Hugh and Mina loved to run, and I might be in my early-ish 60s, but I wasn’t so old I couldn’t indulge them. The summer evening was dark, but still warm. Running felt like flying with 30 pounds of dog pulling me along. Old neighborhood, tall trees in the tree lawns, their roots shaping the sidewalk. No street lamps.
Gapawa published a post today titled A Bit of Honesty. He likened himself to Sisyphus, futilely pushing a big rock up a hill only to have it roll back down for him to push back up the hill. Day after day after day. Gapawa concludes the way out is beneath oceans of fear where your dream — whatever that means to you — is carefully concealed.
“It can be reached. But you must be courageous. You must be willing to accept help. You must be strong enough to surrender. Sweet dreams…” Gapawa
I left a comment.
“If you dive into the oceans of fear often enough, you can locate the shallows of experience where you can dream awake and put down your rock.
The first time was the scariest.” Me
He asked me if I’d care to share some of my experience, and my response grew into a post. With credit to Gapawa for prodding me to put it into words, I decided it would be more polite to publish it here than to fill his space with a post-length comment.
Here is my reply:
The Peace Poem, 2016, the collection of poetry begun under #PoetsForPeace, has been published in Praxis Magazine. It’s available as a free downloadable pdf. Each poem is worth reading and savoring. (You can find mine on pages 199-200, if you’re interested. 😉 )
#PoetsForPeace ~ The finished collaboration is only days from being published and available as a FREE download!
#PoetsForPeace is this year’s world event organized under 100,000 Poets for Change. Here’s their background.
The Bardo Group “100,000 Poets for Change” event page is HERE. Beginning 27 September (tomorrow), we’ll post work on Peace and Justice for one week as our participation. We invite others to link their own work to ours and, although the title is “poets” everyone (artists, activists, writers, musicians, bloggers) is welcome. Shortly after the event, we’ll collect your links into a page to create a commemorative collection like we did last year for Poets Against War.View original post 715 more words
Exciting times ahead.
We are re-submitting our YA scifi novel, ENHANCED, to an agent at her request. It’s been a long road from her insightful critique to the refined story we offer now, and we couldn’t be more proud. We hope you’ll wish us luck and send positive thoughts our way.
When I first published this post, my blog was 5 days old and had about 10 readers. I’m sharing it again with all the people I have come to know and care about here. If you’re curious about the actual story of ENHANCED, you can read the first 3 chapters at the Inkshares link. If you’d like to support us, please feel free to share this post with everyone you know! Thanks and enjoy!
Some might call this shameless self-promotion, but until we sign an agent, who else is there to do this dirty job? Tomorrow, it’s back to the fun stuff! I promise.
Why was I going to apologize? Robb and I wrote Enhanced so we could work together to create a story we could share with people like us — people like you. We’re proud of what we’ve written. We believe it’ll stick with readers like good books do, and we dare to hope it can be a beacon for kids — and adults — who feel like they’re outside the mainstream.
So without apology, I want to tell you about it. But not about our “writing process” — in the name of all that’s holy, not the “writing process”! (…unless you ask…)
Since the beginning of language, there have been storytellers.
“Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might…
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Helen Espinosa chose Sex as this week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme. It doesn’t have to be graphic, but you can find out how to play along by clicking the link above.
I prefer something a little more subtle, but no less raw, so I’ve chosen a classic 1972 Eagles song — hey, sex, drugs, and rock and roll go together like Luke, Leia, and Han and Chewy, right? The “video” is a still, but the original album track has been remastered, so the quality is great.
#PoetsForPeace will accept your poem until August 31, 2016.
We will combine all contributions and welcome suggestions for what to do with the resulting collaborative Poem…”The Poem Heard ‘Round the World” something that would make Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Martin Luther King Jr. sigh.” #PoetsForPeace
The Cycle
by S.T. Ranscht
Dark Age
ignorance, destruction, violence
the fearful band together
to contain, restrain, constrain
civilizing this Time’s
Golden Age
to question, create, explore
achieving complacence
once again
Shadows creep unnoticed from horizon
into unwary hearts that have no fear
or sense of other
or of love
Their first act shocks the world
to flurry anguish settling
to comfortable couch outrage
binge-watching shoot-em-ups
from the fifties
Was that the news
or just another episode
of mass shooting senseless violence reckless hate?
What can we do?
What can anybody do?
It is insane.
I see no hope.
Yes, this is a very comfortable couch.
Until it isn’t
Springs poke through
Too much anger, frustration, discontent
the hundredth monkey finally arriving
after the third act
or the fifth
or tenth
Standing to make room
swallowing their fear with the blood flowing
past their homes. along their streets, in their veins
until it boils
over
away
to purify us all
and birth
another
chance
for
hope
Helen Espinosa chose an examination of anger as the Song Lyric Sunday theme this week.
I suspect love’s betrayal is the most common subject of anger in music. Carrie Underwood’s Louisville Slugger revenge song, Before He Cheats, came to my mind first, then Chicago’s murderous rage song, Cell Block Tango.
But I settled on another kind of anger altogether: alien megalomaniacal anger like Little Shop of Horrors’ Audrey II’s “fightin’ mad” song sung by the Four Tops.
Space, Time, and Raspberries 
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