Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything … 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs … damned humans.
An impatient King, always. Taxes before fields were plowed netting his peasants their meager fealty, wives before they had chance to know him as husband (though that impatience was prudent lest they all be found having leapt from towers before losing their heads) meats before they’d grown full for the butcher, fruits and vegetables ahead of ripening, even some children conscripted to his army before they were strong enough to fight, paying the price then as mere fodder.
The Gardener knew this, lamenting his own children’s losses, stripped too early from nature’s nurture “The future gathers in vine, bush, and tree: Persimmon, walnut, loquat, fig, and grape need their time” he thought “hemlock though?” he thought more “can be quite effective if harvested early.”
You see, the Gardener was also impatient … for poetic irony, for poetic justice and for a garden’s proper time.
I only wanted simple he said she said the chorus said with a “we” watching from outside the lines drawn while singing in tune over Greek pastries at that little place in the district that specialized in just that sort of thing, some sweet some tart while she scolded me again and I turned my back not really thinking of where this could end maybe in the bed or maybe in the front yard gathering my clothes or even helping our neighbor, Mrs Pembroke in her constant break downs on the front lawn, such overly dramatic moments that no one needed to see of her loss of Harry and his scratchy chin that reminded her of sandpaper on that first hardwood in that place on Marchan Street, in the suburbs finally, where their little William took his first steps but fell down, fell down a lot, that took them to doctors to try and help him stand back up that she told me of and drained their accounts until William stood and stood tall and thanked his Mom for being patient while Mr Pembroke drank himself away at Louies, everyone hated Louie, but he was refuge with a drink and he just sat the black umbrella’s lamenting how William had never been a famous ballplayer until they found him hunched and dead, the longest time it seemed for anyone to notice and we went back to simple.
Caralie could stand on her own and loved sweet things, like any kid, especially baklava.
Austin Road Elementary school, Mahopac NY, early 1970’s.
In the back of the school sat the playground, some basketball hoops, a baseball diamond, grass in an open field that, to the left, as you faced it, sloped slowly up a lazy hill to some broken rock walls lining the top and the sides and over and beyond but here squaring the top of that hill like an uncomfortable, torn hat.
That was our boundary as maybe it had been for some farmer at another time, our boundary that we weren’t to cross, the only stipulation being, if we were to wander up the hill, to just make sure that we stayed in sight.
Well, it was the early 70’s and our teachers weren’t always all that vigilant while grabbing their smoke breaks and coffee and “minding” us. As long as our heads were counted at the end of recess they were good.
My best friend, Dave, and I in an early spring, with a step just beyond our wall squared confine and out of sight, through a break in one of the walls even further up the slope, further to the left, discovered the bones of a roofless old car, with rotted seats, gaps where the doors had been, tire rims and a still steering wheel and tall stick shift. Dave and I and a couple of friends we recruited after the discovery, were always chomping at the bit for recess so we could get to that car as it became our spaceship, specifically the shiny magical flying silver “Jupiter 2” from “Lost in Space” as, every day, while playing our designated roles of Will, the Major, Penny and Judy, we would also trade off one of us getting to play the robot (oh my, a dual role!) that gleaming also magical silver (just like the Jupiter 2) metal behemoth of a glass headed mechanical friend and protector with fancy weapons and the coolest robot voice while we re-enacted some of the show’s stories or made up our own.
But the real excitement was which one of us today, in our trade off, would get to wave our arms dramatically and frantically in the midst of whatever new danger presented itself to us in our latest space tale, which one of us would get to yell “Danger Will Robinson!” or which one of us would simply just say “It does not compute” to whatever story we were playing that maybe had hit a bit of a creative lull.
We didn’t have a Mom and Dad Robinson in our old, long ago abandoned car silver dream Jupiter 2 imagination. They just smoked their cigarettes and drank their coffee down the hill from us on this strange new planet.
And none of us, even if we had an extra friend join in our fun, ever played the Doctor either. EVER. He was just a meanie.
And, well, we also weren’t jaded and conniving and cynical and devious enough to pull that off just yet.
A Quadrille prompt at dVerse Poets earlier this week from Mish, another 44 word poem with a prompted single word to include. The word this time around?
This week Kim brings us a prosery idea at dVerse Poets, a 144 word piece of prose to include one line from a poem or song. In this case, a line from Dereck Walcott’s “Dark August” …“I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones”
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Star Speckled Black Brighter Days
Great grandfather’s generation were the last to know their sun, before it became blackened by dust, frozen air and profound hatred is what my father told me. But they had sent the following generation and a budding next away, a relatively young handful, in secret, from a remote volcanic island in this wondrous living world of a craft before things became too dire.
My grandfather argued for staying, hoping to educate the world away from its end, but for great grandfather?
“I would have learnt to love black days, the ones of space, like bright ones here once but that’s for you son” he told grandfather from inside the volcano’s launch.
“There is no longer any educating, that time is well past. You just go … save us.”
That’s what I was told as I look out at star speckled black brighter days.
A Monday prompt at dVerse Poets from Lisa for some prosery, where you use a given line of poetry (or song lyric) to inspire you to here, a 144 word piece of prose (not including the title).
The line of poetry or, in this case, the song lyric? “To hurt is to steal” from Bono and U2’s “Mysterious Ways”.
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The Sapling
He found himself in a forest clearing or was it the middle of a bustling metropolitan street or a majestic city in the clouds sitting at a windingly circular table with a sapling in a simple clay pot at the center.
And he wasn’t alone as there were many for company around this table, countless strangely familiar faces who, when he finally gained some wits about him, all stood in unison, nodding and warmly smiling, smiles he somehow knew, like from lifetimes myriad found reflections.
They all then clapped until he became overwhelmed and began to cry.
“To hurt is to steal, from us pained all” said the comforting face to his left “but to love is to borrow from us more” said the equally comforting face to his right.
Just then the sapling burst leaves and breath and started to grow … again.
The idea here, from Grace, was to make a try at at a different poetry form, Trolaan.
As per Grace’s prompt:
Trolaan, created by Valerie Peterson Brown, is a poem consisting of 4 quatrains. Each quatrain begins with the same letter. The rhyme scheme is abab for each quatrain.
Starting with the second stanza you use the second letter of the first line of the first stanza to write the second, each line beginning with that letter.
On the third stanza you will use the second letter on the first line of the second stanza and write the third each line beginning with that letter.
On the fourth stanza you will use the second letter on the first line of the third stanza and write the fourth each line beginning with that letter.
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So, I thought back here to my undergraduate days when I, and my friends, envisioned ourselves as writers, poets.
.
When We (I) Were Writers
We (I) were words at seeming will
Wrought with grand poetic intent
With a hubris of great writers of skill
Willing envied youth to supplement
.
Every piece was poring/pouring soul
Even knowing in my heart to avoid such a thing
Easy it was claim “soul” glorying to all my one unfounded old
Entreating “hearts” then even made me worse for sing
.
Vanity of but soul would make readers quake at my depth
Vowing to pen classics worthy of masters
Vacating a notion of things just, just things to be said
Venturing not into words that mattered
.
And I came about but in slow, still, revelation
Amid not the soul nor heart’s cliche but the every day
Aweing how sudden old wrought dramatic word made way for just, just simple observation
And that that, that simplest of thought, just might be the true soul say
So from Merill’s prompt. 144 word max and use the line I have no skills for flight or wings to skim the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself . Prompt explained here in full..
The Black Hole
He lay back in tall grass, hands behind his head, with a straw sprig dangling his lips like those renderings of old book covers watching seagulls (they were called) dart between tall buildings, over snowcapped mountains, straight through cliffs (with glitches) out around a backyard table of children and cake, over charred cities up into horizons angry busy streets of untold stretches of war, water …
“I wish I had one of those wide straw hats too, to go with this strand Marty … peaceful”
“Letzzzetetzzzmebuddlefiddlefixxxxsssses thingzzsssglipat Ssssszzir … oldoldololddzzzsszz vid stories are cracrascrasssszzzzshingtogtozobdgether a-a-mmm-aaa-a-g-gg-gg-gainnnzznnzzngain“
“Don’t bother (looking to a shingle’s thought above the visor) I have no skills for flight or wings to skim the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself joking irony come to life my friend. No, let them crash together Marty … a new ride, like of those called seagulls huh?”
Hi and welcome to the Attic, I'm Frankenberry of said Blog Title and I write of just my everyday here, sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes angry, sometimes funny again because, well, who don't like funny, thoughts on getting older and sometimes stuff that's just kinda shit. I pen and sing the occasional parody tune and other songs, sometimes I even get a little bit poetic or short story-etic or something like that. If you're joining me here I thank you, but just mind your head and feet and keep an eye out for my little Bella and Cricket The Blind as well as the memories of Raspberry (Razzy), Mimi the Quirky, of Blink The Lil' Kit, Grayson the Mighty, Shoes the Big Orange, Shana-Girl, Benny Good Man Benny Brown, Merlin & Bob. Wouldn't want you step on them or anything ... 'cause then I might just have to throw you down the stairs ... damned humans.
Sundarbans,The sunderbans, Sundarban Tour, Sundarban Travel Guide, Mangrove Forest, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Royal Bengal Tiger, Tiger Sighting, Wildlife Photography, Bird Watching, Sundarban Safari, Houseboat Tour, Ecotourism, Adventure Travel, West Bengal Tourism, Bangladesh Tourism, People of Sundarbans, Local Culture, Bonbibi, Mowal, Honey Collector, Sundarban Legends, Mangrove Ecosystem, Conservation, Climate Change, Biodiversity, Sundari Tree, Sundarban Itinerary, Travel to Sundarbans, Kolkata to Sundarbans, Sundarban Boat Trip, Wildlife in Sundarbans, Saltwater Crocodile, Spotted Deer, Indian Python, King Cobra, Sundarban National Park, Sundarban Tiger Reserve, Bay of Bengal, River Cruise, Nature Photography, Forest Life.
A personal exploration of autism from a brother’s perspective, including family relationships, philosophy, neuroscience, mental health history and ethics
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