AWOL Week 22 Responses
The prompt was a poem by Martha Sprackland titled ‘Dooms’, about a man struck seven times by lightning. And the subject for the exercise was, of course, lightning…
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One in a Million by Jodie Glass
One in a Million
so many words translated into 7,099 languages
hello, hallo, salve, zdravo, hela
and marhabaan
`
the universal word known by everyone even babies
followed by “how are you?” But beyond that
what do you say to a stranger?
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Gazam, or gazoo, whallop and pop bang
a four-year-old would be laughing now
just like that book
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zoink and whee, time to grow up
so many words, translated into 7,099 languages
but not always
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Jodie Glass
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… by Lottie
It seems that the odds are stacked against us in life and our beginnings aren’t exactly painted with roses and unicorns. We writers tend to breathe life into characters who come lumbered with baggage, craving acceptance and the feeling of being loved and needed. And yet we always want to have the power to alter our fortune in life. We do have the power to change our characters’ fortunes. Mostly we give them happiness and a sense of completeness. This at the end of their narrative although, no, maybe it’s to compensate for our own feelings about life not going the way we want it to, so no situations and plots for our friends on the page. That eventually happiness does come gradually for them. Might take a few bumps in the road, but nearing the end of their trail, they find it.
by Lottie
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Lightning by Kathy Low
Lightning
Lightning scrawls its name across the sky.
Thunder-roll resonates in my bones.
Barefoot, I abandon my self to the storm.
`
Kathy Low
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Lightning by Helen McGinnis
Lightning
Made by the gods.
many a bygone tale tells us so.
The rebel of the sky.
No wings, but she can sting like a silver whip!
She is like watching a glorious medieval battle right in the mouth of a fever,
ripping open the air with the skill of a well-seasoned surgeon.
We salute the maiden of the sky.
`
Helen McGinnis
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Lightning by Peter Marshall
Lightning
Sombre time of day.
No colour in the full sky.
Just grey of every shade and hue;
higher and higher still, amorphous dross.
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My feelings pile up thus;
unrelenting drear may fill my thoughts;
insubstantial fluff that’s hard to grapple with;
vapours that slips through the fingers of my mind.
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Nature has its way.
Release of stoked tensions.
Static spark beyond all credence –
lights the gloom and sweeps clear the air.
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And so it is, these difficult days,
where none have seen such thunderclouds before.
I’ve been granted my lightning to silhouette the full spectrum of existence.
Now, my words are those strong flashes to show life brighter than day itself.
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And like the wind
sometimes my words whisper stillness
and sometimes they shout a gale of emotion
but always they serve to grasp and move the clouds,
flash and show the colours,
flash, show the colours,
flash the colours,
flash colours.
2020 08 19 Peter Marshall
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