Two Poetic Twists on a Theme & Your Monday Fortune Cookie, 1/27/14

Cold hands -- warm heart (or poor circulation)

SNARKY REPONSE: So do cold feet -- hot buns?


At MarsCon, I attended a Poetry workshop where the moderator, Adele Gardner, invited us to write some poetry playing with the con's fairy tale theme. Here are what I came up with:

Point of Departure

Before stepping between, she pauses to breathe,

a golden girl in pinafore with eyes of tempest blue.

Fingers splayed to reach, to push, to pull,

she breaks the liminal boundary, icy as sorrow,

fleeting as fog on a wintry morning.

A step away from a world dark with memories,

a step forward into a vista of unknowns,

she arrives, safe but not sound, here and yet still there.

Beyond the looking glass, she begins to seek her ending.

Queen's Gambit

So simple, yet so right.

With dew drops lingering bright on crimson skin,

the unsuspected vessel of my assured victory.

A single bite is all that's required.

Tart sweetness to be relished until

the body learns what the eyes did not perceive.

Rose red lips will part to gasp,

to frame a question unasked,

release a final breath in a sigh.

Innocence once more felled by naivete,

How simple, yes, how right.

The fruit of innocence bears the seed of death.

If you'd like to share something of your own in the comments, I'd be thrilled to see and read it. If you'd like to share your thoughts about my words, I'll try to be equally thrilled to read them (depending on the tone LOL).

Beautiful mistakes? And your Monday Fortune Cookie, 1/12/14

How can you have a beautiful ending without making beautiful mistakes?

SNARKY RESPONSE: Well if we're talking orders of magnitude, then, my ending is going to be in 3D, surround-sound, techni-color.

How can you have a beautiful ending without making beautiful mistakes?

And a beautiful mistake is better than a regular mistake how?
Does it hurt less or more?
Is it less disappointing or worse?
Is it more instructive or destructive?


Is it just me or does this sound as if the Fortune Cookie Guru is saying "no pain, no gain" in a long and roundabout way? I can't decide if I'm impressed by the depth of this fortune or irritated by it's pompousness.

I guess it's that ol' "you appreciate it if you've earned it" mentality. If we've suffered for our goals, we'll be grateful. If we sacrifice for our happiness, we'll value it more. If we haven't seen the dark, we can't appreciate the light.

I seriously vote for achieving my beautiful ending without mistakes, beautiful or ugly. I think I'm able to appreciate the positive things that happen to me without having to be clobbered by a boatload of negatives first. What about you?

Wisdom? From Me? And your Monday Fortune Cookie 12/23/13

Wisdom is on her way to you.

SNARKY RESPONSE: I hope she's a lot more reliable than her cousin, Lady Luck! Marlon Brando immortalized that lady's unreliability in Guys & Dolls!

Wisdom is on her way to you.

Personally, I think Wisdom has opted to take the Grand Tour on her way to me. I get an occasional postcard in the form of a momentary burst of brilliance or personal fortitude, but mostly it's all kinda "wish you were here" from Lady Wisdom.

But I have learned this piece of wisdom - courtesy is never out of style.
Saying "thank you" is a simple two-word gift that you can give to anyone and everyone who offers you assistance and/or support.

Thank you, everyone, who has supported me in my writing endeavors - RichWriters, Writers Endeavor, James River Writers, Virginia Romance Writers, and especially all of the Strumpets of Tea & Strumpets! 

And thank you to my husband and family for everything they do every day to make my life more complete. Without you and your love, NOTHING would be possible. Love & thanks!

What do a shard, a circus and a rooster have to do with each other? And your Monday Fortune Cookie, 11/25/13

BE DIRECT, USUALLY ONE CAN ACCOMPLISH MORE THAT WAY

SNARKY RESPONSE:  Yeah, good luck with that. How often have you thought "direct" was another word for bossy, bitchy, or officious?

Be direct, usually one can accomplish more that way.

Correspondingly, the shortest direction from Point A to Point B is a straight line, however, my bus tour of London was far from a straight line, and I was so busy snapping pics that I hardly heard our guide. I figured, and rightly so, that I could always Google the various landmarks and then put the names with the photos. There was just too much to see not to be captured by the images flashing by my bus window. Unfortunately, a moving photo platform makes for a lot of blurry images, but I managed to get about 1,000 pics decent pics.

And NO, I'm not going to subject you to them all, but here are a few of my London favs.

Piccadilly Circus - London's Times Square

Did you know Piccadilly comes from the word "piccadil" which was the name of a frilled collar used in the 17th century? And the "circus" part comes from the traffic round-about or circle. Circles are the traffic intersection of choice in the parts of England we travelled. Some were just small circles of grass and or shrubs, some had decorations in them representative of the locality. Imagine not ONLY having to ride on the wrong side of the road but negotiating traffic circles at every major intersection? I'm so glad I didn't have to drive.

Trefalgar Square celebrates the Battle of Trefalgar and Nelson's Column dominates the square. There are four plinths or platforms for commemorative statues, three occupied and the fourth left empty, currently used to display a variety of sculptures. Currently the Big Blue Cock holds pride of place. Rather jarring compared with the more traditional sculptures surrounding it, but definitely eye-catching.

Speaking of eye-catching - any Whovians will recognize this shot. The Doctor and Clara were deposited in Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallery.

And how could any trip to London not include a shot of Big Ben and the London Eye, or better yet, BOTH in one shot!

Buckingham Palace was as impressive, stately, and beautiful as expected.

On the opposite side of the architectural spectrum is The Shard, designed by Renzo Piano

And finally, can you name this famous bridge in London?

Not London Bridge but Tower Bridge. I was delighted to get some really good shots of it from the side of the river and feel this is the cream of the crop.

I will continue featuring pics from my trip in future blog posts, so be warned. I hope this won't scare you off because I'll be including other topics and such among the pics. After all, I took 1,000 PHOTOS! I've got to do something with them, right? LOL

See you next week!