Mud between the toes
This room is full of betrayal
Quick clean in the sink
image: Iris, from martha0stout’s phone
How could this happen to me? I made my mistakes, Got nowhere to run. –from Untitled by Simple Plan
I’m throwing in all three parts of this month’s Eclectic Corner #11: Momentarily at the same time due to being so incredibly late in getting it up at all…
image: martha0stout’s phone, Great Salt Lake, Utah
This poem was inspired by Eclectic Corner #9: Edge. The picture is from the Great Salt Lake, Utah where we’ve had a very dry last few years even for our desert home. The lake’s been retreating for a while.
image: from martha0stout’s phone
Walk with me through life
It will certainly be sweet
Together we’ll grow.
This was how my newest brother-in-law asked my youngest sister to marry him almost a year and a half ago. He took her to where they met, our elementary school, and they walked around it reminiscing while his sister quickly set this up on a chair near where we would all leave the school to walk home together.
He had promised her a cookie a few weeks earlier when she’d been craving them.
After opening the box and seeing this, she turned around to find him down on one knee.
This is the picture that caught my eye when I went looking through my pictures for Eclectic Corner #8: Splash of Colour.
The easel stood proudly before her, placed exactly where the artist’s eye would get the best view. The empty canvass would have wriggled in excitement if it could, waiting for just one splash of colour to take away its starkness.
The woman rested back a moment in her chair. The garden ahead gave its own glorious canvass of colour as the forest and fields behind created a nice backdrop, a small sigh escaped recently moisturised lips.
Mossy green eyes now took a leisurely look upon the multitude of squeezed tubes, brushes and array of artist’s tools, her slender pale fingers twitching, eager to start. There was just the twitter of birds interrupted by the snore of a lazy house dog as the cat meandered back and forth between her legs.
The sun peeked its rays through the haze of branches, splintering in to more rays to dust upon the petals and grass, a smile creasing upon her lips as the warmth radiated through clement veins. A splash of gold and russet found itself being placed upon the canvass, the emerging of what, she was not sure at this precise time, her art always morphing as the day went on.
Resting a moment after a few brushstrokes the wooden handle found itself twiddling and twisting between fingers like a baton, the clouds making an eager appearance nudging against the toasty rays, drowning them out.
Saturated greenery suddenly became lacklustre as a shiver ran down her spine, the hairs of the brush now coated in darker and deeper shades, sweeping across now wetter and more colourful canvas.
There was a tussle and a ruffle as the sun fought its way back, today was going to be one of those days. Resting back in to her chair lids closed a moment, distractions always trying to pry her away from intended task as the warmth kissed her lips.
Memories floating back to that bar, the hustle and bustle of urban life, the opposite of her now rural existence. That kiss, so different to the kiss of sunshine, that kiss that tasted of whisky and cigars, the stubble burning her skin as she gasped, surprising herself at the memory, it invoking tingles to rage through her body, goosebumps erupting everywhere.
Breathing in deeply, she resisted the necessity to open her eyes, enjoying the memory, though it had faded, another sigh, this one of disappointment. Sadness swept through her veins, lashes lifting to survey rural surroundings once more.
A jolt went through her body at the crude sharp sound of a trilling bell, the phone, it obliterating any vestiges of memory, any moment of calm as she lifted up to go and answer it…..
© Justine Nagaur Eclecticoddsnsods.com
image: taken with my sister’s Nook
With a shudder her eyes opened. The room was fuzzy and no matter what she tried she couldn’t bring it into focus. She blamed the dull throbbing in her head for that. And the way her body in general feels like it was soaked in a swimming pool for days rather than the normal two hours that she spends doing laps.
She has no idea why her head hurts like this because she’s never had a problem with headaches before. Whatever is causing it must also be the reason behind why her throat feels worse than any amount of congestion she’s ever had on top of swallowing a chicken bone.
“Miss Summers.”
She wondered just how she even got here.
“Miss Summers, can you hear me?”
She couldn’t even really remember the last thing she’d been doing-
“Miss Summers, if you can understand what I am saying blink once.”
She blinked as rapidly as possible when she realized that someone was speaking to her. Her vision was still very fuzzy so all she was seeing was a giant moving blob in neutral colors.
“I don’t think she’s quite awake enough yet, doctor.”
“Coming out from anesthesia can always through a person for a loop, nurse.”
“Let’s just hope that this one recovers better than the last patient we had in for this.”
This picture and little continuation of Justine’s story are in answer to her Eclectic Corner #6: Story & Photography prompt. I wasn’t sure what to write about today and I’m kind of dead tired as well (moving is not fun when you’r trying to pack up eight people and do other necessary stuff and you’re not even actually moving anything into the new house for about a week and a few days) so I was glad when she mentioned it to me. Thank you, Justine! You have saved me for the day.
I don’t remember the name of the painting or the artist, but it’s something my parents purchased in the first few years of their marriage before they had a bunch of kids. It was one of the first things to jump to mind while I was reading through the story prompt.
Each day was much the same, waiting for My Boy to come home from school. He was always the first through the door and I was ready and waiting. I loved the others just as much, but My Boy was special. He needed me more than the others, not because life wasn’t just as hard or them but because My Boy didn’t have the same kind of support that his siblings had. I don’t understand much about humans, about how they decide who should and shouldn’t be their friend, but My Boy didn’t have friends his age. Those few that he did have were usually also friends with his siblings.
So during the times when it was just My Boy and me, before the others got home from school, or after school activities, he would curl up against me and with his face pressed into my belly and no one had to know about the tears soaking into my thick coat of fur.
No one had to know about the taunts he’d repeat.
No one had to know that his homework was done twice to hide the tear stains.
No one had to know about the smiles that look so broken, the ones that he practiced to make sure that no one could tell that they were broken.
No one had to know that My Boy’s siblings worried about him.
No one had to know that they would whisper into my ears about their fears.
“He never talks about school.”
“He only hangs out with us when we ask him to, he used to ask to spend time with us all the time.”
“I haven’t seen him happy about anything outside of the house in months.”
“I just don’t know what to do, Rabby.”
So I sit there, curled around My Boy and wait because there is nothing more I can do.
This little story snippet and poem was inspired by the picture prompt from Eclectic Corner #5 for this week from the lovely Justine.
image: martha0stout’s phone
Can’t quite manage to reach every point Or block a wandering dog; Very often, though, it does what is needed Especially when the wind starts blowing and Rain, snow and hale beat down.
Here is the bigger picture that the little cropped part came from in my post Eclectic Corner #4 – Protection What? for my answer to Justine’s Eclectic Corner: Protection.
image: from martha0stout’s phone
I hope that y’all enjoyed the guessing game!
Here’s another attempt at Justine’s Eclectic Corner: Protection. Please forgive my poor camera phone’s lack of ‘skills’ when it comes to the finer details. Have fun guessing what this is cropped from! And don’t worry, Justine, I will include a poem with the reveal post once the challenge is over.
image: martha0stout’s phone
image: ‘Sisters’ , from sister just older than me’s old art pad
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. –Aristotle
(This image is one that my sister drew based off a picture of two of our other sisters.)
This post is inspired by two prompts: Eclectic Corner #3 – Resolutions and the revisit of Dungeon Prompt: Mortality and the Human Psyche. Make sure to check out the prompts as well as Sreejit’s revisit of his Dungeon Prompt, Defined by the Darkness, it’s really good for making you think!
This was inspired partially by my picture in the post Leather and Red Hair – Eclectic Corner #2 and also because the lovely Justine over at Eclectic Odds n Sods asked where my poem was with that post! (I had honestly forgotten to include one, Justine, I’ve been so busy at home lately! Thank you for reminding me. (grins))
So if we’re allowed to have two posts go for the Eclectic Corner #2 prompt of Decadence, then here is my other half.
This week I was challenged by the lovely lady over at Eclectic odds n sods to take part in one of her photography challenges. I am sad to say that it took me a bit to figure out what picture to use. I haven’t finished switching over to my newer camera phone-thing so any new pictures are horribly blurry, so I’ve been looking through my older ones.
This was a costume I created for a character several years ago. My hair is red using Kool-aid to temporarily dye it. I tasted strawberries for weeks even after washing it out of my hair.
image: from martha0stout’s phone, Halloween costume
The prompt for this photo challenge was the following:
“The exotic and the erotic ideals go hand in hand, and this fact also contributes another proof of a more or less obvious truth – that is, that a love of the exotic is usually an imaginative projection of a sexual desire.”
― Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony
I’m afraid the other things I could think of I didn’t have pictures of nor was I able to take one with my scratched lens that looked to fit the prompt. Then I found this and remembered the leather jacket that I’d borrowed from my sister and the thick red hair that I had for a time. No one recognized me all day, it was fabulous!
Make sure to check other responses to this prompt!
Breathing In 