Creative Experiments and More

The ghostly galleon was a pale shadow in the skies

nervous moonlight peeped from behind the clouds

silvery, slithering snakes streaked down to the seas

the lone, ageing vessel valiantly tried to stay afloat

wailing waves walloped the deck again and again

the master helmed the ship stoically

though his heart was grim at what lay ahead

as the sea-spray hit his face once more, she tasted like memory

of all the good times he had had on her calm waters

and he smiled

her turbulent, troubled flashes of temper did not frighten him a bit

sea was his beloved, he could read her every pulse

yet, he admitted to self candidly, she could be capricious

he wouldn’t mind dying in her arms

but he knew they had many more years of togetherness

he had learnt to starve the fear that gnawed in his gut

never letting the…

The first tale I thought of for Reena’s prompt today comes from a book I read so many years ago, “Dune,” by Frank Herbert.  Youtube is a marvelous treasure-trove on any topic, so I went looking to see if I could find where someone recited the passage that has stuck in my mind and become a part of my being since then.  I was able to find this excellent short video that talks about, “The Litany Against Fear.”

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
– Frank Herbert, Dune, Paul Atreides’ Litany Against Fear

Reena is…

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.