General

Reena gives us the prompt “A Colorless World” along with a black and white picture showing people holding up some guitars, a microphone, a keyboard, a cymbal and what maybe looks like a block of wood and she tells us to let the prompt take us anywhere, delving into the realms of our conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious mind.  I came up with a Grateful Dead song called ‘Terrapin Station’ that was written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter and released in 1977 on the album with the same name.  This song was written as the second part of the Terrapin Station Suite, where the first song in the suite is ‘Lady With A Fan’, and because they were often lumped together they are thought of as being one song.

Robert Hunter wrote this song while he was sitting in an unfurnished house with a picture window overlooking San Francisco Bay during…

Our free range playgrounds of childhood have died.

We no longer live connected, but rather side by side

We know each other by first name only

Some live isolated and feel quite lonely

Gone are the days of front porch swings

Where friends may gather as evening begins

And lovers sit swinging hand in hand

It was wonderful // Life was grand

Our doors never locked and curtains seldom pulled

Kids ran free and no threat while at school

Played in the woods // climbed trees without nets

Disappeared all day and played with their pets

And if we ever needed help from a friend

We knew who to call // that neighbor round the bend

Seems the new normal arrived long before Covid

As life had already changed  // no matter what we did

Photo: Dwight L. Roth

This poem came to me after reading Reena Sexons poem:

Target…

Different emotions,

Different aspects,

Different perspectives,

Different situations,

Different attributes,

Dissimilar,

Turns whole,

Like white ray emerging,

A single streak from varied hues,

Parts of puzzle,

Pieced together,

In retrospect.

30 words.

Acknowledgements :- Thank you Reena Saxena for running the Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 146. This week’s challenge is inspired from cubism form of art. Cubism is a style of art which tries to show all possible viewpoints of a person or an object all at once. It is a two dimensional art work, mainly consisting of geometrical shapes. For rules please refer here. Thank you all for stopping by and reading.

Jennifer Pendergast

Sunday midnight, the night-train leaves the station.

Only two passengers; the Sleep-Eater and me.

By journey’s end, the ‘things I shouldn’t have done’ chest will have been prised open, its contents strewn across the carriage.

The ‘people I used to know’ gallery will have been studied to guilt-laden exhaustion, the ‘worrying symptoms’ and ‘don’t forget’ catalogues extensively refurbished.

Arriving at dawn, quivering with fatigue, I’ll alight to face the week ahead whilst the  Sleep-Eater remains on board, hands folded across his swollen belly, belching contentedly.

He probably won’t be travelling Monday night, I’ll be drop-dead exhausted, but Tuesday’s lookin’ good.

A re-tread this week from 5 years ago but as appropriate today as it’s always been, for me at least.  Thanks to Rochelle, the driver of the Friday Fictioneer train, for all that she does to keep us on track. 

Change is inevitable in life as we restless humans constantly prowl the planet for value and meaning to justify our fragile existence. Old gods give way to new gods, old structures to new structures, old idea to modern ideas and society continues to take shape based on our current vogue of thinking. In 1895 Freud’s development of free association gave rise to new trends in our thought process and a series of twelve papers he published between 1914-1918 caused wide ranging speculations about cultural, social, artistic, religious and anthropological phenomena. This early 20th century enlightenment had a wide ranging influence on some artists who envisioned their creations with new eyes. One of these new forms of expression was cubism.

Cubism is an art form originating in Paris between 1907-1914 and best exemplified by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Cubism sought to…

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Abstract figures, contours,

appear to ramble

incoherent thoughts.

The jagged emotions

deftly concealed

behind the colors bright.

Only the discerning eye

reads between the lines

to decipher the depth of pain.

Reena’s exploration challenge #146, Cubism.

What is seen is already
Broken, and what is depicted
Never was. The artists had
Their agendas, trying to impose
Reality to the limits of oils
And borders, even if a deformation
had to occur. But all that remains
Is another object that reality holds.
But an object is its own being.
Even if the artist casts himself
The failure of his dreams,
And reality tosses his name
To the spaces between air,
The thing stays here for you,
Its meaning simmering into shapes,
the reconfigured glares, the figures
twisted into color, movements
That were not borne of reality
Directly, but are now within
Its domain, changing its air,
Maybe changing you as well.

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Written for Reena’s Exploration Challenge #146.