[x]

ShellsEach wave hissed across the shingle. Each wave flattened itself out in a dying puff of foam and then fell back into the greatness of the sea, dragging the smoothed-out stones with it. How many years must it take for those fist-sized pebbles to become sand? How long?
Frances raised her eyes to the grey sky and wondered about God above those clouds. There were men who said that God’s hand had no place in all of this. There were men that said we had come from apes, step by step, like a boulder being polished by the sea until it was a smooth and perfect fist-sized stone. Those men said that six thousand years was impossible. Six million years was impossible. They said that time was so deep it was like looking into the arc of the heavens and never knowing how far away the deepest darkness was.
Those clocks that ticked on board ship, that spelt out longitude and latitude to anxious sailors, that measured the greatness of the globe – there were not enough ticks in all of the clo

Haiku Ika-Unom

the morning mist fades
a golden sun revealed
her eyes kept westward

Senryu, and How It Differs from HaikuCompared to other styles of poetry under the category of Haiku and Eastern, there is comparatively little published about the more aggressive senryu.

Senryu, whose name means river willow, uses humor and satire to examine human society. Senryu takes on the form of haiku, but makes greater use of punctuation techniques (ellipses, exclamations, etc.) to convey its point. Senryu can use seasonal kigo, but do not rely on them. In senryu, the seasonal reference should be second in importance to the human portrayal. Contrary to popular belief, not all senryu is humorous. Many express misfortune, eroticism, political views (very important), religio

Persephone: A Haiku
Persephone's close;
watch as ruby red poppies
rebel on crossroads.

haiku of symmetry

cracking
the curve of an egg
with the curve of my hand

Living the Everyday Haiku1

climbing the first vertical
it comes to—
a snail on my shoe

2

leaves falling everywhere
I look, how easy it is
to let them go

3

I marvel at every
rose bush petal
holding fast in the wind

4

seed packets in a drawer...
dormant dreams of an herbal garden
come spring

5

sharp-edged clouds
cutting the moon in half
but not the piercing wind

6

still in bed—
winter scrubbing the remains
of autumn from the trees

7 (seen on local news today)

king tides—
waves scattering cliff side
spectators with sea foam and awe

8

how cold the night—
no sound of cricket or bird
yet his breath in slumber

9

late morning
pulling

The Art of Washing HandsAs intense as one life entering another,
I take your hands into mine.

The intimacy of water from a spigot
pours, as if over our entire bodies-

yours in willing submission to mine
during the art of washing hands.

Your anticipation is a pale shiver
like a bird's wing stretching the wind.

To swoon from the scent of roses
as the glycerin is slowly applied,

and then our fingers entwine;
a lesser tandem of slender limbs coiling.

The froth of friction made languid in its
lubrication. The intent fascination

of my ritual movements when I hear
your breath, your inclining notes,

and our sudden glances meeting, as
cool water rinses c

The Ladies of Lit: Volume XXVIIWelcome to volume twenty-seven my Literature series, The Ladies of Lit!
The premise here is simple. Below you will find an assortment of Literature features from a selection of female deviants here on DeviantART, all of them suggested by you. In this article, you will also find a variety of other things of interest, including:

This article’s deviant spotlight: featuring the talented ~anapests-and-ink. She has offered to answer a few questions as well, to tell us a bit about what inspires her writing and which piece in particular she favors.

Additional information about our upcoming events, including a special critique Q and A session in our official TheLadiesofLit chatroom. And we also have a selection of other interesting Literature news links to share with you.

Our “meet our contributors” sec

fall morningscigarette in hand
he said something about October,
smoke and breath mingling with the fog,
scarf wrapped thick around his throat,
but you didn't really hear

past his cold red-tipped fingers

slick and silent secret-keepers,
leaves sheened with yesterday's rain,
wax-coated gemstones rolled out

the product of your genetic anomaly,
the gods dashing themselves against the rocks
[he still doesn't know what happened to your mother]

you were tattoos all the way up
tasteful,
vines twining around your arms like dark green barbed wire,
martyr's ink hair shirt

and your toes went numb in your too-small
fashionable boots,
laces dipped in

crow comes courtingresplendent in a black gloss
of feathered robes...

crow's morning clicks of courtship
echo through downcast mists that
bead upon bowed shoreline willows

and genuflect in the wake
of his purposeful strut
one hesitant step before the next,

his head cocked this way and that,
listening as distant ticks
message back a reply-

the visage of his agenda
suddenly unfolds in a wingspread
that lifts above a watery canvas,

the guttural sound of pulled
stitching sends love notes receding
into estuaries, and ripples

where tadpoles skip and dart
beneath lily pads in the random and
rapid blink of each tiny vortex

Virginia

So I am once again a river
swollen at its shores; yet
it's a hollow thought that
life is fertile within me.

Better to have lips of frost
than a flooded field; those
bits of rooms swept away--
a chair, a tattered doll.

In my waning, I do not
forget moon language;
this eternal push and pull,
the experience of blue.

Music Game Featuresthere were a few i didn't include (i'm looking at you `FuzzyHoser and `vespera) because they were utterly silly and forced me to write to songs that we're not even going to talk about. let sleeping dogs lie, ladies.

a combination of succinct poetry and honest prose, what i like most about this piece is that it's personal and honest, without flair. i think he should send it to the subject and everyone should bother him until he does*

while trying to find words to express how much i love this little poem, i came up short because it says everything on its own: so few words tell a complete story and there are more layers to be dissected than some novels manage in hundreds of pages. liz's gallery is lovely and definitely worth a look.

fascinating and multifaceted--studded with complex language, weighty metaphors, and some of the most original yet stunning imagery i've come across, this poem is a dense read but thoroughly worth the e

Dizzy's Big Book of Photo InspirationOkay. So I have a folder in my favorites called Inspiration, but I went through and picked out my favorites, hunted down a few more, and compiled them into this journal for use during my Glory Be attempt.

You're welcome to pick through them, too--I hope they serve you well.

Trees

Oceans

old ship by ~CelavaCesma-krug
Light

2.52 - Starlight. by =mylittleblueskythe dawn of awakening by ~CelavaCesma-krug.:...noir.:. by ~Edhelamarthnight... by *kokoszkaa
Morning Sun by *AljoschaThielenDawn by *Nelleke

Illumination by *AljoschaThielenso lost in our little worlds by *LuizaLazar
People

The Story StartsThe story starts in certain Hay (neighborhood) Al Fedaa, Babyl- Hilla, Iraq, in the 6th month of the year 1969. Here I start off as a fetus in my mother’s womb; just one of a quarter million other fetuses being bred for the second out of three waves of death popular to the people of Najaf, Hilla and Karbala. One million lives brought out before me were being prepared for their annihilation in the first death wave as I was being made after all, so what’s another quarter million surely?

Seriously though, my story begins in the much summery afternoons of early August of the year 1979. Ooh, what a year to start a story really, since

A Call to Conversation (9)--:devfuzzyhoser:Welcome to the ninth article focusing on featuring and getting to know the deviants behind the work! This series will be posted every Wednesday. If you have a deviant you'd like to see included, please send =TwilightPoetess a note with the subject "Call to Conversation"--make sure to include the deviant's name as well as a reason you think they'd make a good interview subject! Also, feel free to send along a question or two you'd like to have answered by them!
This week's featured deviant is `FuzzyHoser!
The lovely `FuzzyHoser, otherwise known as Rachel, can be found in the middle of a vast field of words. Friendly and approachable, Rachel strives to bring her love of words to every piece she posts on dA--her distinctive accent only helps put her personality at the forefront. But looking at her dA profile as a new-comer, you might find yourself asking: Who is this mysterious soul? What draws her to a piece or style of writing

Browse More Like This

Download File
TXT, 2.7 KB more ▶

More from `thetaoofchaos

The Yard tsunami, a water hose
mower, tornado
and earthquake, a garden hoe

atoneall the words i've written
somehow aren't as real as the space between the letters
or
the silence following each key

uncoiled

i must forgive myself
for bodily transgressions, tragic misadventures
and
climb fresh into the mountain

crevice

the tao of chaosfinding ourselves fighting
ourselves
as if by genetic providence

searching for what is our
bequest
tranquility, quiet compassion

Preponderance of LackIn her absence
there has ceased to be
some tone of sound, I'm
certain that was
discernible
- in the space where she was -
there is one
dark
color missing, I'm
sure assumed for granted, taken
excised from my thoughts with a surgeon's grace
no trace or cavity left
to lend knowledge of what
was no longer in attendance
with the rest of things, once being as they had,
when I was with her and senses, intact.

I would beg
Dionysus to kiss me,
- often -
twisting tears into
some secret
sound, so

Grocery StoreNo more, please -
no triumphant smile
on another child's
porcelain face
without ways and meanings and worries -
not today -
no
shameless dancing with some euphoric entity
anointed "KING" in a delirious haste
so unassuming of more worlds coming.

not much more of this -
no tears nor darkened voices
describing their pains and pathetic misfortune
and morbid portraits
of blue painted veins that beg for dysfunction,
wasting this life's irreplaceable moments,
spare and quite few,
with the bleak rationale of nature's digressions
of half-human minds
left spent and half-eaten.

THE POINTthe isle seemed only weary,
as the trek preceding held no intentions other than to subsist until arrival at
the shore of your lost treasure,
and assuming I wouldn't find you, I didn't but found someother, making all the more
hollow my disillusionment
and as I had imagined, I wept when I knew that life and luck had ripped away the artery to
some essential source of hope;
that I would ever again betray my stoic soul to mate with the site of the merest shadow
slipping off the sun from your
face,
and dream the taste of a glacier of frozen pain never shed
in the blackest fire searing the terrain behind a silver smile
and atomic eyes an

View Gallery · View Prints

Featured in Groups:

#dA-Literature
Write to live, and live to write

Details

Submitted: January 9
File Size: 2.7 KB

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 46
Favourites: 12 [who?]
Views: 668 (1 today)
Downloads: 4 (0 today)

[x]

writing prompts, because you need them

by `thetaoofchaos, Jan 9, 2013, 8:11:02 PM
Scraps

literature prompts for my group #da-literature: anyone that completes and posts 100 pieces of literature based on all 100 prompts, let me know and you may win a prize, maybe some points!* ^{*while supplies last.} if you like, you can submit pieces inspired by the prompt list to the Prompts gallery.

cheers.

1. final grocery list
2. wet and furious
3. it can’t be you!
4. bodies
5. Rorschach's blot
6. save your flowers
7. nothing is as real
8. transgressions (against the father)
9. it happens at this time, every night
10. the unheard anthem
11. blue
12. symmetry
13. dormant, for now
14. sixteen times
15. afterglow
17. feint of
18. the formula for skin
19. tactile
20. bare and tremulous
21. oceania
22. lesions
23. on the cusp
24. migrant consciousness
25. loitering hole
26. blithering
27. buried
28. the milieu of passersby
29. a firm beak
30. throttle
31. a sojourn
32. belonging to him
33. mammals
34 periscope sight
35. watercolored
36. damaged
37. namesake
38. suspension
39. rope
40. grove
41. superstitious
42. pillow laughter
43. boilerplate
44. probe
45. gypsies on the beach
46. fugue state
47. neck
48. aquifer
49. the imbecile in my head
50. octave
51. gland
52. spent
53. adversary
54. housekeeping
55. on paper
56. two stones
57. caught!
58. denim
59. indemnity
60. synesthesia
61. tourism in the dark
62. clap
63. paid to do it
64. shouting from above
65. home
66. a doll
67. the very last time
68. fault
69. bitumen
70. bitter ache
71. portals
72. let go, let’s go
73. video games, despair
74. acid
75. floorboards
76. coming
77. weightless
78. gully
79. reasons, lights
80. 5 vertices
81. weed paradise
82. fire
83. eat at it
84. thigh high
85. logical smoke
86. ignoring gravity
87. buzzing red
88. thin lining
89. lead in water
90. Madrid
91. curious smile
92. sighs
93. lucent
94. fixture
95. desuetude
96. letters to hold, letters to send, letters to burn
97. black madonna
98. kiss
99. under the ocean
100. pinot grigio

46 Comments

writing prompts, because you need themby `thetaoofchaos

Scraps

writing prompts for members of

, or anyone.

~~love 0 0~~

joy 1 1

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~schriftsteller Jan 18, 2013 Writer

Can I just say that I'm not at all surprised that you created such an amazing prompt list? And may I also say that I'm so happy you told me it was here? Because I am. I'm immediately drawn to a bunch of these, which is awesome. But, I must say that "pillow laughter" is totally my favorite.

You're so creative. All hail to Shane!

`thetaoofchaos Jan 19, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

thanks again!

i'm glad you like pillow laughter.

~schriftsteller Jan 26, 2013 Writer

Pillow laughter makes me laugh and think of nice things...how could I not like it? haha

*swansisters Jan 11, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I think I will try for the 100 Shane

Never tired a prompt before.

`thetaoofchaos Jan 12, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I'm sure whatever you use to ignite a piece of art will find its way into a great piece of literature

if you actually did all these, I will be happily shocked!

*swansisters Jan 12, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I would be happily shocked too if I did all 100

But thank you for the confidence.

*Blacksand459 Jan 11, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Cool! Thanks.

`thetaoofchaos Jan 12, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

No problem!

~Demented287 Jan 10, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

What is pillow laughter?? (42.)

`thetaoofchaos Jan 10, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Haha. Well, you've heard the phrase "pillow talk", right?

BTW, the prompts can be interpreted and used anyway you want. It doesn't really matter what I meant by them as long as it helps people find a starting point.

More from `thetaoofchaos

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

writing prompts, because you need them

writing prompts, because you need themby `thetaoofchaos

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style