Sunday, January 5, 2014

Why I Don't Write Poetry 2014-1

Love descended on her,
Not expected.
Making her life a blur.

Would it last a season?
Or last a lifetime?
No time to think, to reason.

I watch with eyes fully open
As this Love unfolded
Between the two chosen ones.

But Love is cruel,
Vicious, unkind.
Making someone always play the fool.

The wind came one day of gray,
And with the leaves,
Whisked her Love away.

He left for a world of sand,
Sent to defend a people,
A selfish land.

The letter said he was very brave,
Protected his men, his life,
Until the very last wave.

Now she holds a metal of gold,
Something to be proud of,
That's what she's told.

But a metal of gold,
Won't hold you tight,
Or shield you from the cold.

But she'll go on.
And she will fight her own crusades.
Another casualty of a battle won.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Ann's Writing Prompt

 My writing teach, Ann, had this challenge on her blog:  Write a story using these phases:

A big E
Macaroni and cheese
An annoying limp
A woman named Red Hannah

Here's my go:

My hometown was full of interesting characters. One was a woman named Red Hanna, that was our name for her anyway. Her real name was Hanna Motova, and hailed from somewhere in the depths of Siberia. We called her Red because she was the only Communist that we knew. The rumor was that she was the love child of Leonid Brezhnev and Bess Truman, but that was never proven.

She wasn’t a bad looking woman, as least as a junior higher I didn’t think so, but she was on the strange side. You’d ask her a question and she’d say, “A big E” and then go into a rant about how Macaroni and Cheese was best if you added some tripe to it. She always had a glass of red Kool-Aid in her hand and a paper sack that had our imaginations running wild. Some said it was her dead cat that she brought from Russia, others said it was the hand of her lover back home, others said it was a pickle loaf sandwich. I didn’t want to know, especially since I worked at the grocery store sacking groceries and had seen her buy pickle loaf.

Red Hanna lived in a hut down across from the grain elevator.  I always felt sorry for Red Hanna, she walked with an annoying limp which she tried to hid by walking with on foot on the curb while the other was in the street. She could make you sea sick if you watched her bopping up and down as she walked. She always swung her arm with the paper bag high in the air while she was walking. If there was a strong head wind, she would turn around and walk backwards. If it rained, she would put a laundry basket over her head. It didn’t matter the weather Red Hanna was going to be going somewhere.

One day she didn’t make her appointed rounds and the police was sent to check on her. She wasn’t at her shack, and to this day there hasn’t been a sign of her anywhere. Of course the rumors ran wild about how the Russians kidnapped her to take her back to the homeland, and they could be right since sitting on her kitchen table was her glass of red Kool-Aid and her paper bag.