Creative Experiments and More

If not for colours,

Red roses exchanged on Valentine’s Day,

Lose their promise of love,

If not for colours,

Colourful bands exchanged on Friendship Day,

Lose their promise of solidarity,

If not for colours,

Lively crackers lighting up the sky on Deepavali*,

Lose their promise of triumph.

Colours of cheer, blossom,

Colours of gloom, negate,

Colours of gratitude, prosper,

Colours of envy, curb,

Colours of innocence, multiply,

Colours of greed, dissipate.

While various vibrant hues,

Unite together,

To welcome a single streak of white,

Carpet of darkness,

Graciously descends,

To let other colours shine.

Into paleness I’d disappear,

If not for colours,

Darkness calmly awaits,

To embrace with open arms,

Paves way,

Shine and glow.

115 words.

Deepavali* :- Festival of lights celebrated in India either in the month of October or November. The date varies every year.

Acknowledgements :- Thank you Reena Saxena for running the Reena’s Exploration Challenge…

in a world not gifted with…

a photographer’s keen eye
a musician’s in tune rhythm
a sculpture’s deft hands
a poet’s thoughtful expression
a singer’s thrilling voice
a dancer’s grace in movement
a writer’s crafty imagination
an actor’s heartfelt emotion
an artist’s painted or drawn strokes of genius

you’d be a witness to its blandness
and we’d all be less for it

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.