now Clingon’s your name.

-Carrie Ann Golden

Practical Cats for Gen-Z

Sandburg’s cat did not have neon feet— time passes; things change.

Kodachrome bas-relief kitty’s impress:

JPS – just pussy-footing silently … but

is neon ever silent?

as it is with humans, so with felines: we always wish against our nature.

Eliot’s three-name theory would not seem to apply here unless loud, louder, loudest are on the list …

so, is kitty a success or a failure?

impossible to say until we know his aim— his ineffable, effable (f***in’ ineffable) deep and inscrutable singular

aim …

-Rich Follett

Of Cats And Gods

It is told in the oldest book that all cats must have two dreams. The second a tale of the fertile crescent, land of Nebuchadnezzar. A place of long ago.

Only to leave, for reasons of their own. On a great adventure. Maybe they first travelled on Abraham’s road to Canaan.

Before they became gods, and tellers of riddles, on the banks of that north flowing river.

“Where one gives birth to the other, who in turn gives birth to the first”

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/of-cats-and-dogs.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 10th May 2020.

Cat Called Nothing

JPS calls me Nothing.

Catness carries being at its heart. I am condemned to be free. If I tremble at the slightest noise, if each creak announces me a look

This is because I am already in the state of being-looked-at.

Catness haunts being. Hell is other people. Catness lies coiled at the heart of being like a worm.

Consciousness is a being, the nature of which is to be conscious of the catness of its being.

-Paul Brookes

.

Visions

A cataract blackens my right eye, the one I used to look at the sun; no one is left to ask why, because you are lost in dust, and our friends are lost with you at that final beach-mob outpost. Looking into the sun, then at you spread out, lovely and moist, all I could see were black dots on your face as it smooched air, and on your knees, now way too hot raised up, like dream castles, there were lines and arrows instead of your smooth knobs, smoothly red.

-Elizabeth Moura

equanimity

on the cosmic timeline humankind appeared minutes ago— aeons later (by our reckoning), like one primeval furrowed brow or the disappointed jowls of a disgruntled mage with a bumbling apprentice, earth sighed …

-Rich Follett

#2:

My heart

Is like a vast desert

Since you left this world

No amount of water

Can revive

My soul

Wanders an endless wasteland

Hopeless and lost

I don’t want to be found

I don’t need rescuing

I just want to sink in this endless abyss

Of your sweet embrace

-Carrie Ann Golden

13. some folk are superstitious some are not some thought that tomorrow would come different

did not look to see

so some may be disappointed that the orange terror remains

like the alien in some 1950s film or tv show talking pictures

some listened to journey into space on the radio, imagined such things scared themselves silly from behind cushions

this thing can suck the life even from those hiding in soft furnishings

so they may go live underground war of the worlds

I saw it live

-sbm

*

Out of this grey-peak mountainside, I did not always realise, that animals, like dogs, might comprehend another language. There are only so many times. Only, so many times, a boy can talk in different languages, hoping to find the right one – would you like a sandwich? St. Bernard, only here for the tuna. So, what? – an owner appeared, as beautiful as I imagined any person could be. Hallo, guten tag, blonde lady… gut, danke.

-Alex Mazey

A Desire

I walk your edgeland desire lines. Your fingers daylight a xenotopia in me. A riverwalk into your heart’s sussurus.

-Paul Brookes

Weeds

A plant’s wrong ways, take shape on chancing breeze. Anarchy rises to sap at butchered lands.

Outsiders, friendless purpose unknown. Immigrants from the without.

We are frightened, held rigid by the different beauty of their strange song.

These alien ways like a wild yeast that comes to a baker’s call. Fresh, different much raised in our estimations.

Re-wilding gods, stand to let the ground grow as it will. A flower meadow not a lawn. Bees see it, twice as sweet.

Flown, travelling seeds on wind blown songs. Till the loam of a stranger’s town. Taking the balance of a natural palette.

And soon we will have a place of rare delight. Watered with joy and tears, cooled by butterflies.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/weeds.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 12th May 2020.

Hold the river

You told me you haven’t been outside in 57 days and tonight the river is a dropped ribbon, limp and lost and the sharp stones of the trail as I begin to run become the sound of something chewing. The faster we go, the faster we’re eaten. You are moving, in the lines of your confinement, so slowly now you have become a painting in my head – static – existing not to be touched. And in the guilty, lucky air down here we’re starting up the engines and on my knees in the soft mud I can hear the first plane for months, idling beyond the water. I’d wish you were here, but the wind is whipping up cold, and the coming dark is frantic with sudden birds, woken startled from their neat new nests along the runway.

-Ankh Spice

Searching the Depths

” Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” -Matt. 4:19

Seven worms Squiggle out from the depths After rain Seeking sunshine, Not too much. Unwittingly, They crawl into Small hands Making ready To make a meal Not of them, but Creatures from different depths. “Get to the truck, Daddy’s got the poles!”

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/searching-the-depths.m4a -st

The Institute (Part Two)

Dear Self – I am drowning in this blinding haze of red, Locked in this current state, ‘ shut up! Leave my headspace or I will end you! Are you still there? I cannot go on like this. Last night another one made herself known to me taunting me, mockingly. I can hear her in the walls of my deepest most private secret space – ‘A voice, a voice! No, I refuse to submit to you! Stop this ridiculous lie you knit every chance you get!’

Flashback – I am back in my childhood room, thirteen again. I hear my parents bang the door down. I struggle to breathe. I feel my dad forcing my fingers open as I clamp them Tighter around my throat… ‘Good morning Mr and Mrs Sullivan. No need to look so sullen. Rachel will be treated with the utmost respect and care here at Clarence House. My name is Ms Marsh. You have nothing to worry about. Are you ready Rachel?

The Confrontation – ‘Ow, You’re hurting me! Where are you Taking me? Shut up you spoiled brat! You will soon find out how we heal misfits like you. Let me go you old hag! Now you listen to me you pathetic little creature. You better get used to me. After all, you have been placed into my care, so don’t you dare! You will soon realise you’re not that special at all. The others will reveal themselves to you soon. You better get some rest my dear. No need to fear, I promise.

Dear Self – I feel so lost. I heard it again last night – A faint tapping deep inside my head. Someone also tried to reach me but it was a faint whisper. What is wrong with me? What is this place? I’ve got to get out of here. This spiral prison is making my head burst. Please show me a way out! ‘Hello?’

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/part-two-the-institute-.mp3

-Don Beukes

  Right before the fall

A heartbeat before the slide you know you’re going down A monkey brain knows when the branch is about to crack And a kid feels the birth of the tiny split in the ice spreading from his last footstep We learn to fall before we know the promise we make by beginning to walk which is to keep on doing it, even knowing the ground will fail beneath us some day And they say you time-travel just a little before the cold takes you, the years all that good footwork stamped into you go for a wander under your lids, maybe just trying to escape the inevitable. Did you know what takes us under is not spared? This pass through the mountains where your car went over once lingered her beat, slicking sediment-ghosts just before the blast split her. And that glacier down south, undermined by a warming sea shimmered with Pleistocene spring just as her heart went to holes. Oh but wait, that one went alone. The bones she holds too deep to see the sudden blossoms spiriting the ice.

-Ankh Spice

yūjō

cherry trees blooming in unexpected places cheer world-weary hearts

-Rich Follett

*

I recall vending machines in a small side street, someplace I’ve not yet been, maybe in a dreamscape, anyway. Someone will take me to Mt. Fuji, one day. Someone will take my hand through Aokigahara, the Sea of Trees, and we will buy iced tea in a carpark vending machine. Have I told you the trick to a good car park? They will say – yes – it’s in the flower arrangements, the peeling memory of bright sakura trees. I will remember this.

-Alex Mazey

..fourteen..

it starts at thirteen, moves forward

teenage years spinning

some,

a few stimming later we watch the trees spinning going about in a muddle going down in trouble

those years

asked if there was a maypole it was suggested to have a roundabout

it is all a gift

-sbm

Blossoms

In my memory a late snow had dried, -leaving no trace- though it still flaked eggshell brittle from the damp cellar walls.

I recall the deer park. Richmond in early April, probably a lifetime ago.

The pink and white a growing bloom, was joy within.

Did I dance the blossom under ruck sacked back and in leather shoes?

Dappled tree shadow, as petalled canopies filled the obscured skies.

A morning, those trudging ways. And everything was white and pink. I loved the pastel rain. It made me cry.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/blossoms.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 13th May 2020.

The Institute (Part Three)

The Revelation – Dear Self, I finally woke up to my reality, As that wretched red mist cleared, my surroundings were finally revealed. At first, I became aware of an annoying hovering buzz – Invisible but audible. As my eyes adjusted to where I was, I could swear I saw a cluster of microscopic drones leave my body! ‘Oh, you are awake!’ I heard a familiar voice say. I instinctively realised where the voices in my head originated from and why I thought I was going crazy. Next to me in similar pods wherein identical bodies like mine were attached to, one of them spoke directly to me! ‘I tried to warn you but you were too stubborn to listen. We’ve got to get out of here before dear Marsh returns to command more drones to replicate me’ – But who are you? I don’t understand. ‘What do mean?’

‘It’s me, my name is Rachel.’

What? Impossible! I am Rachel!

‘Calm down dear – We are all Rachel…’

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/part-three-the-institute.mp3

The Pink Forest

Cream screams ruby dreams Strange happenings White skies blood cries Yellow wailing soul Destroying – Hark the pink Lark spreading false truths Growing strange fruits Falling on sour earth burning Barren soil to reveal new growth Where strange sounds can be Heard – A fluttering of falling birds A spluttering of green rain fauna and flora in pain – Get out go back retreat attack leave retrieve collect reflect. You are not needed here – This is our new sphere. No, go! A broken nation shattered moral Compass – You could have prevented this…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-pink-forest-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Go

Heated chambers roil with entrancing little bugs, creeping out the little ladies who refuse to look because their mascara will collapse like tar. Whipping off my myopia, I alone am delighted. If I could crawl through to dance with the motley harbingers of the abnormal, I would squeeze myself onto the slide, no regrets, and wave to my companions, who aren’t looking at me; me, happy at last, fitting in, dancing on a glass yacht.

-Elizabeth Moura

Finding Your Place

Paint peeling From ancient walls Reveals nothing of note. But the preserved picture, Of three parallel trees, once bespoke

By some Now unknown admirer Of the arts, Leaves behind enough, perhaps, To inspire a new start.

Finally, The patron, artist and Onlooker may know The unparalleled merit of Their respective roles.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/findingyourplace.m4a

-st

Frailty

is the strength to put one foot in front of another against the gust.

is endurance of pain you inhale and exhale as you catch your breath.

is a tree growing on ground known to dissolve beneath the roots as a short life is lived.

is the sharp, severe loss of mam and dad as your bones ask for a hug from the disappeared.

-Paul Brookes

  Tanks

Lilies, petal wrapped, their colour smiles in water’s drift.

A summer’s dreamer, her flowers are purple rain catchers.

Tanks: ancient reservoirs, lilies far as sight permits.

Under chlorophyll isles drift tangled fronds where swimmers weave their cool green, hydraulic dreams.

Elephants drink here and stick legged avians break journeys. To stand pensive, in these time worn water fields.

Marvel at floating leaves, whose island dreams and water songs, play rippling gently.

In the distance where lilies meet sky: A white chalk bright Stupa topped with Buddha head spike, pierces the unbroken blue.

Once neolithic mounds to hold our dead, now giants of brick and stone… who bow their heads to passing flowers and greenway archipelagos.

To drink a deep fill, a quench of lake water.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/tanks.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 14th May 2020.

Da doo Ra Ra ran

cowardly sun god sperm cell suffers performance anxiety; flees from opportunity — future world goes dark

-Rich Follett

*

I will remember lily pads. Each floating universe resting on time, itself, water like time, like the streams of an eternal reoccurrence. Every poem is permitted one act of being unnecessarily outlandish, every life is permitted one or two acts of being unnecessarily outlandish. Outlandish is not the word I am looking for, here. There are other words, of course, words like lily pad, to describe what I am seeing. ( , .)

-Alex Mazey

Established

As children, weren’t we all beguiled by water lilies? I was sure the little rafts were stepping stones for traipsing Across, Sufficient to Support my weight.

Although they are well-established, Rooted deep Beneath water bodies, on the surface They are delicate creatures, It seems.

You once asked if We wanted to keep trying To put the tent pegs in, Only to have them continue to Slip out again.

I’m grateful I learned the difference between Solid and superficial, and that we, too, can be fastened Tight to the ground, More securely established Than I might’ve imagined.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/established.m4a

-st

the lily pond.

go down along the coast through the village and up the hill

find the lily pond miles from anyone

you will find creatures among the plants and reverie

some are tadpoles come recently

while others spawn later

this is the magic that some have forgotten with all their money and sexual innuendos

the small plane still flies over most days

-sbm

The first escape

We were lucky, when the fire came for us. A murmur of orange, mumming grey dust – in the night-ashes from the grate, their bucket on the porch. The bloom must have been beautiful, I thought, a thing come to life when our eyes were all closed. In the morning, one wall of the house was croaking with blisters, toadskin paint still slick with the rain. With persuasion from a disobedient finger, they popped, and the stink of the fire was alive inside each one. Even at five, I set free a lot of near-death. Tiny craters left behind, none yet satisfied with a sacrifice.

-Ankh Spice

The Institute (Part Four)

The Prequel – ‘ Welcome back Mr and Mrs Sullivan, I finally have the news you’ve been waiting for. One of our cloned samples has survived the delicate procedure. However, it will have to grow here until its fifth birthday, Just to ensure total success. After all, we owe it to you to return a perfect specimen. Have you decided on a name yet?’ Ah yes, her name will be Rachel. We trust that you will do your best, doctor…

Dear Self – It’s me, Rachel. You don’t know me yet but I somehow know who you are. I saw you in a memory not even born yet but quite significant to my survival. I finally left that strange place, after getting rid of my overly attentive nurse – A bit too keen for my liking! The more I insisted for her to leave me alone, the more she repeated, ‘There, there my dear child, Nurse Marsh will take very good care of you, after all we will be together for five years!

Homecoming – Dear Self, I am in my new home. The Sullivans are weird but I cannot complain. Five years is long to wait for a new home. I made sure my new mother understood when I jabbed my finger deep into one eye and just giggled about it – It felt good, even though father had to call for help. Are you still there, hello?

-Don Beukes

Of Man Of Dust

Buses are butterflies all blue and gold Blind Mary and I catch one to the black glass wedding

young, dead Lozzy comes walks on water down the canal bright and shiny like a new kitchen surface

the man’s landrover is a poisonous lily packed with dust of death climbs out of the lily dust flying like red flour

politest of men. Pardon me, young Lady to Blind Mary who coughs, overcome by dust

lozzy, my poor dead son a vacuum cleaner with severe asthma inhales the man of dust and knows what it means.

man of dusts’ minder of water floods the vacuum cleaner lozzy coughs splutters.

Blind Mary’s wedding gift, a carved coal elephant inhales.

sprays water over his back, as if having a wash

black dust billows. black mingles with red dust.

lozzy vacuums up the man of dust disposes of him in the Place of No Breath

and if the dust meets breath,

life. dust waits.

-Paul Brookes

Cento

The small plane still flies over

tiny craters left behind rooted deep beneath water bodies.

A summer’s dreamer, her flowers are purple rain catchers.

walks on water down the canal bright and shiny like a new kitchen surface/

heart of stone

all through the millenia all egbert wanted was to play with the other statues

-Rich Follett

.pensive.

a quizzical look grey frowns the brow wrinkles

did it do wrong neutered into submission wandering lost the way

she said she will trap it send it away her aggressive with the lockdown

envious of solitude exploding with anger

red threads could bind us

-sbm

Who Are You

A life of consequences. The whole thing a slight of hand… I cannot see me, doubt anyone can.

Never to know my name, or purpose hidden behind. Mendacity my gift and I my own victim. My light is not the illuminating kind.

A life spent hide and seeking, the deeper I look the darker my lairs.

I nearly met on one or two occasions, not yet being quite there.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/who-are-you.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 15th May 2020.

*

I recall a dark room at English Heritage, a documentary showing an eight-to-ten-minute introductory guide to big castle, wherever. This is, perhaps, a simulated experience, curated with panoramic cinematography – available in the gift shop for nine-ninety-five. Every time, I find these dark rooms – showing a documentary, I sit there for eight-to-ten-minutes, thoroughly enjoying the space, imagining my life as an informative documentary; a screen wipe.

-Alex Mazey

The Walk

Few find the shrifted forest – a wanderer feels their gait well weighed by trees and rock to find how great the need for succour-paths. If your feet, as heavy as they are, will carry you for another week, a day, an hour through the loosened sharps of the vale some trivial thing will call you to your walking-on. When the wet green hands of sentinels wing a creature through this breach its count of given steps was done and done. And we could do much worse than to stop it here we beasts who have been treading so stilted since first we fell. Far worse than to drop to our knees on this cushion of needles beneath an unsuspected kindness of stones. Sometimes you don’t see how much they love you until their face is watching you leave. The last walk done, and I’ll go laughing, all thin- skin shiver in the warm wet breath of the rock that has turned these bones, has spun us on and on, every day since we arrived. She gave us milk from the dirt of her body. Every day opened the door to the walk. You mourn your pets like family.

-Ankh Spice

The Spectre

You see me as a hideous invasive enemy oddity but I see you as an existential anomaly hoping to remain free but it is not meant to be – Your insatiable sensational lust for self-gratification revealed your selfish nature neglecting your intended function to willingly and selflessly nurture but you have proven time and time again your expected failure to prove your worth as a temporary fleeting organism on a planet only meant to temporarily tolerate your inherited generations –

Your neglect of each other and your dismissal of of obvious signs and revelations in your darkest dreams and ruby screams did not deter you from darkening your absorbent soul as you hunted for monetary riches, damning those who you deemed unnecessary in an existence you craved to have total dominance in unable to foresee you failed legacy.

This is your final hour as your essence will be ended – You do not deserve to be awarded this precious Earthly existence so forget your expected inheritance…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-spectre-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Release

Looking at the red sky All I see is you The ground trembles as I try To hug the earth like glue Closing my eyes struggling not to cry Your angelic face fills my view As I let go, my body wants to fly and search for you in the heavenly blue

-Carrie Ann Golden

#MF 16

The nightmares and dreams of children are carved of the same stone; they are massive. Even the friendliest glower, because of their weight. All through their lives, these stones follow all the children who ever were. As adults, the stones loom, smaller in size, but heavier, pressing down on hearts and minds which don’t believe in dreams or nightmares, but are certain of death.

#16

American bullet, barreling out, like an asteroid racing to a pre-mediated hit. It is red hot. It knows its way. A finger has shot out before it. It points. Like a diseased god, it chooses.

-Elizabeth Moura

Draw me to the eye Center us down together Stillness in your storm

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/day-16-haiku-st.m4a

-st

The heart of a tree is a crack in time.

A glimpse across galaxies linked by wormholes in xylem.

This giant is fallen: a window on eternity exposed,

though the roots still live. Here – delicate in rotten bark – sapling.

Time is the crack in a tree’s heart.

-Yvonne Marjot

The Lion

I am Hunger and look for a prey. No animal, big or small, as far as I can see.

I find a big cave, There must be some animal here. If so, come evening it will return I will hide myself in the cave and when it returns, pounce on it and have a good meal.

Sun begins to set, I hear a voice “Hello cave, I am your friend here.”

I do not reply “Hello cave, don’t you remember the arrangement we made? I have to shout when I arrive and you will ask me to come in. Without your green signal I do not enter the cave. Since you are silent, I will go to some other cave.”

Ah, there seems to be an arrangement between the cave and this animal. Let me get him into my trap. I will shout back a welcome to him and he will walk in happily.”

I roar, “Hi jackal, come in. You are welcome.”

Nothing happens. Nothing happens

My stomach is an empty cave full of echoes.

-Paul Brookes

Cento

You do not deserve to be awarded this precious earthly existence so forget your expected inheritance… Stillness in your storm

Bios and Links

-Alex Mazey

(b.1991) received his MA (distinction) from Keele University in 2017. He later won The Roy Fisher Prize for Poetry with his debut pamphlet, ‘Bread and Salt’ (Flarestack, TBA). He was also the recipient of a Creative Future Writers’ Award in 2019. His poetry has featured regularly in anthologies and literary press magazines, most notably in The London Magazine. His collection of essays, ‘Living in Disneyland’, will be available from Broken Sleep Books in October 2020. Alex spent 2018 as a resident of The People’s Republic of China, where he taught the English Language in a school run by the Ministry of Education. His writing has been described as ‘wry and knowing,’ with ‘an edge that tears rather than cuts or deals blows.’

Twitter: @AlexzanderMazey

Instagram: alexmazey

Here is my interview of Alex:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-alex-mazey/

-Rich Follett

is a High School English and Creative Writing teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than forty years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and the late Felino Soriano’s CounterExample Poetics, for which he was a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human &c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com.)

As a singer-songwriter, Rich has released five albums of independent contemporary folk music. His latest. Somewhere in the Stars, is available at http://www.richfollett.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, playwright, and director.

-Ankh Spice

is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (NZ). His poetry has appeared in a wide range of international publications and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He truly believes that words have the power to change the place we’re in, and you’ll find him doing his best to prove it on

Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams or on Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

-Carrie Ann Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse.

-sonja benskin mesher

born , Bournemouth.

now

lives and works in North Wales as an independent artist

‘i am a multidisciplinary artist, crafting paint, charcoal, words and whatever comes to hand, to explain ideas and issues

words have not come easily. I draw on experience, remember and write. speak of a small life’.

Elected as a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the United Artists Society The work has been in solo exhibitions through Wales and England, and in selected and solo worldwide. Much of the work is now in both private, and public collections, and has been featured in several television documentaries, radio programmes and magazines.

Here is my interview of sonja benskin mesher:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sonja-benskin-mesher/

-Samantha Terrell

is an American poet whose work emphasizes emotional integrity and social justice. She is the author of several eBooks including, Learning from Pompeii, Coffee for Neanderthals, Disgracing Lady Justice and others, available on smashwords.com and its affiliates.Chapbook: Ebola (West Chester University Poetry Center, 2014)

Website: poetrybysamantha.weebly.com Twitter: @honestypoetry

Here is my 2020 interview of her:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2020/04/08/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-samantha-terrell/

-Don Beukes

is a South African and British writer. He is the author of ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ (CTU) and ‘Icarus Rising-Volume 1’ (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, editor of Scarlet Leaf Review for the ‘Best of the Net’ in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’ in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second ‘Cape Sounds’ in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing). He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of this World’ is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.

Here is my interview of Don Beukes:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/11/02/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-don-beukes/

-Dai Fry

is an old new poet. He worked in social care but now has no day job. A keen photographer and eater of literature and lurid covers. Fascinated by nature, physics, pagans, sea and storm. His poetry seeks to capture image and tell philosophical tales. Published in Black Bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore Press and the Pangolin Review. He can be seen reading on #InternationalPoetryCircle and regularly appears on #TopTweetTuesday. Twitter. @thnargg Web seekingthedarklight.co.uk

Audio/Visual. @IntPoetryCircle #InternationalPoetryCircle Twitter #TopTweetTuesday

-Elizabeth Moura

lives in a converted factory and works with elders. She has had poetry, flash fiction or photographs published in online and print publications Human/Kind Journal, Rose Quartz Poetry Magazine, Hawk & Whippoorwill, The Cormorant, Radical: A Lit Zine, Chrysanthemum, Occulum, Flash, Paragraph Planet, and Flash Fiction Magazine. On Twitter @mourapoet, Instagram mourathepoet and mourastudio.wordpress.com.

-Yvonne Marjot

is a lost kiwi, now living on a Scottish island. She has been making up stories and poems for as long as she can remember. Her first volume of poetry, The Knitted Curiosity Cabinet, won the Brit Writers Award for poetry in 2012. She has published four novels and a book of short stories. Twitter handle: @alayanabeth

-Paul Brookes

is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews.

-Mary Frances

is an artist and writer based in the UK. She takes a few photos every day, for inspiration and to use in her work. The images for this project were all taken in the last two years on walks during in the month of May. Her words and images have been published by Penteract Press, Metambesen, Ice Floe Press, Burning House Press, Inside the Outside, Luvina Rivista Literaria, and Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness. Twitter: @maryfrancesness

-James Knight

is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.

Website: thebirdking.com.

Twitter: @badbadpoet

Here is my interview of James Knight:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/01/06/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-james-knight/

-Sue Harpham

is an admin worker, currently not in work Married, 2 sons. Loves poetry and words. She considers herself a writer of scribble rather than a poet. She has written a novel and is using her spare time to finally get it published (self-publishing) which has been an ambition of her for the last 10 years.

The Collected Special Ekphrastic Challenge for May 2020. The First Sixteen Days. Artworks from Mary Frances, James Knight and Sue Harpham the inspiration for writers: Alex Mazey, Ankh Spice, Samantha Terrell, Dai Fry, Carrie Ann Golden, sonja benskin mesher, Rich Follett, Don Beukes, Yvonne Marjot, and Paul Brookes Acknowledgements Thankyou to Jane Cornwell for designing the front cover. May 1 ..looks like you are drowning..

[alicedoessurveys]

131 Questions

1. On Saturdays, I like to… Depends what mood I’m in or how I’m feeling. If I’m in a tired, ’cba with anything’ mood I can easily lounge in my jammies at home watching telly and playing sims. If I’m in a more energetic ‘need to get out the house’ mood ill persuade my mom to go shopping, or take the dogs out or something

2. Where would you like to be a missionary to? Idk what that means

3. What’s better — toilet paper rolled over top or underneath? Over

4. Which Scooby-Doo character are you most like (Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, Fred, Velma, the monster, Scrappy?) Probably shaggy and scooby cause I’m scared of everything

5. If you had to endure one natural disaster (i.e. hurricane, tornado, etc), what would you pick and why? Idk, hurricane maybe? Id rather not be in any disaster tbh

6. What movie or TV show do you take guilty pleasure in watching? Not gonna lie, there are some shows on kids tv I actually enjoy watching

7. If you had to describe your day as a traffic sign, what would it be? Ive had a mental block and I can’t think of any traffic signs

8. What traditional stereotype would you classify yourself as? I don’t think I really fit into one stereotype. im kind of a nerd but not 100% nerd

9. What “group” did you belong to in high school? My group was a mishmash of people. we were branded as the weird, geeky, unpopular group by most people

10. If you wrote a book about yourself…what would it be about? Probably about my experience with mental health and how it affected my school/college years

11. If your house were burning down, what would you take and why? obviously first thing id do would be check my family and pets were safe. Then id grab my laptop, the teddy I’ve had since I was born and try to get the two boxes from under my bed that I keep my memories in.

12. Describe your favorite pair of PJ’s. My favourites at the moment are my Christmas ones I bought myself this year. They’re red and white, with a kind of Christmas jumper pattern on them. Its hard to describe them but they’re super cosy

13. How many handbags do you own? Like two, I’m not big on handbags. I buy one and keep it until its dies then get a new one

14. If this were your last day alive, what would you say to your friends? Thank them for sticking with me and giving me some great memories

15. What is your very favorite part of your day? getting into bed at the end of the day

16. What is your best scar? Tell the story of how you got it. I don’t consider any of my scars ‘best’.. the one that has the most meaning is the one on my stomach. Its from when my appendix burst when I was two years old and my parents said It was 50/50 wether I survived or not

17. You win a million dollars, but you have to give half to a charity. Which charity do you pick, and what do you do with the rest of the money? probably Birmingham dogs home, or dogs trust

18. Describe your dream wedding where money is no option. IF I every do get married, I would like a winter/christmas wedding cause Christmas is my favourite time of year and winter weather is a bit more predictable. Id want to get married in a church, then go to a big castle hall for the reception. Honeymoon in lapland!

19. What kind of deodorant do you use? I think its either dove or sure..? I can’t remember. its a spray deodrant though, can’t deal with those horrid wet stick ones  

20. If you were a spy what would your alias be? is alias like, spy name? I don’t know, I can’t think of anything cool haha

21. Do you have a birth mark? Where? Does it look like anything? Nope, don’t think so

22. You are planning the most awesome dinner party of your life. Which 3 celebrities/historical figures (past or present) would you add to your guest list to keep the dinner talk interesting? Edie Redmayne because.. its eddie redmayne and he’s just adorable. kate mckinnon would be a freakin’ amazing dinner party guests I chose her and I can’t think who id chose for the third person.. maybe Walt Disney. NO WAIT, JOHNNY DEPP!! I choose Johnny Depp, I feel like he’d have a lot of great stories

23. What is your favorite sport, and which team of that sport do you cheer for? None

24. Which would you rather have a kiss or a hug? Why? Hug

25. If you could be a pair of jeans what style would you be?  Why? Skinny jeans, so I could be skinny :’)

26. You have multiple personalities, describe some of them. too many to go into

27. What is the best thing you have done in your life? Probably passing my driving test. OR, when I was 17 I got certified as a Zumba instructor. even though I ended up having to give up Zumba, thats probably the thing I’m the most proud of in my life so far. As someone who suffers anxiety/panic attacks it was a massive achievement to travel to blackpool, go dance at Winter Gardens ballroom ON MY OWN in a room full of strangers for 6 hours, and come out with a certificate.

28. If you were blind for the rest of your life… what would you miss seeing the most? Everything. It would be awful. Id probably miss seeing my dogs faces the most

29. What household chore do you hate the most? Washing the dishes, or hanging my clothes up in the closet

30. What is your most disappointing moment in life? the whole college experience. dropping two of my a levels, failing the other two. Then dropping out of college course. And again, dropping out of another college course. Not a great 3 years for me.

31. When have you laughed the hardest? Cried? today. I realised my dog’s haircut made him look like Edna Mode from the incredibles.. easily amused. Last time I cried, Im not sure. The last time I remember crying was Christmas Eve

32. If you had a “theme song” that played whenever you walk into a room full of people, what would it be? My cellophane from Chicago? Haha idk

33. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? General appearance. Probably what they’re wearing, their hair, their face. If I’m up close face to face with someone the first thing I notice are eyes and mouth

34. What time period from the past would you most have liked to live in and why? 80s, I like the music

35. What is the best reward anyone can give you? support

36. If you had a band what would you name it? Idk, I used to have a name I said I would use but I can’t remember now

37. Do you like fruit? Vegetables? Not really. The only fruit I like is apples and bananas. The only veg I like are peas

38. What can someone do to encourage you? tell me they believe in me and be genuine about it

39. If you could be one for just 24 hours, what cereal box cartoon character would you be? Why? What a bazaar question haha! Erm, the one from coco pops? The monkey

40. What was the best thing that happened to you this weekend? New Years day. i spent the day surrounded by family at my sisters house and we stayed they’re till almost 2am playing heads up and singing too loud

41. What is your favorite animal? List three adjectives to explain your choice. Ffs, I don’t know what an adjective is :’) favourite animal: dogs. Loyal, cuddly, goofballs

42. What is your favorite color? List three adjectives to explain your choice. Again with the adjectives, gah! Fave colour, purple. I don’t know why, I just like it leave me alone

43. It’s a very hot and muggy day. You desperately want something very cool and refreshing to quench your thirst and revitalize your body. What would you drink — either make your own or store-bought. Cold water obvs

44. You discover that the person you’re head-over-heels interested in loves a good homemade & handmade dessert. What will you concoct when you have this person over? Cookies, either salted caramel or Nutella filled

45. What would you leave in your will for the person you care about the most? Idk, I don’t really have anything to leave :’)

46. What do you consider to the most valuable thing you own: when you were a child/teenager/now? Child: probably something stupid like dolls. Teenager: idk, laptop? Now: again probably laptop since I bought a new one yesterday. I would say dog but I don’t own the dog

47. What’s the kindest act you have ever seen done? Idk

48. If you could have any job in the world, which one would you want? Actress, or dancer. Or animal trainer for movies/tv

49. What are your best/worst subjects in school and what subjects would you want to learn now? Best subjects: none. Worst subjects: all of them, but especially science.

50. What are you most talented at? Nothing :’)

51. What is your worst nightmare today? Still being the way I am now this time next year

52. How often do you clean between your toes? Idk, like almost every day I think

53. What is your favorite way to waste time at work without getting caught? I don’t have a job so idk

54. If you could have had the starring role in one film already made, which movie would you pick? Tina in Fantastic Beasts.. being part of that amazing film AND getting to spend all that time with Eddie Redmayne <3

55. If you were to perform in the circus, what would you do? I don’t want to be apart of a circus

56. If you could eliminate one thing you do each day in the bathroom so that you never had to do it again, what would it be? Having to go to the bathroom <- yup, that

57. You were just given a yacht. What would you name it? the mad hatter

58. If you could have been told one thing that you weren’t told when you were a teenager, what would you like to have heard? ‘Dont expect everything to get better in college. It only gets worse’

59. You’ve just been hired to a promotions position at Kellog Co. What would you put in a new breakfast cereal box as a gimmick? These questions are hard man

60. Just like “Everybody Wang Chung tonight!”, what action would your name be if it were a verb? wtf

61. Name your favorite song. At the moment, I’m loving Todrick Hall ‘no place like home’

62. If you were to get a tattoo, what would it say or what would the graphic be? I have a tattoo. I have 3 musical notes behind my ear. I want another tattoo, i want a lighthouse on the side of my foot under my ankle

63. If you could play any musical instrument, what would it be and why? If you already play an instrument(s), what do you play and why? ive just started playing the ukulele, my dad bought me one for Christmas

64. When trick-or-treating as a kid, was there any kind of candy that you didn’t like to get? I never went trick or treating

65. Why do you live in the Washington DC area? I dont :’)

66. What is your favorite memory of Christmases past? Just Christmas in general

67. What is the most outrageous thing you’ve done for God? I haven’t done anything outrageous.. the most ‘unlike me’ thing I did was stand up in front of my church and give a testimony. It was terrifying and I cried with relief when it was over haha

68. If a movie was being made of your life and you could choose the actor/actress to play you, who would you choose and why? Jennifer Lawrence

69. Paper or plastic? Paper I guess idk

70. What was the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten? I don’t eat anything weird, I’m a very boring eater

71. What do you keep in the trunk of your car? I have a basket which I keep de-icer, ice scraper, washer liquid, a torch, gloves, hat, tennis balls and dog poop bags

72. When you were in grade school, what did you want to be when you grew up? Why? I wanted to be someone who looked after peoples cats when they went on holiday.. don’t ask why

73. If you owned a CB radio what would your “handle” be? I dont know what that means

74. If you were given 24 hrs to live, what would you do? I can’t even, questions like this stress me out

75. If you were in the “Miss America” talent competition, what would your talent be? (Note: both guys & gals have to answer this question) i dont know, probably bring the dog on stage and dance with him or something haha

76. What do you think the most ultimate gift of the world is? Uh.. idk. I feel like this survey is gonna be really boring cause most my answers are ‘idk’

77. What is your earliest childhood memory? Earliest memory is mom dropping me off at preschool and my crying my eyes out being carried off by the teacher

78. What was your favorite TV show when you were growing up? I had many. I had a lot of veggitales videos

79. If you had one extra hour of free time a day, how would you use it? Either sleep, or just more time sitting on the sofa wasting my life

79. What CD is in your CD player right now? Rend Collective, Campfire II

80. The great theologian Andy Warhol stated that everyone gets 15 minutes of fame.  What happened during your 15 minutes? Still waiting for mine

81. Name the most famous person you’ve had a face to face encounter with. I met the wanted, Andy Jordan and literally bumped into laurence llewelyn-bowen in hobby craft last year

82. Name your favorite children’s story. Anything by road Dahl, the whole chronicles of Narnia or the grufflo

83. If you could spend 15 minutes with any living person, who would it be and why? hmm.. I haven’t mentioned eddie redmayne enough in this survey so ill say him :’) or Kate McKinnon.. love her

84. What person in the Bible do you most closely identify with? Esther was my favourite growing up, and now I’m older I identify with her a lot

85. What article of clothing most closely describes your personality? A hoodie because you can pull the hood over your head and hide away just like I’ve been doing for a long time <-this

86. If you were to write a book what would it be about? Im sure I answered this question earlier..?

87. How many rings before you answer the phone? I don’t really do that. I see who’s ringing and I either answer it or I don’t

88. What is the first thing you think of when you wake in the morning? Lie there contemplating wether to wake up or go back to sleep

89. If you won a million dollars, what would you do with it? Pay off they money I owe. Pay off parents debts, and sisters debts. Give them money. Buy a house in Bournemouth. Set up a doggy day care business.

90. If you had to, what part of your body would you get pierced? No thanks

91. Who was your favorite teacher and why? My English/drama teacher in the first year of senior school. She found out I was having difficulties and became like a mentor to be. She helped me out a lot.  

92. What makes you feel the most secure? My family

93. Who do you admire the most? Mom

94. Have you ever had a reoccurring dream? What was it? I’ve had dreams about my teeth falling out a few times. Recently I keep having dreams about being in bed with spiders and snakes crawling on me and wake up hitting my duvet and generally freakin the f out

95. What was your nickname growing up? Bong

96. Who was your hero when you were a child, and what did you do to be like them? My dad. I would try to play his guitars and would tag along with him when he went to his evening jobs

97. Peanut or plain? Peanut or plain what..?

98. What is your favorite cartoon character & why? I don’t actually know

99. How did you learn to ride a bicycle? all I remember is my dad took me to the park and held on to the bike while I cycled, then let me go and I rode into a tree

100. Based on something you’ve already done, how might you make it into the Guinness Book of World Records? The ability to jump to the worst conclusion in the quickest time

101. What’s the closest you’ve come to becoming a pop star/winning an Oscar? No where near

102. When was the last time you did something for the first time? What was it? I honestly can’t think of anything

103. What is your concept of a fruitful day? I dont know what that means..

104. What was your favorite thing to play with as a child? Why? I was quite an active child, I spent a lot of time climbing trees and running around outdoors. When I wasn’t doing that, my favourite toys were bratz dolls

105. If you could be any animal in the world for 24 hours, which animal would you be? Why? a bird, I would love to experience flying

106. Have you ever jumped out of a plane? Nope, im not adventurous enough for that

107. If you could rid the world of one thing, what would it be? Hate/war/terror

108. What is your best personal characteristic? Ughhhh I hate questions like this, I’m not good at saying nice stuff about myself

109. What is your favorite quote? “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those you don’t believe in magic will never find it.” - Roald Dahl

110. If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do? Sneak onto a film set and see what its like

111. What is your favorite weird food combination? Im not into any weird food combinations. Like I said earlier, I’m not adventurous enough

112. If you had to be a flower, which one would you like to be and why? Maybe a rose, cause they’re pretty but they have thorns so they fight back again people who try to pick them :’)

113. If you were stranded on a desert island, what three books and three people would you take with you? 3 books: Fantastic beasts and where to find them, Harry Potter and the cursed child (cause its the one I’m reading atm) and a bible. 3 people: my mom, my dad and my sis
 114. My biggest pet peeve is… People in general

115. What is your favorite commercial? What commercial annoys you the most? I don’t really have a favourite. they all tend to annoy me after a while. OH WAIT! One advert I will never get fed up of is the Coca Cola Christmas one, ‘Holidays are Coming’

116. What’s the most interesting “Ice Breaker” Question you have ever been asked? I avoid situations that require ice breaker questions.

117. If you could be an ice cream flavor, what would it be? Why? Salted caramel, cause its my fave idk

118. Name a turning point in your life that makes you smile/cry. Makes me cry: probably the year I dropped out of college for the third time, got dianosed with depression then got ill with thyroid shit Makes me smile: maybe, going back to church this year because its changed my life for the better and set our family on an exciting journey thats just beginning :)  

119. If there were a holiday in your honor what would it celebrate? everyone who isn’t perfect, who is awkward, and fails at stuff a lot

120. What clubs were you a member of in High School? Are you still interested in any of the same things? I joined a drama club for like a week before it got shut down because there wasn’t enough members

121. If you were to be on a reality TV show which one would you be on and why? Probably big brother, I have no talents so I couldn’t go on anything else :’)

122. If you could be anything in the world, what would you be and why? Someone with talent. preferably someone who could sing, dance and act and was in musicals  

123. If someone rented a billboard for you, what would you put on it? ‘Make the effort to make someone smile today’

124. If you had to enter a competition for the “Most Uselessly Unique Talent,” what would your talent be? The ability to get animals to like me

125. If you were a Smurf, what would your name be? Awkward smurf, talentless smurf, failure smurf

126. What is your worst personality characteristic? Please refer to previous answer

127. If you had to be a teacher of something, what would you teach? well I completed a night course in canine behaviour so I guess I could teach how to care for and train dogs

128. How would you like to be remembered? Someone who made people smile

129. What is one thing that you constantly think about (other than material things)? Whether I’m doing the right thing or not. what I should be doing with my life.

130. What do you like best about your hometown? I don’t know, I guess the fact that its got a nice reputation

131. Something interesting you might not know about me is… Im not very interesting..

[kingpinchoppers]

Prepare Your Harley Davidson With 5 Useful Tips To Rock The Winters!

So what if you own a HARLEY.

It’s not a gift from God. And, like any other bike, it needs proper maintenance to operate in optimum condition.

Now as the ‘winter is coming’, it’s time you prep your bad boy to take on the harsh season knocking at your garage. But, you know what, there are tips to amp the maintenance game.

Want to know more? Keep reading!

Change your ‘goddamn’ oil

You don’t want the oil to cuddle up at a corner in engine manifold, do you? To avoid it, change the traditional oil to high-octane ones that pumps the engine like a maniac.

Who says, winter gives the chills?

Stabilise the fuel

It’s winter dude; don’t expect your Harley parts Brisbane to function seamlessly now. But, you can still make your ‘beast’ roar by using fuel stabiliser to prevent the gas from braking down.

This mainly happens when you use cheap-quality fuels. So, give yourself a break – Don’t miser out!

Remember the battery?

Knock! Knock! Is the battery still lying idle? Most likely, it has self-discharged by now waiting to frustrate you the moment you can your Harked out in the spring!

Thus, use battery tender for saving you the time of disconnecting the battery every winters.

Have you put on the winter tyres?

Not yet, I hope so!

Delay no further. Rush to an authorised Harley OEM supplier and buy your Harley a pair of winter tyres. Also, go for tyre rotation and wheel balancing from a certified mechanic’s shop.

Give your Harley a nice ‘bath’

No matter what Harley parts Brisbane you use or fluids you change, you’d eventually have to clean the bike every once in a while!

From constant dust, dirt and debris – the engine manifold and the exhaust takes the most beating. Clean it thoroughly from a mechanic’s ‘den’ and give your bike the pamper it deserves!

That’s all for now, folks!

Hola Amigos.

[networkingdefinition]

Flower Quotes

Official Website: Flower Quotes

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• A clever man without wisdom is like a beautiful flower without fragrance. – Leonardo da Vinci • A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. – H. L. Mencken • A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden. – Gautama Buddha • A flower blossoms for its own joy. – Oscar Wilde • A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love. – Max Muller • A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it. – Dogen • A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing — a flower in the process of expressing its potential. – Paulo Coelho • A flowerless room is a soulless room, to my way of thinking; but even a solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it. – Vita Sackville-West • A fox is a wolf who sends flowers. – Ruth Brown • A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars. – Victor Hugo • A kiss, when all is told, what is it? An oath taken a little closer, a promise more exact. A wish that longs to be confirmed, a rosy circle drawn around the verb ‘to love’. A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear, a moment of infinity humming like a bee, a communion tasting of flowers, a way of breathing in a little of the heart and tasting a little of the soul with the edge of the lips! – Edmond Rostand • A wedding is a funeral where you smell your own flowers. – Eddie Cantor • A weed is but an unloved flower. – Ella Wheeler Wilcox • A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. – James Russell Lowell • A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over. – Honore de Balzac • Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o’er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last? – Letitia Elizabeth Landon • All beings are flowers blossoming In a blossoming universe. – Soen Nakagawa • All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind. – Abraham Lincoln • And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touch’d by the thorns. – Thomas Moore • Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also – if you love them enough. – George Washington Carver • Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day – like writing a poem or saying a prayer. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh • Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization. – Lincoln Steffens • Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers – and never succeeding. – Gian Carlo Menotti • As a lotus flower is born in water, grows in water and rises out of water to stand above it unsoiled, so I, born in the world, raised in the world having overcome the world, live unsoiled by the world – Gautama Buddha • As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them. – Henry Ward Beecher • As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the nettles, never lost Except to prove the sweetness of a shower. – Edward Thomas • At my age flowers scare me. – George Burns • Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. – Albert Camus

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Flower', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_flower').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_flower img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be like a flower that gives its fragrance even to the hand that crushed it. – Ali ibn Abi Talib • Be like the flower, turn your faces to the sun. – Khalil Gibran • Beauty is but a flower, which wrinkles will devour. – Thomas Nash • Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded. – Gertrude Stein • Break open A cherry tree And there are no flowers; But the spring breeze Brings forth myriad blossoms. – Ikkyu • By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower. – Rabindranath Tagore • Can we conceive what humanity would be if it did not know the flowers? – Maurice Maeterlinck • Dear common flower, that grow’st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold. – James Russell Lowell • Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light. – Theodore Roethke • Don’t give your loved one a flower, because it too has a loved one! Let the flowers live! – Mehmet Murat Ildan • Don’t wait until people are dead to give them flowers. – Sean Covey • each separate flower has a magic all its own. – Myrtle Reed • Earth laughs in flowers. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Even if you think the Big Bang created the stars, don’t you wonder who sent the flowers? – Robert Breault • Even in a minute instance, it is best to look first to the main tendencies of Nature. A particular flower may not be dead in early winter, but the flowers are dying; a particular pebble may never be wetted with the tide, but the tide is coming in. To the scientific eye all human history is a series of collective movements, destructions or migrations, like the massacre of flies in winter or the return of birds in spring. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy – Robert Green Ingersoll • Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature. – Gerard De Nerval • Every soul is to be cherished, every flower is to bloom. – Alice Walker • Flowers always have it – poise, completion, fulfillment, perfection . . . – Anne Morrow Lindbergh • Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. – Luther Burbank • Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world. If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn. – Andrew Mason • Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London. – Oscar Wilde • Flowers are happy things. – P. G. Wodehouse • Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts. – Sigmund Freud • Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • Flowers are the Romeos and the Juliets of the nature! – Mehmet Murat Ildan • Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into. – Henry Ward Beecher • Flowers are without hope. Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow. – Antonio Porchia • Flowers feed the soul. – Nazr Mohammed • Flowers grow out of dark moments. – Corita Kent • Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others are plain, honest and upright, like the broad faced sunflower and the hollyhock. – Henry Ward Beecher • Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning. – Lydia M. Child • Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. When a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower. – Jean Paul • Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose. – John Milton • Flowers really do intoxicate me. – Vita Sackville-West • Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. – John Ruskin • Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh • For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. – D. H. Lawrence • For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant! – Edward Abbey • Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes – every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. – Orison Swett Marden • From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity. – Edvard Munch • Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air. – Jane Austen • Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. – James Joyce • Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all. – John Greenleaf Whittier • Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.- Walt Whitman • God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. – Martin Luther • Gold is the gift of vanity and common pride, but flowers are the gift of love and friendship. – Franz Grillparzer • Gratitude is a flower that blooms in noble souls. – Pope Francis • Happiness is the natural flower of duty. – Phillips Brooks • Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you. – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi • He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flower. – Mary Howitt • He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul. – Celia Thaxter • Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers. – Robert Green Ingersoll • I always notice flowers. – Andy Warhol • I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.- Claude Monet • I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty. – Georgia O’Keeffe • I hate flowers – I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move. – Georgia O’Keeffe • I hold no preference among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. – Edward Abbey • I hope some day to meet God, because I want to thank Him for the flowers. – Robert Breault • I like to be bought flowers and taken out for dinner. I like a man to be a gentleman. I don’t like to be treated as if I am brainless. I like to be respected and to give respect. – Sharon Stone • I must have flowers, always, and always. – Claude Monet • I named all my children after flowers. There’s Lillie and Rose and my son, Artificial. – Bert Williams • I paint flowers so they will not die. – Frida Kahlo • I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. – Claude Monet • I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers. – Helen Keller • I sent my flowers across the hall to Mrs Nixon but her husband remembered what a Democrat I am and sent them back. – Bette Davis • I smile like a flower not only with my lips but with my whole being. – Rumi • I take care of my flowers and my cats. And enjoy food. And that’s living. – Ursula Andress • I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast. I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life – but there was no one to tell me. – George Washington Carver • I was born on a farm. My strength has nothing to do with political apparatus. I get my strength from nature, from flowers. – Ariel Sharon • I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one. – Edna St. Vincent Millay • I’d go without food if I could have a flower. – Caryl Churchill • I’d never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room – Mercedes McCambridge • If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness. – Therese of Lisieux • If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give. – George MacDonald • If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad. – John Lancaster Spalding • If we make our goal to live a life of compassion and unconditional love, then the world will indeed become a garden where all kinds of flowers can bloom and grow. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross • If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment. – Georgia O’Keeffe • If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging. – Alan Bennett • If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. – Anthony de Mello • If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom? – Khalil Gibran • I’m an introvert… I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky. – Audrey Hepburn • In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. – Okakura Kakuzo • In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers. – Lucretius • It’s all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again. – Sonny Rollins • It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom. – Alice Walker • I’ve always had an inquisitive mind about everything from flowers to television sets to motor cars. Always pulled them apart – couldn’t put ’em back, but always extremely interested in how things work. – Craig Johnston • Just as a flower which seems beautiful and has color but no perfume, so are the fruitless words of the man who speaks them but does them not. – John Dewey • Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun. – Miguel Angel Ruiz • Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. – Hans Christian Andersen • Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. – Oscar Wilde • Keep the child within alive. A child never tires of hearing the birds sing, never gets bored looking at flowers. – Mata Amritanandamayi • Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend. – Mao Zedong • Let a hundred flowers bloom. – Mao Zedong • Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair. – Susan Polis Schutz • Life is the flower for which love is the honey. – Victor Hugo • Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air. – Georges Bernanos • Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness. – Eckhart Tolle • Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it. – William Shakespeare • Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside. – Honore de Balzac • Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same. – Helen Keller • Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you’ve got to let it grow. – John Lennon • Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration. – D. H. Lawrence • Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow. – John Lennon • Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons – Khalil Gibran • Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer’s year. It brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul. – Billy Graham • Loveliest of lovely things are they, On earth, that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower. – William C. Bryant • Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love. – Stevie Wonder • Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Money is a powerful aphrodisiac but flowers work almost as well. – Robert A. Heinlein • Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. – John W. Gardner • Natural beauty is essentially temporary and sad, hence the impression of obscene mockery which artificial flowers give us. – John Updike • Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time. – Georgia O’Keeffe • Now I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers and laid entwined together on a bed of clover and left there to sleep, left there to dream of their happiness. – Conor Oberst • One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve. – Henry David Thoreau • Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf. – Lewis Mumford • People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. – Iris Murdoch • People give flowers as present because flowers contain true meaning of love. Anyone who tries to posses a flower will have to watch its beauty fading. But if you simply look at a flower in the field, you’ll keep it forever. That is what the forest taught me. That you will never be mine, and that is why i will never lose you. – Paulo Coelho • Perfumes are the feelings of flowers. – Heinrich Heine • Pick a flower on Earth and you move the farthest star. – Paul Dirac • Plant flowers in others’ gardens and your life becomes a bouquet! Submitted by Lisa Letto, Coordinator, Nutrition Resource and Volunteer Centre, College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy, I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy. – Rabindranath Tagore • Pluck not the wayside flower; It is the traveler’s dower. – William Allingham • Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder. – Rumi • Reading music is like listening to flowers. I don’t understand the concept. – Paul Westerberg • Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. • Send me flowers while I’m alive. They won’t do me a damn bit of good after I’m dead. – Joan Crawford • Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage. – e. e. cummings • Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved. – Khalil Gibran • Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet. – Jeremy Bentham • Sweet April showers do spring May flowers. – Thomas Tusser • The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly… music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees. – Andres Segovia • The Amen of nature is always a flower. – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. • The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms, Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him. – Auguste Rodin • The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers. – Lewis Thomas • The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises. – Leo Buscaglia • The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure. – D. H. Lawrence • The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes. – Mark Nepo • The flower has opened, has been in the sun and is unafraid. I’m taking more chances; I’m bold and proud. – Paula Cole • The flower in the vase smiles, but no longer laughs. – Malcolm De Chazal • The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life. – Jean Giraudoux • The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all. – Walt Disney • The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly. – William Wordsworth • The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous. – Rabindranath Tagore • The flowers are Nature’s jewels, with whose wealth she decks her summer beauty. – George Croly • The heart is like a flower. Unless it is open, it cannot release its fragrance into the world. – Rajneesh • The lovely flowers embarrass me. They make me regret I am not a bee. – Emily Dickinson • The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms. – Nhat Hanh • The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. – Nhat Hanh • The nature of this flower is to bloom. – Alice Walker • The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyone the sculpted flower. – William C. Bryant • The silence of a flower: a kind of silence which we continually evade, of which we find only the shadow in dreams. – Vicki Lewis Thompson • The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition. – Honore de Balzac • The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of it’s scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness. – Therese of Lisieux • The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. – Matsuo Basho • There are always flowers for those who want to see them. – Henri Matisse • There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof. – Jean Paul • There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon. – Matsuo Basho • There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords. – John Muir • These flowers are like the pleasures of the world. – William Shakespeare • These stars of earth, these golden flowers. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet – William Shakespeare • Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower. – William Wordsworth • ‘Tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes! – William Wordsworth • To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself. – Nhat Hanh • To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat. – Beverley Nichols • To create a little flower is the labour of ages. – William Blake • To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. – William Wordsworth • To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower. – William Blake To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour. – William Blake True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility. – Philip Pullman • True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk? – Alice Walker • We grow like flowers, and bear desire, the odor of the human flowers. – Richard Henry Stoddard • We have much to hope from the flowers. – Arthur Conan Doyle We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls. – Mother Teresa • We were born to die and we die to live. As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on earth; we fully flower in heaven. – Russell M. Nelson • Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. – A. A. Milne • Well pleaseth me the sweet time of Easter. That maketh the leaf and the flower come out. – Bertran de Born • What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. – George Eliot • What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable. – Joseph Addison • When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art. – Paul Cezanne • When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower. – Lytton Strachey • When the Christians, upon these occasions, received martyrdom, they were ornamented, and crowned with garlands of flowers; for which they, in heaven, received eternal crowns of glory. – John Foxe • When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited. – Ramakrishna • When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. – Georgia O’Keeffe • Where flowers bloom so does hope. – Lady Bird Johnson • Where flowers degenerate man cannot live. – Napoleon Bonaparte • Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants at tree, is more than all. – John Greenleaf Whittier • With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy. – Lope de Vega ��� With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears. – John Milton • With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy? – Oscar Wilde • You can crush the flowers, but you can’t stop the spring. – Pablo Neruda • You have it in your power to make your days on Earth a path of flowers, instead of a path of thorns. – Sathya Sai Baba • You have to appreciate every single day that you’re alive. Life is a little bit like a garden – you have to find time to plant the seeds for beautiful flowers to grow. – Oscar de la Renta • You have to water the flowers you want to grow. – Stephen Covey • You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way. – Walter Hagen

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Flower Quotes

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• A clever man without wisdom is like a beautiful flower without fragrance. – Leonardo da Vinci • A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. – H. L. Mencken • A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden. – Gautama Buddha • A flower blossoms for its own joy. – Oscar Wilde • A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love. – Max Muller • A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it. – Dogen • A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing — a flower in the process of expressing its potential. – Paulo Coelho • A flowerless room is a soulless room, to my way of thinking; but even a solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it. – Vita Sackville-West • A fox is a wolf who sends flowers. – Ruth Brown • A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars. – Victor Hugo • A kiss, when all is told, what is it? An oath taken a little closer, a promise more exact. A wish that longs to be confirmed, a rosy circle drawn around the verb ‘to love’. A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear, a moment of infinity humming like a bee, a communion tasting of flowers, a way of breathing in a little of the heart and tasting a little of the soul with the edge of the lips! – Edmond Rostand • A wedding is a funeral where you smell your own flowers. – Eddie Cantor • A weed is but an unloved flower. – Ella Wheeler Wilcox • A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. – James Russell Lowell • A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over. – Honore de Balzac • Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o’er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last? – Letitia Elizabeth Landon • All beings are flowers blossoming In a blossoming universe. – Soen Nakagawa • All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind. – Abraham Lincoln • And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touch’d by the thorns. – Thomas Moore • Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also – if you love them enough. – George Washington Carver • Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day – like writing a poem or saying a prayer. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh • Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization. – Lincoln Steffens • Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers – and never succeeding. – Gian Carlo Menotti • As a lotus flower is born in water, grows in water and rises out of water to stand above it unsoiled, so I, born in the world, raised in the world having overcome the world, live unsoiled by the world – Gautama Buddha • As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks, who used to love them. – Henry Ward Beecher • As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the nettles, never lost Except to prove the sweetness of a shower. – Edward Thomas • At my age flowers scare me. – George Burns • Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. – Albert Camus

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Flower', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_flower').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_flower img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be like a flower that gives its fragrance even to the hand that crushed it. – Ali ibn Abi Talib • Be like the flower, turn your faces to the sun. – Khalil Gibran • Beauty is but a flower, which wrinkles will devour. – Thomas Nash • Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded. – Gertrude Stein • Break open A cherry tree And there are no flowers; But the spring breeze Brings forth myriad blossoms. – Ikkyu • By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower. – Rabindranath Tagore • Can we conceive what humanity would be if it did not know the flowers? – Maurice Maeterlinck • Dear common flower, that grow’st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold. – James Russell Lowell • Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light. – Theodore Roethke • Don’t give your loved one a flower, because it too has a loved one! Let the flowers live! – Mehmet Murat Ildan • Don’t wait until people are dead to give them flowers. – Sean Covey • each separate flower has a magic all its own. – Myrtle Reed • Earth laughs in flowers. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Even if you think the Big Bang created the stars, don’t you wonder who sent the flowers? – Robert Breault • Even in a minute instance, it is best to look first to the main tendencies of Nature. A particular flower may not be dead in early winter, but the flowers are dying; a particular pebble may never be wetted with the tide, but the tide is coming in. To the scientific eye all human history is a series of collective movements, destructions or migrations, like the massacre of flies in winter or the return of birds in spring. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy – Robert Green Ingersoll • Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature. – Gerard De Nerval • Every soul is to be cherished, every flower is to bloom. – Alice Walker • Flowers always have it – poise, completion, fulfillment, perfection . . . – Anne Morrow Lindbergh • Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul. – Luther Burbank • Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world. If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn. – Andrew Mason • Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London. – Oscar Wilde • Flowers are happy things. – P. G. Wodehouse • Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts. – Sigmund Freud • Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • Flowers are the Romeos and the Juliets of the nature! – Mehmet Murat Ildan • Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made and forgot to put a soul into. – Henry Ward Beecher • Flowers are without hope. Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow. – Antonio Porchia • Flowers feed the soul. – Nazr Mohammed • Flowers grow out of dark moments. – Corita Kent • Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others are plain, honest and upright, like the broad faced sunflower and the hollyhock. – Henry Ward Beecher • Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning. – Lydia M. Child • Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. When a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower. – Jean Paul • Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose. – John Milton • Flowers really do intoxicate me. – Vita Sackville-West • Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. – John Ruskin • Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh • For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. – D. H. Lawrence • For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant! – Edward Abbey • Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes – every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. – Orison Swett Marden • From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity. – Edvard Munch • Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance on the desert air. – Jane Austen • Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. – James Joyce • Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all. – John Greenleaf Whittier • Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.- Walt Whitman • God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. – Martin Luther • Gold is the gift of vanity and common pride, but flowers are the gift of love and friendship. – Franz Grillparzer • Gratitude is a flower that blooms in noble souls. – Pope Francis • Happiness is the natural flower of duty. – Phillips Brooks • Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you. – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi • He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flower. – Mary Howitt • He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but his good fortune is small compared to that of the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul. – Celia Thaxter • Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers. – Robert Green Ingersoll • I always notice flowers. – Andy Warhol • I am following Nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.- Claude Monet • I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty. – Georgia O’Keeffe • I hate flowers – I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move. – Georgia O’Keeffe • I hold no preference among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. – Edward Abbey • I hope some day to meet God, because I want to thank Him for the flowers. – Robert Breault • I like to be bought flowers and taken out for dinner. I like a man to be a gentleman. I don’t like to be treated as if I am brainless. I like to be respected and to give respect. – Sharon Stone • I must have flowers, always, and always. – Claude Monet • I named all my children after flowers. There’s Lillie and Rose and my son, Artificial. – Bert Williams • I paint flowers so they will not die. – Frida Kahlo • I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. – Claude Monet • I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers. – Helen Keller • I sent my flowers across the hall to Mrs Nixon but her husband remembered what a Democrat I am and sent them back. – Bette Davis • I smile like a flower not only with my lips but with my whole being. – Rumi • I take care of my flowers and my cats. And enjoy food. And that’s living. – Ursula Andress • I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast. I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life – but there was no one to tell me. – George Washington Carver • I was born on a farm. My strength has nothing to do with political apparatus. I get my strength from nature, from flowers. – Ariel Sharon • I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one. – Edna St. Vincent Millay • I’d go without food if I could have a flower. – Caryl Churchill • I’d never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room – Mercedes McCambridge • If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness. – Therese of Lisieux • If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give. – George MacDonald • If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad. – John Lancaster Spalding • If we make our goal to live a life of compassion and unconditional love, then the world will indeed become a garden where all kinds of flowers can bloom and grow. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross • If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for a moment. – Georgia O’Keeffe • If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging. – Alan Bennett • If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. – Anthony de Mello • If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom? – Khalil Gibran • I’m an introvert… I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky. – Audrey Hepburn • In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. – Okakura Kakuzo • In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers. – Lucretius • It’s all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again. – Sonny Rollins • It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom. – Alice Walker • I’ve always had an inquisitive mind about everything from flowers to television sets to motor cars. Always pulled them apart – couldn’t put ’em back, but always extremely interested in how things work. – Craig Johnston • Just as a flower which seems beautiful and has color but no perfume, so are the fruitless words of the man who speaks them but does them not. – John Dewey • Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun. – Miguel Angel Ruiz • Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. – Hans Christian Andersen • Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. – Oscar Wilde • Keep the child within alive. A child never tires of hearing the birds sing, never gets bored looking at flowers. – Mata Amritanandamayi • Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend. – Mao Zedong • Let a hundred flowers bloom. – Mao Zedong • Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair. – Susan Polis Schutz • Life is the flower for which love is the honey. – Victor Hugo • Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air. – Georges Bernanos • Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness. – Eckhart Tolle • Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it. – William Shakespeare • Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside. – Honore de Balzac • Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same. – Helen Keller • Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you’ve got to let it grow. – John Lennon • Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration. – D. H. Lawrence • Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow. – John Lennon • Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons – Khalil Gibran • Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer’s year. It brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul. – Billy Graham • Loveliest of lovely things are they, On earth, that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower. – William C. Bryant • Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love. – Stevie Wonder • Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Money is a powerful aphrodisiac but flowers work almost as well. – Robert A. Heinlein • Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. – John W. Gardner • Natural beauty is essentially temporary and sad, hence the impression of obscene mockery which artificial flowers give us. – John Updike • Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time. – Georgia O’Keeffe • Now I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers and laid entwined together on a bed of clover and left there to sleep, left there to dream of their happiness. – Conor Oberst • One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve. – Henry David Thoreau • Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf. – Lewis Mumford • People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. – Iris Murdoch • People give flowers as present because flowers contain true meaning of love. Anyone who tries to posses a flower will have to watch its beauty fading. But if you simply look at a flower in the field, you’ll keep it forever. That is what the forest taught me. That you will never be mine, and that is why i will never lose you. – Paulo Coelho • Perfumes are the feelings of flowers. – Heinrich Heine • Pick a flower on Earth and you move the farthest star. – Paul Dirac • Plant flowers in others’ gardens and your life becomes a bouquet! Submitted by Lisa Letto, Coordinator, Nutrition Resource and Volunteer Centre, College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy, I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy. – Rabindranath Tagore • Pluck not the wayside flower; It is the traveler’s dower. – William Allingham • Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder. – Rumi • Reading music is like listening to flowers. I don’t understand the concept. – Paul Westerberg • Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. • Send me flowers while I’m alive. They won’t do me a damn bit of good after I’m dead. – Joan Crawford • Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage. – e. e. cummings • Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved. – Khalil Gibran • Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet. – Jeremy Bentham • Sweet April showers do spring May flowers. – Thomas Tusser • The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly… music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees. – Andres Segovia • The Amen of nature is always a flower. – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. • The artist is the confidant of nature, flowers carry on dialogues with him through the graceful bending of their stems and the harmoniously tinted nuances of their blossoms, Every flower has a cordial word which nature directs towards him. – Auguste Rodin • The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers. – Lewis Thomas • The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises. – Leo Buscaglia • The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure. – D. H. Lawrence • The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes. – Mark Nepo • The flower has opened, has been in the sun and is unafraid. I’m taking more chances; I’m bold and proud. – Paula Cole • The flower in the vase smiles, but no longer laughs. – Malcolm De Chazal • The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life. – Jean Giraudoux • The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all. – Walt Disney • The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly. – William Wordsworth • The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous. – Rabindranath Tagore • The flowers are Nature’s jewels, with whose wealth she decks her summer beauty. – George Croly • The heart is like a flower. Unless it is open, it cannot release its fragrance into the world. – Rajneesh • The lovely flowers embarrass me. They make me regret I am not a bee. – Emily Dickinson • The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms. – Nhat Hanh • The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. – Nhat Hanh • The nature of this flower is to bloom. – Alice Walker • The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyone the sculpted flower. – William C. Bryant • The silence of a flower: a kind of silence which we continually evade, of which we find only the shadow in dreams. – Vicki Lewis Thompson • The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition. – Honore de Balzac • The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of it’s scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness. – Therese of Lisieux • The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. – Matsuo Basho • There are always flowers for those who want to see them. – Henri Matisse • There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof. – Jean Paul • There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon. – Matsuo Basho • There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords. – John Muir • These flowers are like the pleasures of the world. – William Shakespeare • These stars of earth, these golden flowers. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet – William Shakespeare • Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower. – William Wordsworth • ‘Tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes! – William Wordsworth • To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself. – Nhat Hanh • To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat. – Beverley Nichols • To create a little flower is the labour of ages. – William Blake • To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. – William Wordsworth • To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower. – William Blake To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour. – William Blake True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility. – Philip Pullman • True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long. – Marcus Tullius Cicero • Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk? – Alice Walker • We grow like flowers, and bear desire, the odor of the human flowers. – Richard Henry Stoddard • We have much to hope from the flowers. – Arthur Conan Doyle We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls. – Mother Teresa • We were born to die and we die to live. As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on earth; we fully flower in heaven. – Russell M. Nelson • Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. – A. A. Milne • Well pleaseth me the sweet time of Easter. That maketh the leaf and the flower come out. – Bertran de Born • What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. – George Eliot • What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable. – Joseph Addison • When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art. – Paul Cezanne • When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower. – Lytton Strachey • When the Christians, upon these occasions, received martyrdom, they were ornamented, and crowned with garlands of flowers; for which they, in heaven, received eternal crowns of glory. – John Foxe • When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited. – Ramakrishna • When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not. – Georgia O’Keeffe • Where flowers bloom so does hope. – Lady Bird Johnson • Where flowers degenerate man cannot live. – Napoleon Bonaparte • Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants at tree, is more than all. – John Greenleaf Whittier • With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy. – Lope de Vega • With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears. – John Milton • With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy? – Oscar Wilde • You can crush the flowers, but you can’t stop the spring. – Pablo Neruda • You have it in your power to make your days on Earth a path of flowers, instead of a path of thorns. – Sathya Sai Baba • You have to appreciate every single day that you’re alive. Life is a little bit like a garden – you have to find time to plant the seeds for beautiful flowers to grow. – Oscar de la Renta • You have to water the flowers you want to grow. – Stephen Covey • You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way. – Walter Hagen

[ecotone99]

The Sinews of Meat [NF]

The gravel parking lot is frigid but mercifully dry on this Friday morning in the dead of winter. Instead of fighting for a space in the back of the lot with the rest of the crew, I opt, as usual, to place my truck somewhere alongside the building among the USDA inspectors and the retail ladies. I finish the last of my cigarette, which I lit once I was confident that my mother could no longer see me as I pulled out of the driveway, before I take back the last of my coffee. It has chilled to room temperature and I accept it with a grimace. I sigh and exit my truck before walking around to the rear of the shop.

Out back are the pens, half of which are outside and typically used to house lambs, or sometimes hogs in the event of a full house on the inside. Every week an order was filled for 115 lambs and one goat- don’t ask about the goat, I didn’t understand it, and neither did any of the guys I worked with. But, week after week, 115 lambs got slaughtered on our kill floor, usually split between Friday and Monday, unless Monday was a holiday or some such. Animals were held in the pens and led down a runway that led into the kill floor via a steel chute leading to a walled in box which had a gate on one side to facilitate “live-giving” from a safe vantage.

When I say lambs, I’m using the term loosely, as the boys on the crew did. These weren’t the cute, Messianic lambs one sees on Easter cards. They were sheep, at least as far as I could tell. Filthy, coughing piss reeking sheep. They stood dumb and bleating in the pens packed in tight, and they’d run as you approached the outside. Of the three usual animals we slaughtered (beef, hogs, and lambs), lambs were by far the dumbest. This, paired with their size, meant that they suffered the most frequent abuse of the trio. When they were being moved, usually in packs of four, into the box, they would often be thrown down the chute if they couldn’t be coerced with a kick in the ribs or a shot from the cattle prod. They proved easiest to kill. The lamb gun, a captive bolt gun which used a .22 blank to propel a steel rod into the brain of its intended recipient, would stun and incapacitate the animal. Sometimes this would kill it but they would usually be left squirming and kicking on the grated bottom of the box, and one of the crew would run in and deftly slash its throat.

The exception to this was of course the beef, who, along with the hogs, received a .25 cartridge instead of the .22 to better piece their thick skulls. Since the beef were typically over a half ton, after being shot they were hooked to a chain fall by their back legs and hoisted in the air. From here it was a two man job; one would do the cutting while the other would hold a barrel under the carcass to catch the gush of blood that spilled forth while holding the front legs. Oftentimes a spinal nerve would be severed during the cutting of the throat, which would trigger involuntary thrashing throughout the suspended carcass. A 1000 pound animal, hung on a chain, flailing its legs around in a room no bigger than 15x25 with mostly occupied floor space, can present a serious safety concern if it is not properly secured. So upon nicking the spinal nerve, the cutter would yell “SPINAL!” and the man with the barrel would hold onto his legs to avoid getting kicked in the head by the recently deceased animal. Then the now deceased animal would be hung by a hook and roller that was connected to tracks that ran across the ceiling throughout the back rooms, so it could be pushed with relative ease through the shop.

As it reached 7 am I would clock in and give and receive my standard morning greetings from the rest of the crew, most boisterously by a guy we’ll call Zeke, for my own safety as well as his privacy, who was sort of my impromptu mentor from my start there. Zeke was about 22 and at the time he was in work release at the county jail. He played his hardass routine very well, but I believe he developed a bit of a soft spot for me in spite of my general incompetence. Every day he would see me first and say “BILL! How the fuckin' hell are ya, pal?!”, followed by a hardy clap on the back. He rarely waited for a response, I think he just liked to yell. This was indicative of most of the crew. The oldest of us, the impromptu father figure of the group, though not the only one with kids, was probably in his early 30s. Most of the rest were in their mid-20s, generally speaking they were fun-loving, if not slightly malicious, rednecks, hellbent on spilling blood by the gallon in pursuit of the blue collar dream and the almighty dollar. I was among the youngest, along with two other kids who lived on my old street in town. Like me, they would come in stoned most days, and they were mostly out of place among the group of what most would call bona fide hillbillies. While the kill crew represented a respectable range of demographics for a slaughterhouse in Southern PA, they all held one thing in common- they loved their job. In spite of the filth and grime, in spite of the shit wages and the long hours, I have never worked with a group of young men more dedicated to the art and the science of their craft. They were a marvel to see in action. When they would skin a beef, they’d splay the beast on its back and go to work severing the legs and peeling back the hide, all the while laughing and whooping and hollering, just as I imagine a group of young Sioux braves would have done to a buffalo in the western territories hundreds of years ago. One time I watched them break into the chorus of "Strawberry Wine” halfway through the skinning process, all four of them, and I laughed so hard I nearly hit the fat-slicked tile of the Kill Floor. This was us, upon the crimson-stained tile floor, grown children in leather aprons with knives in their belts, singing and laughing and playing like modern day savages.

Two be clear, these were not a band of young Jeffrey Dahmers, meaning the classic “gets off on torturing animals” type. They were pretty normal ass dudes who, when the moment was right, were ready, willing, and able to spill blood for money, or sometimes a strange pleasure. They went home and lead fairly normal blue collar existences when their work was over. They all smoked or chewed tobacco, and they all would, at the very least, drink domestic beers in their down time. There was an old man there, probably in his 80s, who had been a butcher for his entire life. He was a kind, soft spoken, church going man who didn’t curse, had been with his wife and only his wife for the last 60 plus years, and had never had a sip of alcohol. He would come in on kill days and collect the hog maws (stomachs) we had set aside, which he would take and clean out so they could be later stuffed with vegetables and god knows what else then sold to other elderly Pennsylvania Dutch denizens. However, he still reminisced to me one day with a smile and a chuckle about being a young man and killing lambs by the dozen with his friends.

I never learned to skin and I rarely gutted, but I had work on the floor, too. After being fully cleaned, a “hot weight” was taken. The weight of the carcass would fluctuate after cooling so the hot weight was taken to ensure a consistent figure for pricing. With the hot weight received, it was pushed down to me for further cleaning, this time in a less technical sense. I used a knife and a hose to remove excess shit and hair from the outside of the carcass. While skinning the animal removed most of the contaminants, a shitty, hairy beast will remain shitty and hairy unless great care is taken to remove it. When a carcass first pushed to me, I typically had an animal specific augmentation to make before inspection. On hogs, kidneys were removed and split open to check for disease. Cows had the spinal column removed to prevent the potential spread of Mad Cow. Lambs, since they were moved in such bulk, still had genitals and a hanging throat to be removed, plus forelegs that needed to be tucked inward via a tendon pulled from within and pulled over the front part of the leg. Then I would go over it slowly and slice off any excess unsanitary components that I may come across. The skinners usually missed bits of hair and shit here and there, especially on lambs, arguably the hairiest and shittiest of the bunch. After removing all the undesirable parts, I sprayed the carcass down with the hot hose, which had to be above 150 degrees Fahrenheit to kill bacteria, namely e. coli. Barring any further pestering from an inspector, I would then push it into the next room, give it a final once-over, and stamp it with a USDA certified inspection stamp before pushing it into the cooler. You read that right. A green as grass 20 year old, usually stoned or half asleep or both, was responsible for the federal-level inspection of hundreds, perhaps thousands of future pieces of meat. Be afraid, be very afraid.

This was the typical kill day, with little variation. After what usually amounted to five or six hours of this, we would take lunch. A generous hour, where I’d get stoned for the second time of the day and have more coffee. My ritalin prescription, plus the sights and smells of the morning, usually left me without much of an appetite. When I got back, it was time for my solo tasks of the day; cleaning and re-laying pens, dumping “compost” (mostly shit, blood, and hair), and storing the guts away. First, a word on these guts. While we kept various oddball body parts and organs, such as beef tails, tongues, eyeballs, hearts, and livers, most of the organs, namely the digestive track, would be thrown rather indiscriminately into “non-consumible” barrels, which were stored out back as they filled. On kill days, two men would show up in a 3 axle truck to pick up these non-consumibles, to be processed into dog food at some plant. Otherwise, the guts were kept as part of a strange and macabre deal worked out with a man named Gil. Gil raised hunting dogs, and since the early days of the butcher shop, dating back over 30 years, he had been coming and picking up hand picked bodily delicacies, set aside specifically for him to mix with saw dust and feed to his hounds. He mostly got specific parts of the beefs’ stomachs, but he was privy to other, rarer finds. Most days when we killed a bulk order of lambs, several of them would be pregnant, and fetuses would be removed in the gutting process. When they were close enough to natural birth, they could be saved, and the owner would give them a blanket and bottled milk in the front office without the knowledge or consent of the farmer who had brought them. I never saw this, though. Lamb fetuses typically ended up in bizarre post-mortem puppet shows or as prop devices in pranks (“Here, open you’re hand, Bill, I have something to show you”), before being thrown in Gil’s barrels outside. Once we killed a cow with a fully formed calf inside, maybe 2 weeks shy of natural birth, with hair, hooves, eyeballs, the whole package, and the calf was given as a whole to Gil for his hounds.

I digress. The pens were the simplest part of the job. It was all just sweeping up the shit-and-blood-infused straw from the concrete floor, occasionally spraying the bare ground, and laying fresh straw for the next day. I would load the old straw into a tractor bucket and dump it down in the back part of the lot, the area known as the "Compost Pile". This is also where we deposited the things that the dog food boys wouldn’t touch, such as the shit and blood that seems to lurk within beef by the gallon. If there is a hell, it probably looks and/or smells like the Compost Pile. Long-since dried shit piles sat half-submerged in great pools of thickened, coagulated blood. This all sat totally exposed to the sun, and even in the cooler months it would slowly become even more putrid and draw flies and maggots by the millions. I have worked in many less than sanitary environments, but nothing I have seen can quite match the vile obscenity of that gruesome Pile. I am thankful every day that I don’t have to see it anymore. From there I would put any remaining barrels in the cooler for the following day, return the tractor to its resting place in a pole barn across the lot, and clock out after a long, arduous 9-10 shift.

From all the time I spent there, and all the things I saw, one day stands out more than any other. It was a kill day, nearing the end of the menagerie of animals brought to die that day, and I was moving carcasses in the cooler. One of the kill crew guys came and got me, and told me I was needed on the kill floor. I stopped what I was doing and joined him, with a vague idea that I knew what was about to happen. I had been told when I started that there was a macabre ritual practiced by the kill crew, an initiation for new members. I stepped into the room and saw the crew crowded around the freshly killed body of the last hog of the day. I recall that Godsmack’s “Voodoo” was playing on the speaker in the corner. I approached them, and was quickly presented with the heart, still hot and beating freshly pulled from the heart of this pig. It was now my obligation to take a bite of this thing. I consider myself to generally be a morally respectable person, and beyond that, above simple peer pressure. But I knew that if I didn’t take the bite, I would never be respected by these savages. So I ignored my morality and my pride and I bit into it. It was rubbery and bloody, and I spit it out onto Zeke’s chest. He swore and kicked me in the ass, and I walked away grinning, knowing that I had done the bare minimum to gain acceptance from my coworkers.

This was my life for about 4 months before I got fed up with it and quit over something that was fairly insignificant in hindsight. I learned a lot about death and meat and human progress, and through the assistance of psychedelia I have done much meditating on these subjects. One thing I have found is that people generally refuse to hear about what happens at a butcher shop. The common American dines on meat with nearly every meal, but many of them are disgusted by the thought of where it comes from. This is a logic that has allowed the world’s genocides to occur throughout modern history. If we look at things such as the Holocaust, the genocide in Armenia, or the Rape of Nan-King, we find that while people are opposed to these events happening, they are often unwilling to do anything to stop it. I am not comparing the meat trade to genocide. I believe that if you look at it from either a biological or more spiritual standpoint, it is our natural right to kill and feast upon other animals. And even if it isn’t, fuck it, they taste good. However, I think it is important for those of us who choose to eat meat to take a rational look at the way meat is collected and processed, and make a decision based on this knowledge. The idea of humane slaughter is a farce. There is no such thing. The idea of giving an underpaid, overworked American male with little education or future prospects the duty of slaughtering a great number of animals in a limited amount of time, and expecting him to do so in a friendly and non-intrusive manner, is laughable. Butchers know this, as do most inspectors who are worth a shit. I am equipped with this personal knowledge, and I continue to eat meat. I hunt and harvest whitetail in the fall when possible, and I still try to support smaller scale meat packing operations, as they still seem to be a more humane option than more industrial settings. Point being, I can kill what I eat. I don’t require the veil of secrecy regarding the food I eat, so I feel at liberty to eat as I please. However I still see the masses who eat their dead flesh but want no involvement with its harvest and preparation, and I wonder if this is indicative of a moral confusion within mankind, where we feel above the inherent cruelty of our actions because of our refusal to acknowledge it.

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[tennecois]

Sweet stillness

For months, I’ve been waiting patiently for the moment when I could say with absolute certainty that there was nothing between Bryan and I. The beast of unknowing gnawed away at my every thought and stole countless hours of concentration, focus, sleep and peace. Though I didn’t necessarily mean to, I fed the thing by allowing my conscience to be taken hostage by my love which had grown into a certifiable obsession. All that I was was in service of this notion that we matched so well that with more patience and time than is reasonable, I could forge a bond between that would sustain us and be our home throughout our lives. Note the use of “I” where “we” should belong.

The end came today. The defining moment of boldness that would determine the outcome of who were were together was forced into being by taking a calculated risk. He’s been staying with me for a few days after his lease ended before he can move into another place. In my typical way which speaks to my accommodating nature and giving spirit, I poured out anything and everything I could offer to make his stay comfortable and pleasant. He was so open and receptive and grateful for it all and didn’t protest my physical affection, which was a surprise. Then last night as we sat together on the couch sharing obscure early 20th-century art songs, the wheels of my mind began to spin. We got up and hugged goodnight, I kissed him on the side of the head and went to bed. But shortly before 1 am and after much internal struggle, I sent him a simple message: “Wanna come sleep in here?”

The ensuing silence was enough to drive all remaining scraps of peace out of my mind at an alarming speed. I began to spiral out of control imagining the horror of losing this man I’d invested so much into over the last year, someone who by his own admission truly loves me as his dear friend, and facing the crushing truth that it would be entirely my fault. Never the one to be satisfied with what I have and leave well enough alone, I pulled the trigger for the shot that could destroy it all and mark me as a predator in the minds of anyone he ever talked to about this. I thought this was going to be the last thing he thought of me before we never saw each other again. I truly dreaded waking up this morning because I knew when I walked out of my bedroom towards the kitchen and saw him I’d have to fully face the consequence of my actions in order to even have my breakfast.

But like rays of sunshine through thick cloud cover, some of life’s simplest and greatest joys are those that are unexpected. I felt different when I woke up - not anxious or worried but like a researcher checking his experiment, with palpable curiosity. The anticipated agony and anxiety I’d foreseen was strangely absent. I simply wasn’t afraid, and once he and I sat down with our coffee, I saw in his sweet face a tenderness that is so uniquely him that disarmed me completely. He didn’t acknowledge my question until I brought it up, which of course I had to as he and I share a similar dislike of conflict and desire for peace. My sincere apology was met with his most charming smile and “it’s okay.” We then finally debriefed about his recent revelation in regards to his sexuality as well as my role therein and all the puzzle pieces I needed, maybe not all the ones I wanted, presented themselves to me. For the very first time I had a clear portrait of where he was and why he went about things the way he did.

By the time I had taken him to our friend Gina’s for his next temporary stay, we had shared a few more good stories, laughs and even a tender moment or two of honesty. He took his things out of the car and we had one last hug goodbye, I got back in and then confidently and quietly drove away. What awaited me in the car once I’d sent him off was an unexpected but highly celebrated and eternally welcome guest I’d not seen in ages: it was stillness, but you may know her as peace. As I drove on I began to feel progressively lighter and the fog that had settled over my mind in September finally began to lift and burn away. It was as if my heart had finally taken off its winter coat and stepped out into the green of spring.

This is what I had truly been yearning for since I volunteered my heart to him. I spent so much time wishing for a resolution and waiting rather impatiently for him to return my affection so the beasts of unknowing and obsession would be stopped. In truth, had that happened, in his state of mind about his sexuality and place in the world that may have been the very worst thing he could’ve done. Instead, he did exactly what he should have - he stood his ground firmly yet gently with honesty and compassion. That opened the door and lit the lamp for stillness to finally return home to me. I had driven her away with my own stubborn will and wild-eyed infatuation with someone that isn’t right for me nor I for him. But just when I thought she was forever lost to me, she revealed herself again. All I had to do was be brave and leave him behind.

Bryan, thank you for helping me grow and to finally understand lessons I’ve learned so many times before but that just needed the final variable explained to take hold in me.

Sweet stillness, forgive me. I’ve not done right by you. Welcome home - I’ve missed you so. If you would, softly close the door behind you and stay with me for at least a little while.

And that, my friends, is the last I intend you’ll hear from me of Bryan DeParsia.

“I’ll take off this black dress and flourish in green, And pass as light by him as he does by me.”

Montreal, 11 May 2017