Storm winds come, storm winds go
He slumbers in the earth below
Close your mind, close your eyes
In the darkness he will rise
Fallen King who dwelt in stone
Sleeping still in soil-clad bone
Risen soon from earthen bed
To place a crown upon his head
Continue reading at Observations of the Urban Spaceman
All hearts and flowers
Spring from and return to earth
Love lasts a lifetime
*
‘Iacta ālea est.’ The die is cast. The storm would follow.
Marcisus trooped with his legion over the Rubicon river, following their leader who had gone before them.
Within days they would be in Rome. Pompey would be forced to flee. Rome would be torn apart.
Marcisus saw it all unfolding. He had hoped his warring days were over. He had served Rome and her army all his adult life. His wife and children awaited him at home. All he wished was to spend his remaining days in retirement and watch his family grow up.
Continue reading at Iain Kelly
Reblogged from The Write Stuff:
Please help me welcome Anita Dawes back to The Write Stuff this afternoon. Anita is sharing a lovely review of her novel Simple. I’m sure you’ll enjoy checking it out and will also be happy to pass it along to your favorite social media sites. Thanks so much, and thanks for being here, Anita!
REVIEW:
D. W. Peach
5.0 out of 5 stars A riveting page-turner!
Verified Purchase
This story was a riveting page-turner that I was unable to put down and couldn’t wait to get back to when I did. The tale takes place in the backwoods hill country of the Eastern US where life unfolds according to different rules than it does in town. The law has no influence, relationships are frequently brutal, and survival requires living by one’s instincts.
Continue reading at The Write Stuff
The lovely town of Cassel, near Lille in Northern France, is shrouded in mist – the same mist that had accompanied our first ever visit to the World War One cemeteries of Vimy and Notre Dame de Lorette.
Six of us are slotted, snugly, into the mid-size people carrier bouncing at speed into the lovely town of Cassel. Behind us are a variety of warm coats that are going to keep us alive when we get out of the car. It’s freezing out there… and misty. It’s a biting cold that has followed us throughout our trip.
Continue reading at The Silent Eye
First in this week…
Another lovely #writephoto prompt from Sue Vincent. Here’s my take on her image – and if you want to give the prompt a go, head over to her site and link your post to hers, or leave a link in the comments:
‘Storm’s a comin’’ Paras spat decisively before turning on his heel, leather boots scraping against rough stone.
‘Our defences will hold,’ Seren replied, hand on the sword belted at her hip, long red hair braided back from her face.
Paras paused, his cloak swirling in the rising wind. He looked back, glint of dark eye above dark beard. ‘They’d better.’
Seren, her gaze on the gathering darkness, nodded, more confident than she felt.
The first heavy drops of rain began to fall, marking her leather armour. And with them, a wrongness, the wind rising to a howl of song, the sky becoming so black she could barely…
View original post 268 more words
There were flowers.
Orchids pinned upon a mother’s breast,
All lace and diamonds.
Long black gloves
And painted lips,
As she left, laughing.
A child who watched
As the door closed.
*
There were flowers…
Yellow tulips,
Cellophane and ribbon
A girl who blushed
As the curtain fell
Upon the stage;
She cradled them,
A first bouquet.
*
There were flowers,
Roses and lilies
White, in hands and hair,
Their fragrance mingled
With frankincense,
A ghost of awe and wonder
Finding a home
In memory.
*
Continue reading at France & Vincent
Welcome to this week’s writephoto prompt.
You can find all last week’s entries in the weekly round-up, which was published earlier today.
Throughout the week, I will feature as many of the responses here on the Daily Echo as time and space allows, usually in the order in which they are submitted. Please be aware that I tend to schedule reblogs in advance and these spaces fill quickly so an early submission is more likely to be reblogged.
All posts will be featured in the weekly round-up on Thursday, 20th February at 10am GMT, linking back to the original posts of contributors.
Use the image below as inspiration to create a post on your own blog… poetry, prose, humour… light or dark, whatever you choose, as long as it is fairly family-friendly.
Submit your link by noon (GMT) Wednesday 19th February.
Link back to this post with a pingback (Hugh has an excellent tutorial here) and/or leave a link in the comments below, to be included in the round-up.
Use the #writephoto hashtag in your title so your posts can be found.
There is no word limit and no style requirements, except that your post must take inspiration from the image and/or the prompt word in the title of the post.
Feel free to use #writephoto logo or include the prompt photo in your post if you wish, or you may replace it with one of your own to illustrate your work.
By participating in the #writephoto challenge, please be aware that your post may be featured as a reblog on this blog and I will link to your post for the round-up each week.
Regular contributors are also welcome to come over as my guest and introduce themselves (click here for details).
Please note: As I do not share my political opinions on this blog, please do not use the challenge as a platform from which to share yours. Party political or racially offensive posts will not be reblogged.
This week’s prompt ~ Storm
For visually challenged writers, the image shows stormy sky above a ruined tower, perched above earthen banks and ditches.
The huts are gone. The green lawn beside the stream holds only an echo of their fallen carcasses. Their fires sleep forever in shadow. Voices whisper only in the wind.
Stones line the way, guiding reluctant feet towards the hidden valley and the stark, skeletal rowans of winter. The land wears an ancient garment of bronze and the wind howls…
I see you.
I called, and you have come.
The time is now.
I know you fear what you will find and the veils you will part. I see it in your eyes… in your footsteps… in the tilt of your head. Wind in hair the colour of faded bracken, beside you he who sees the world with the eyes of the heart, while you see with eyes aflame.
I know your name… though you do not.
Not yet.
Not yet, little sister.
Names matter…
They contain the power of bringing into being; the power of making.
Mine was never spoken, after my choosing. And after the flames only one remained to hold it safe; he could not speak it, his voice ever given to the gods except in service. We never spoke, never whiled away the winter darkness… our voices touched only to serve the seeing. Yet he saw me as clearly as I see you now, a mirror of destiny across the bridge of time… An empty vessel of the gods.
Yes, closer still… Come. It is all in the finding. Even though you do not understand what it is you seek here. Not yet. That will come. Yes.
Here they laid my bones, clean and white, marked with earth, laid under earth, not given to the flames. That was their gift to me… to those who went before. Those whose souls’ gift I carried. They laid me under earth and under stone, beside the cool waters in the quiet place.
He waited in silence until his ending, an ending of his willing. My name was on his lips at the last.
Listen.
You can hear it still, whispered on the wind…
From Doomsday: The Ætheling Thing ~ Stuart France & Sue Vincent
***
The photo for this week’s prompt was taken at Barbrook, a magical place, filled with stone circles, history and the ghosts of far memory…
It is a place we know well… we have spent a good deal of time with the stones, hut circles and burial cairns of Barbrook, listening for the whispers on the wind…
*
Thank you to everyone who took part, visited or reblogged the posts or left comments for their authors.
A new prompt will be published later today. As always, I will reblog as many contributions as space and time allows as they come in… and all of them will be featured in the round-up next Thursday.
All the posts are listed below, so please click on the links below to read them and leave a comment for the author!
Pingbacks do not always come through… if you have written a post for this challenge and it does not appear in the round-up, please leave a link to your post in the comments and I will add it to the list.
An invitation to writephoto writers…
As there are usually too many contributions to reblog all of them every week, and so that we can get to know their writers, I would like to invite all writephoto writers to come and introduce themselves on the blog as my guest! Click here for details.
Come and join in!
Thank you to all Contributors!
Please click the links to read and comment on the author’s site.
Hayley R. Hardman at The Story Files
Deborah at A Wise Woman’s Journey
Honoré Dupuis at Of Glass and Paper
Roberta Eaton at Roberta Writes
Nascent Ederren at The Ederren
Christine Bolton at Poetry for Healing
Anita from Anita Dawes and Jaye Marie
Balroop Singh at Emotional Shadows
Michele Jones at Out of the Shadows
Trent P. McDonald at Trent’s World
Christine Bialczak at Stine Writing
Ritu Bhathal at But I Smile Anyway
Jules at Jules Pens Some Gems…
Brian F Kirkham at The Inkwell
Keith Hillman at Keith’s Ramblings
Goff James at Art, Photography and Poetry
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
An Invitation To Join The U.L.S. — The Underground Library Society ~ Charles French
Reblogged from Words, Reading and Writing:
I am again asking for those who would like to join the U.L.S.,the Underground Library Society, to join and write a guest post. I put this request out several times over the course of a year, because I hope to have more people join in the cause.
In an earlier First Year Class at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, The U.L.S. — The Underground Library Society — was created. It is in the spirit of the Book People from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In that novel, all books have been banned, and a few people “become” books by memorizing them, in the hope that, one day, books will be permitted to exist again.
Continue reading at Words, Reading and Writing
Press a button or two to share... go on, make my day :)