The 100 most recent posts
Point ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #215 - The edge of earth
Harassed by sea
A shield of stone
Protects the land
And the people in its lee
Locals and Tourists - On a cold blustery morning
After the night of hard rains
Dimpled the sands
The sky spatters still
A couple dares the ocean
To douse their sneakers
Which it will no doubt oblige
Her morning walks allow no thought
For the outcomes of such imprudent wagers
Just the waves the sand and the wind
Now on the homeward leg to shower and eat
Then off to work six days a week
At the cafe with its cliches and charm
Where she serves many a breakfast
To tourists and their soggy feet
The Universe in a Single Breath - Sometimes I feel
Like the universe swallowed me whole
Without even the discomfort of a burp
So I close my eyes
Breathe in deep
Until all that is fills me up
Inferno ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #214 - The day ended as an inferno
Sea and sky wracked with enmity
A calamity of chaos
But for the gulls
Soaring with graceful ardour
Placid amidst the tumult
Extremes of a Year’s Journeys - The road leads down
A scabrous red cut
Into a valley of death
The azure sky
Suspended upon its bed
Of cottony white
The extremes of a year's journeys
Found in a single switchback descent
Just ahead of a desert sunset
Somehow, I find
All of it
Beautiful
Illusions ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #213 - Sometimes the darkness
Is less a lack of light
Than a lack of seeing
Expanse ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #212 - In the high desert
Where the land is wide
And the sky wider
I cross the expanse
On a knife's edge of asphalt
Buffeted by furious headwinds
Inside my little cockpit of calm and warmth
I sing "Wassiye! Wassiye!"
With Habib Koite
A song of mirth and joy and love
Just as is the song within me
As I navigate existence
Across the expanse of being
And all its many storms
Blur ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #211 - We are but a blur
You and I
A collection of possibilities
Missed opportunities
Layered over time
An inkling of a beauty
Unrealized
Untested
Unknowable
Yet between us
Always
Undeniable light
Exquisitely tragic love
Wheelhouse ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #210 - Not in my wheelhouse
Just a bit out of control
But full steam ahead
Orange ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #209 - So, nothing rhymes with orange?"
Flatly, said she
Briskly popping a lozenge
"Nothing of a kind or range
To soothe the poet's quest for words
While waxing on such juicy fruit?"
"Not one," said he
With a note of
Finality
"Well, what then of Blorange?
Which the Welsh named a peak
Then too there's sporange
A spore sack, for so say scientist geeks"
The Hour of Cobalt and Indigo - This is the time of peace
The hour of cobalt and indigo
After the last glory seeker
Abandons the sunless horizon
Before the advancing darkness
I find a beauty here
More remarkable
Than fading orbs
Or heated tones
Here in my solitude
Borne of a love
For icy blues
The Earth's gentle sigh
As it closes its eyes
For the brief oblivion of slumber
Turn, Turn, Turn - A darkling blue
Precedes the night
One small beacon
Becomes the light
Where soon to be
A blackened world
But for the stars
A trillion suns
Turn on a wheel
Just like this little one
A Pause for a Moment Without Purpose - Sun coyly peeks
From cloudy perch
At one who skips
Across the rocks
Careful not to run afoul
Of gentle breakers
Or their spray
Gulls on wing
Horizon bound
Their cries
An ever-fading skree
Which mocks the beauty
Of their flight
And here am I
On blackened shore
Which rose from magma's
Golden glow
Now in reverse
The waning sky
Will soon enough
Become the night
Amphitrite Lighthouse - As the sun began to fall
The Great Light said
To the little light
At Amphitrite
Oh, little one
Feel my heat
See my radiance
Do you not wish
To be so grand as I?
Oh, indeed, Great One
The little light replied
Your luminous warmth
Is the envy of all
...continued
Departures ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #208 - The briefest glimpse back
Before finding the stillness
In moving forward
Waiting ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #207 - He waits
In silent patience
For orders
From the terrace
While a surreptitious lens
Captures his composure
Depth ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #206 - I leave the depths unplumbed
Fearful of its denizens
Unaware
All my fears
I carry on my shoulders
A smothering weight
Take a breath, my son
Take a breath
Sit with the present
What you fear
Is already past
Or has not come
That is all your dour spelunking
Will ever find
So long as you believe
The depths are darkness
Be not your mind
But mindful
Open your heart
For in its depths
Is always light
Cracks ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #205 - I only noticed the cracks in my armour
As the blow came down
Beaten
Vulnerable
I rose, vowing not to be struck again
Opting for the only defense remaining
Offense
Such Worlds as This - I listen
To those who tell me
How the world is
How the world is as it is
How disturbingly dark
Some of these worlds are
How maliciously cruel
And though I know this world exists
In their hearts and in their deeds
I know I have never set foot in such a world
Valley of Lassitude - From the valley floor
Yearn for the peaks
And high mountain passes
Though the paths I see
Attain neither peak nor pass
Trapped in this valley of lassitude
Play ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #203 - I recall the world
Through my child-eyes
To see all the world
Is play
Mothers ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #202 - When I was a child
There was always a hand
Within my reach
When I needed reassurance
Or wandered too close to peril
To share the warmth of a loving gesture
Be supportive to others
Defend the vulnerable
Love unconditionally...
Fractured ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #201 - All these moments
Become fractured memories
Altered with time
In a mind
Bent on manipulating them
To serve the present
Wheels ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #200 - I roll along
With the flow
Some sunny Sunday
Afternoon
That's all there is
Within my mind
Naught but the sound
Of wheels on pavement
As my body cleaves
The warm still air
The undulations
Of the path
The gentle song
My spirit sings
What else could I need<
Loss ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #199 - From time to time we lose
People, places and things
We love
In the absence
Recollections induce the bittersweet
With time, perhaps, becoming less bitter than sweet
Losses lightened
By the moments, words and images
We've captured
The joys once lived
Remain in our memories
And in our hearts
In the empty spaces
Something new, perhaps
Something new to love
Beacons ~ Pic and a Word #198 - We stumble over the blackened terrain
The dim beacon of possibility our guide
A brilliant luminescence promised
Just a few steps beyond our vision
These are the affirmations
With which we keep hope alive
And find in ourselves
The tenacity to persevere
Fathers ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #197 - Paddling
On a perfect day
I remember days long past
Of sunshine and calm
Depths still clear
At forty feet
The rod held
Expectantly
In your son's hands
Paddle in yours
The strokes
A gentle
Powerful
Grace
You didn't care for fishing
But I did
So out we went
Islands ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #196 - With the glooming of the day
A subtle sunset failing to find glory
This small slip of Islet
Sits waiting for its siren
In the Sound of gentle sussurrus
While I am tempted by a call
As yet unvoiced by temptress song
On Carrying the Days - Time passes
The days accumulate
The good days
The bad days
The days that broke me
The days that healed me
The days I shone
The days I withdrew into shadow
These were the days which made me
These were the days of reckoning
These were the days which guide me
Work ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #195 - Sometimes
The beauty
Of a moment
Takes the work
Out of the job
So I seek the beauty
In every moment
Towers ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #194 - Every time I reach
Just a little beyond my grasp
I imagine myself a tower
With the pinnacle in my hand
Gaudi - I stand beneath
Towers yet reaching
For heavens once unimaginable
And so I rise
In heart and soul
Astride the vision
Of an elevated spirit
Locking Up - Darkness now
For far too long
Vacant streets
Some windows amber and blue
Most dark and shuttered
He locks up
With a willful hope
A dream from another life
From another time
Perhaps the children
Will still be awake
With their sparkling eyes
Spicy ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #193 - A little spice
A little iced
A little life
Makes everything nice
Vulnerability - In time I began to understand
My vulnerability
Was more attractive
Than my strength
As I became more confident
In my vulnerability
I began to understand
The strength in vulnerability
Birdseed - All the world's aflutter
For little girls
Fistfuls of birdseed
Their indiscriminate chaos
Such are the conditions
Of beautiful perfections
Eyes ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #192 - Earnest and callow
Eyes and smile
Rendered in night's
Deepest shadow
A smile to say
"Goodnight, my friend"
Then again to
Welcome morning
In the darkness
Protect the gate
From those who carry
Cans of paint
I Walk on Rainbow Splinters - Some people think they know me
But I know they cannot know me
Don't see my misfortune
Guess they don' wanna know me
I am just a pilgrim
Saffron signals my devotion
Ain't afraid of no hard road
Fill my heart with passion
Walk thru the fire
Fly thru the fear
See the signs along the path
Though the end remains unclear
Mundane Rhythms - In the flat light
Underground
Splash of colour
Rhythms in the mundane
Frame a mild
Beauty
Being ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #191 - This is a bit of a rough sketch for a chapter in a series which began with "Come It Said" and continued to "Like a Hammer on a Drum". These stories revolve around the idea of an 'electric Buddha' I've been toying with for years.
Cafes and Conversation - In the heat of the afternoon
Cafes and conversation
The men of the medina
Cling to the shade
While the tourists
Do not
Before ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #190 - I float
Gently
Back in time
To an age beyond
This silence of spirit
And its sorrows
These days of hardness
And slight assurances
Back to a time
Of no small beauty
When time itself
Came in an abundance
Applied to the creation
Of wondrous things
While wonder was divinely inspired
Meaning was no fleeting connection
And purpose a life's rendition
Before profit and growth and ROI
Became ends and means and purpose
A Different Kind of Magic - Sometimes I squint
To smudge the world
Within my mind
Then paint upon
The softened scene
A different
Kind of magic
Amigos Mundos - In the everyday
It's the moments spent
With the ones we love
Which make our hearts lighter
The moments better
The living sweeter
Gravity - I see you
Seeing me
As she sees me
And he sees someone
No one else sees
And I wonder
What you wonder
About what I wonder
While he wonders
About whom I wonder
All this seeing
And not seeing
All this wondering
About wondering
It all turns
Upon its tail
Joyful Blues - I enter a world
Of delicious azures
Delightful turquoise
And jolly royals
Which gets me
To wondering
How is it thought so awful
To get the blues
Quiet ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #189 - In the small hours of the night
Somewhere between the last "sweet dreams"
And the alarm clock's insistent chatter
I like to go out into the city
These quiet hours
In the quiet streets
Shared by a few other strays
When being alone in my own skin
Offers a kind of camaraderie with other lone souls
Being alone in their own skin
Past Imperfect Present - In this grand sweep of history
Stand I
A figure out of time
A being out of context
Trying to understand
Reasons from another reason
All I know
In the end
Are these columns
Carved from red stone
Their perfect geometry
Constructed in an imperfect world
Just as the world
Ever is
Just as I
Ever am
The Trials and Rewards of Architectural Photography at Night - With this lens
No wider
Already
Standing in the street
Wary of taxis and buses
The trees obscuring
Already
In my hands
No tripod
The light
So very low
Contrast
So very high
Under a darkling sky
Near the end
Of the sun's
Long good night
By this light
No darker
click-cliick-cliiick
Moments Worth Collecting - Friends and phones and photos
The sharp attack
Of pigeon feathers fluttering
At the park
On a sunny Sunday
In a timeless observance
Of time's frivolous expense
Small moments accumulating
In a life worth living
Layers of Existence - We live
Within a tapestry
Of universes
Intertwined
Overlapped
Layer upon layer
Of existence
Simultaneous
Discreet
Yet none
Entirely separate
From the others
A community
A reef
Beneath the ripples
Of time
Lens-dropping a Conversation - Fragments
Of a conversation
Unheard
My mind
Fills the emptiness
Unspoken
Creates
A story imagined but
Untold
Mask ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #188 - Even in
This gathering of
Strangers
I put on a mask
Don my armour of
Anonymity
Revealing only the self
I want you to see
A shadow
In the darkness
Of multitudes
Moments in Other Moments - >Moments in moments
Two moments captured by mine
Caught in another
Eternity wrought
With the release of shutters
Thrice in a moment
Whimsy - Ah,
The whimsy
Of a few curved lines
And a stencil
In an obscure corner
Of hard edges
And some distress
Meaning indecipherable
But for the inexplicable smile
It brings
To my being
Blues Transformed - In spring
When browns and ice
Of winter's deathly sleep
Recede
Life renews
Thus even deepest blues
Transform
Become such vibrant hues
Reborn
As hope to those awakening
The Mere Fact of Existence - Feeling the arc of Earth
Below me
Atmosphere
Thick with sky
Crossing terrain and distance
Minutes pass as days once did
For greater men than me
When only Prometheus
Had tested the sky
The land rolls by
All the while stoking awe
Not just for historical men
Bound to Earth
But for this small speck of stone
This mote of blue
With its invisible billions
In an incomprehensible emptiness
Red ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #187 - Red wing and moonlight
Homeward bound red-eye flying
Travel ejection
La Solidaritat La Nostra Millor Arma - Resistance no more
This is an image
Of revolution
A call to arms
For the repressed
In Catalonia
An image, too
For us
We have been the prey
Separated from the pack
Divided
Kept down
Exploited
Dominated
Fed upon
By the fat cats
On the Move - Unfocused
Unresolved
Motion blurred
Unsettled
Uncertain
Movement fractured
Undeterred
Unrelenting
Moving forward
Caught ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #186 - I watch the world
From a distance
With a falcon's eye
Steal moments
From unknown lives
Recorded
For all time
Subjects unaware
But for the occasional eye
Catching me
On my surreptitious perch
At the shutter's release
Sheepishly
I set the lens aside
And with a nod
Beg forgiveness
For my crime
Not Written in Stone - The writing on the wall
Is not carved in stone
The world is neither broken
Nor in need of repair
There is no destiny
But the consequences
Of the choices I make
As for the choices
I fail to make
I still have made a choice
Bricks & Mortar - For every wall I have built
For every rampart erected
To protect my being
I have also opened my heart
I have also bared my soul
After so many bricks
And so much mortar
I am beginning to understand
Which is the stronger gesture
Which offers the greatest protection
Columbus - Revered & Reviled
A man of his time
Ahead of his time
Discoverer & Destroyer
Of worlds
A harbinger
Of things to come
Of times extant
Of days which always were
And may always be
Until we find our way
To a better way
Create better world
Patterns of Opposites - I try to follow
The myriad lines
Creating the myriad forms
Regular and irregular
Symmetric and asymmetric
A cacophony of harmonies
Patterns within broken patterns
Broken again to form patterns
In them the complexity of life
Perfect imperfection
Destabilized and fortified
A confusion of order
A diffusion of resolution
Heavens ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #185 - I gaze into the metaphor
Heavens above
Ringed by saints
Flanked by angels
Spirit moved
By the artistry
By the grandeur
By the grace
I know there are saints
Not like these saints
I know there are angels
Not like these angels
I know there is god
Not like this god
I know there is heaven
Not like this heaven
Central Being - The light
At the center of it all
Like a beacon
Calling me
To the nature of
Existence
Experienced
With a deep breath
And a quiet mind
Which knows nothing
Believes naught
Open to all
Possibility
Grounding in Heaven - Gaze rising
To metaphorical heavens
Where grace and splendour
Ground me to Earth
And this moment
Orienteering - Religion
Disoriented
Me
A God
In which I had no
Faith
Prayers and rites
In which I found no
Substance
Disillusioned
I abandoned
Belief
Riding the
Pendulum's
Swing
Into the
Comforts of
Reason
Content there
With logic and
Fact
I explored the bounds
Of science and
Philosophy
Discovering
A realm well beyond
Knowledge
Earth Day - I dreamt there'd be a day
In some none too distant future
When an architectural abstraction
Outlived all the fishes in the sea
Now I cannot sleep
dis connect ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #184 - I look
Neither inward
Nor outward
I connect
Not with being
But a fetish
This realm
Of virtual
Manifestation
And while I look
And while I connect
I am lost
To the moment
To my own presence
To being itself
While all around
Existence dances and plays
Without my participation
Blue on Blue in Blue - Saturated in hues
Blue on blue in blue
Ah, but for the greens
Exposed to amber orb unseen
The garden under blue
Then crimson weave's surround of blue
Whimsy is a Child - Whimsy in blues and balloons
Lines light and playful
As a child's smile
In twilight illuminate
Mother impatient
For changing lights
Her girl content
With latex-captured breath
Follow Me - Light filters down
To dim blue depths
Where it pools
In lazy patterns
Upon empty lanes
Marked here and there
With blood red tiles
And doors
And wicker lines the walls
I grab a basket
From a hook
Gather light
From the pools
To carry further
Into navy
And the black
Where deepest shadows lay
Confinement - Bound
In heart and spirit
Lost
On a forkless path
Stop
Look for a door
A ladder, a rope
Turn
Seek another path
Upon retraced steps
Wait
For alternatives
To appear
Move
Follow the instinct
Which began this path
Despair
There is no despair
Only tenacity
Shadow Maker - Sometimes the light
Is too bright
Too hot to bear
So I shelter
In a shadow
Of my own making
I see this now
Without judgment
The light remains
The shadow is
Temporary
Blue - I get the blues sometimes
Not that there's anything wrong with that
Blue was my favourite colour as a child
Even now, in the blues, there is a beauty
And options
Risk ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #183 - Where might have been cacophony
Strokes live within the harmony
Such vital vessel filled
To the edge of overflowing
Yet some subtle restraint
Where plaster once was white
Vibrant colours paint
A whole which comes across
As beautiful
Go Fish - It startled him
The monumental lines of architecture
Seemed to flex
As a bow drawn by its string
Then paused there
Taught, straining
As if for a steadying breath
The release
Was even more startling
And he felt the shock wave
When the discharged tension
Shook the earth
As the mammoth thing
Quite simply
Leapt from the ground
Windows - Windows from some unknown world
Unto some other unknown world
None which I have ever known
And may not ever know
Though with imagination
Images gained from books and film
I construct a room to serve
The needs of sultans and imams
Rich tapestries and silken rugs
Exotic woods and metals
Carved and cast exquisitely
Servants and the visitors
Pilgrims and the diplomats
Bustling in the courtyard splendour
All in reverence to the will
Of God and those who know his ends
Within these windows and their view
The Flow of Intricacy - I dive deep
Into the intricacies
Lose myself
In the minutiae
Step back
Allow details
To live and flow
Breathes the rhythm
Breathes the rhyme
In the subtler play
Of space and time
Pendant Gem - In the darkness
And the light
In the vibrant coloured
Sunlit rays
The moody greys
Of cloudy days
You my pendant gem
Lay close
Upon my heart
Reminder of
The subtler art
Of love which is
The beauty known
Regardless of
What eyes can see
How Far We’ve Yet to Go - In an old place
Beneath a brooding sky
Threatening clouds
Keep their promises
I reflect
On battlements
And palaces
And understand
We've come not so far
As we believe
Shadow ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #182 - >Arms wide beckoning
All of being
Dark to light
Illumined texture
Shadowed depth
Through synthesis, form
So am I expressed
Unconfined
By black or white
No, I: all the subtle tones
Of possibility
Medieval Walls - There was a time
When walls made sense
Defending a perimeter
Patrolled and guarded
By men well-trained and armed
Against cavalry
Infantry and archers
Today
This wall is both beautiful
And a reminder of that time
Gaudi Twilight - Comes the azure
And the lavender
With a twilight calm
While Gaudi
My new friend
Beckons me
From near
And afar
La Lluita Persistent; The Persistent Fight - The struggle continues
Outside the halls of learning
Where words are emblazoned
Even shouted in the square
Beyond the walls designed
To confine them