"we are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side” ― kahlil gibran
(street art, covered passage off denisova, olomouc)
twists and turns
false paths and blind alleys
fate turns
so, when on the way
there really is just one
way
and it is right in front of
you
(for wordpress weekly photo challenge – on the way)
*shot with nikon d700, nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens at ISO200, 1/60s and f/2.2, edited in lightroom cc, the way is clear”
on the way on belgianstreets
on the way on belgradestreets
Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | two
The end.
The end, he had encountered in a crudely covered hole in the ground.
The beginning.
The beginning, well, that took place beneath the fading light of a long gone time. Years before he had first opened his eyes.
The light of an unusually warm spring evening. Shadows scored by the setting sun surrounded them. As they walked together. Hope then in their hearts. Still.
Dandelion clocks marked the path like lanterns.
Clocks marking the passage of time as the gentle breeze bent their slender stems and the soft seed heads dispersed. And time was all they had. Nothing more.
That day, they were free. Free from what would come. Free from fear.
Free from it.
Of course, he knew none of this, not then. Not on the day he stumbled across the hole. No, that knowledge would come much later. His discovery of that rudely abandoned hole in the ground. The end of one story, their story, had become the beginning of another story. His story.
Back in the light. In that time of hope. They walked on. Looking around them with joy in their hearts.
And yet.
And yet, in the spaces in between, those spaces where the sun was absent, in those spaces, it stirred. It had not yet taken shape.
At least not its final, terrible, shape.
Would they have seen the way the light seemed to bend, behind them, as they walked along the path. Had they paused, stopped, turned, would it have made any difference? Would they have seen it then? If they had, would they have recognised it for what it was and what it would become? Would their end then have been any different? Would his?
All this he learned later.
When it would also be too late for him. So very late.
He looked across the desk, at the chaotic piles of papers, books, and that box. Always that damned box.
It seemed so long ago now. All of it.
His hand, aching, his fingers bent out of shape, swollen, gently picked up the pen, and he once more began to write. He had to write, tell his story, and theirs. Yes, their story, he must tell it, before it all began again. And it would. It always does.
For them, on that warm spring evening, time had stopped, or so they felt. For them, this moment was all they wanted, for it never to end.
But, of course, it would. It always does.
They had sat down, on the grass to the side of the path. The air heavy with pollen. Their fingers touched.
As he pushed his pen across the paper, he felt the room grow cold. As that evening long ago, they too felt it. The cold. He stood, his back sore and bent, he walked to the window and looked at the dark clouds, large oozing drops of rain smeared against the panes.
And remembered.
How he found that hole in the ground.
And had seen.
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
two | fiftytwo
skin
skin of mine
skin of mine, and his
skin of mine and his, and so now, yours
skin of mine
skin of yours
skin tight
hold tight
to what is, yours
(for mara’s poetry 101 rehab – skin)
(for wordpress weekly photo challenge – broken)
*shot with nikon d700 and 85mm f/1.8 lens at ISO200, 1/200s and f/7.1 edited in lightroom cc and photoshop cc with words written in iA Writer Pro, promises promises*
broken on belgianstreets
broken on belgradestreets
Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | one
It stopped. Suddenly. Under the spring sun.
Over. All done. Nothing more.
A soft wind caressed the few hairs left on his head. As he gazed, without care or regard, over the serried ranks of headstones.
All those names. Those faces pasted to the marble. Staring back at him.
The fake plastic flowers. Their fake, plastic, feelings.
Death. Decay. Despair.
He had been shocked, by the flowers. The intensity, of the flowers. Their lack of life. Lack of pollen. Lack of decay. Their, lack. Their fake colours spoke to the horror. In his heart. In his soul. If he had one.
Walking, among the dead. The cold gaze of the stone sentinels. So little to do. Just staring and waiting until the wind abraded their faces into anonymity. They left their statues, to absolve their conscience. Standing. To do the bidding of those who no longer care.
He felt it. Even before then. That moment. He felt it.
He had come to learn, to capture the essence, to absorb his new culture. Familiar, and, not.
And all those names and dates and faces and false, fanciful, fake, flowers.
He pressed the shutter release over and over. Yes, he did. That’s what he did. Over, and over. Recording, reporting, revealing. And, later, he would know. More than he wanted. He would. Know.
Pollen covered his shoes. A light dusting. Dust, that troubled him.
And, those massive, stone, slabs. Sealed. Suffocating. Echoes of Poe. That damp earth. The broken finger nails. The strangled cries, of despair. Beneath.
He continued. To walk.
Among those slabs. Those inscriptions. The man, hanging on the beams of wood, one vertical, one horizontal. A fractured world. Lost hopes. Lost dreams. Always fighting. And, then, a photo on a stone. A photo.
He was incensed by the injustice. The rows of small stones. The mausoleums of the rich, the mayors, the benefactors. Who decides. Of all those faces, gazing out from the stones. Which deserved his care? His attention? His lens?
Troubled. He pressed on.
Soon, he found it. It, found him. They, found him. And it, they, will never let go.
The space. The emptiness. Between the stones. That stopped him. Made him think. Too much, as always. He had always thought too much. Without thinking.
There was no grass. No marble. No stone. No written homage to the great and good. No stone sentinel.
What had been there, was gone. No smooth marble cladding. Only bricks, scraped, exposed, bare. Industrial. Yes, industrial. The stark futility, pierced him.
What of those who had knelt here? Those, who had been left behind. What of them?
He stared at the bare boards. Those rough hewn, wooden, boards. The concrete lintel. Surrounding that terrible open hole. The slates. Dragged across that gaping, terrible, hole.
He knelt. He looked. He, saw.
A cold pit. Filled. With water.
Cold walls. They no longer constrained their bitter cargo.
And, he looked. He heard. He saw. He felt. What had been there.
The end.
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
one | fiftytwo
dark
long night
night crawling dark thoughts
thoughts spawned dark endless night
night terror cracked dark gnarled fingers
fingers slithering scraping grasping fingers
fingers gnarled dark cracked terror night
night endless dark spawned thoughts
thoughts dark crawling night
night long
dark
(for mara’s poetry 101 rehab – dark)
*shot with nikon d700 and nikkor 70-200mm f/4 lens at 70mm, ISO200, 1/250s and f/8.0, edited in lightroom cc and analog efex pro 2, wet plate filter applied, fingers over eyes*
“i was enveloped in numbness, and absence of feeling so deep the bottom was lost from view” ― haruki murakami, the wind-up bird chronicle
enveloped in pain
by something that knows
no name
don't give it house room
turn up the
volume
and just
dance
(for wordpress weekly photo challenge – enveloped)
*shot with nikon d700, nikkor 70-200m f/4 lens at 1/250s and f/8, no edits*
real world in trouble everyone lives in a bubble does any one care about the trouble under so much rubble can it really be so much trouble eventually -
real world in trouble everyone lives in a bubble under so much rubble so, are we really in trouble eventually -
real world in trouble everyone lives in a bubble can it really be so much trouble yes, they will burst our bubble can it really be so much trouble look out, I told you, they’re really gonna burst our bubble eventually -
(for mara’s poetry 101 rehab – recycle)
*shot with iphone 5, edited in snapseed mobile, adverbs reduced, reused and recycled*
(advertising hoarding, havenlaan, brüssel)
shhh...
force(s) of
nature
can
lead
to
trouble
(for wordpress weekly photo challenge – forces of nature)
*shot with nikon d700, nikkor 70-300mm lens, at 70mm, and 1/125s at f/5.6, edited in lightroom cc and analog efex pro, make up optional”
andy townend 