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Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #132

I came across a poem by Rebecca Elson, and I reproduce the first three stanzas here

ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH

Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death,
I eat the stars.

Those nights, lying on my back,
I suck them from the quenching dark
Til they are all, all inside me,
Pepper hot and sharp.

Sometimes, instead, I stir myself
Into a universe still young,
Still warm as blood:

Would you like to write something in a similar spirit, or just carry this ahead – in prose or poetry? Can you think of a story or anecdote or historical tale on the same theme. It should basically be a story of survival strategies.

Go where the prompt leads you.

~*~

Death stares

Trying to quell me

What is to fear I ask

Death is the reality of life

my composition
exists
in an eternal loop

conscious and alive
non-existent and dead
unending

i fear not
what is
natural

Inspired by Reena’s Exploration Challenge #132

Carl Sagan (11/9/34 – 12/20/96) was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences. – Wikipedia

If you were like me, you inhaled the show “Cosmos” in the 1980s. Carl Sagan contributed mightily to my understanding of our universe as well as the various sciences he was involved in. He was someone I looked up to and learned from. Sagan had a great mind and a deep compassion for the living. He helped me make sense of things in a world that doesn’t easily give you understanding. I will forever be grateful to have been exposed to his mind and his rationale.

कोई उम्मीद नहीं उनसे मिलने की
कैसे लिखूँ मैं कोई अब ग़ज़ल नई

वही तन्हाई, वही दर्द, है हिज़्र वही
क्या जज़्बात करे बयां ग़ज़ल नई

इज़हार-ए-इश्क़ करना हुआ मुहाल
न जाने क्या गज़ब ढाए ग़ज़ल नई

उम्र बीती बिना विसाल-ए-यार हुए
सूनी कलम क्या कहे ग़ज़ल नई

तेरी हर अदा खुद है शायरी अमित
क्या खता मेरी जो कहूँ ग़ज़ल नई

In response to: Reena’s Exploration Challenge #131

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #130

PROMPT #130

In this week, write a piece which includes any one or more of the following phrases

Once upon a lifestyle

Once upon a lifetime

Once in a lifetime

At least once in a lifetime

if not more like me

you get a kick from God

and realize

the value of

life

love

health

exercise

relationship

friendship

love

money

diet

sunlight

rest

self-confidence

and the

time and space

you get

or give

to others

The bleedin’ silly cow, wot’s she wearin’ that for, I says to me self, as I watched some fancy bird casually ‘andling the fruit on the barrow. She was wearin’ some fancy necklace that would ‘ave kept some family in dosh for a lifetime. She weren’t long for this world.

There they were, right on cue, Bert and Jeb, five yards to the side of the fancy lady, eyein’ the necklace and scheming ‘ow they could get their ‘ands on it. Serves ‘er bleedin’ well right, toffs ain’t got no sense of self preservation. But me good ‘art takes over and I walks up to the lady and whisper ” There’s a lot of low…

The masses were clamoring to lift the lock-down, encouraged by a loudmouth elite. Safe in his gated community, he went as far as promoting a naked love-in on the lawns of capitol buildings across the country just to show there was nothing to fear from the bogey of the virus. Most of the naked protestors were arrested and crammed into holding cells overnight until their arraignments for indecent exposure could be processed.

Two weeks later hospital emergency rooms were packed with individuals needing to be placed in quarantined intensive care on ventilators.

Dr. James Smith was one emergency room doctor working day shifts all that week. He was meticulous about using clean protocol to avoid catching the virus from the scores of people too busy trying to stay alive to regret their selfish and impulsive following of a narcissistic madman who got a hard-on at the thought that people would…

He had lost everything of value to him. There was an empty canvas on the easel, his colors and tools.  What would he paint?  *

Eyes reddened from tears
he bears his soul, like a wolf
howls into the emptiness

No response

Life shrinks at the sight of him
wounded creatures fearing
his motivations, advances

Entrapped

Escape alludes – walls
structures of his fear
he is his own obstacle

Alone

He will find his bearing
claw his way through faithlessness
Solitude, after all, an ally to his breed.

(For Reena’s Exploration challenge:  *quotation captioned.  Image my own.)

 

For days I stared at the blank page, contemplative,

as I tried to gather the universe in metaphors

pen paralyzed, poised plaintively

words voiceless, suddenly amiss

endless time on hand stretching like a lazy cat

wasted on a futile pursuit of awol ideas

left high and dry by the secretive, masquerading muse

disgusted with the fickle-minded creativity

I wander off to the balcony, my favourite perch

only to be met with the baleful gaze of

the occasional visitor, the one-eyed crow

the nearby mango tree is half stooping

laden with flowers and a bevy of brown bulbuls

who trill merrily, a chorus so uplifting

that I stand there transfixed, as they soar and alight

uncaring of the murder of crows that has gathered

no question of a parley between the two parties

I decide to be a neutral observer

after a hectic and raucous conference

the crows cede space…

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #131

I give below a situation. You may take it as a part of your piece – beginning, middle or end.

He had lost everything of value to him. There was an empty canvas on the easel, his colors and tools. What would he paint?

~*~

“He had lost everything of value to him. There was an empty canvas on the easel, his colors and tools. What would he paint?”

When she read these lines, she feltthat someone had written her story. It was true that she wasn’t an artist but she felt the same as the protagonist in this story. She felt drained of all motivation. Tomorrowwas the audition she had been looking forward to for weeks. But now after the death of her mother, it felt hopeless to even try.

She decided to not go to the…