Warfare

Friday Fictioneers – 3/14/14 – Bridge To Insanity

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Friday Fictioneers hostess, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields will welcome you into the Friday Fictioneers group if you’d like to take your best shot at creating a 100-word story prompted by this picture. The photo is courtesy of Adam Ickes.

My story is below the photo.

LONG WOODEN BRIDGE - ADAM ICKES

BRIDGE TO INSANITY

“So, Mr. President, you’re having a recurring dream?” the doctor asked.

“Yes.  At least a dozen times this past year. I’m walking down a long, narrow, wooden bridge. Ahead I see the pavilion where a peace treaty signing is scheduled. I know they’re all there, waiting for me.  But I can’t get there!”

“Why not?”

“Because the damn bridge keeps growing longer with every step I take!”

“And you think the dream means something particular?”

“Of course.  And that’s what’s driving me insane.”

“What?”

“It means there’s never going to be an end to war.”

~~~

 

 

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NaPoWriMo – Day 15 – A Pantun

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

NAPO 2013 BUTTON

Just in case we have new readers who are not familiar withNaPoWriMo, perhaps I should explain again. It’s been a couple weeks since we talked about it in detail. April is National Poetry Month, and Maureen Thorson, in Washington, D. C. hosts a blogsite that invites all poets to participate in a special challenge in celebration of that fact by writing a poem a day for the 30 days of April. Thus NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). Maureen gives us a new prompt for each day, but the prompts are totally voluntary. We can follow them or write some other kind of poem entirely. We are only halfway through the month, so anyone can still join in the fun. Just hop over to this link and get started: http://www.napowrimo.net

Day 15:  Pantun is a Malay form of poetry. Although it has been changed and adapted into a slightly different form by the French and English, our challenge today is to write a poem following the exact formula of the original Malay Pantun. That formula consists of a quatrain with 8-12 syllables per line and a rhyme scheme of abab. Furthermore, although there is no formal logical connection required between the two halves of each quatrain, there is supposed to be some degree of “imaginative or imagistic connection” between the two.

I decided, in the interest of time, to limit myself to one quatrain. The following has 10 syllables per line, and I think I’ve met the other requirements as well. Moreover, I’ve shared a powerful truth.

SWORDSWEAPONS

One man may wield with ease a sharp-honed sword,
And drawing blood, strike death with that long knife.
Another for his weapon chooses words,
Yet with dead aim, he too destroys a life.

~~~