Strange New Year

Happy New Year! .....or is it really a "new" year? You wake up on January 1st, assuming that the calendar has changed to 2016, as it should in the natural progression of years, but it didn't. Something's gone amiss and the new year has actually changed over to an "old" year from the past. You discover this as you go through your day, so now you must write about it.

What year did you wake up to? What's going on? How will it all end up? Write as many entries as you want, choosing any "years" you want to write about. No collabs, any style, reasonable length, poems, short stories ok, etc.

Have fun and go! Get time traveling !

Thanks for starting off Hades!

THE NEW YEAR

Bring to us
The birth of
Golden ripples
In the heavens

Bring to us
The dancing warrior
Biting at the ankles
Of the great ocean

Meth 2001

Woke up with a start of heart rush
And the "rip sing" of aluminum foil
Being stripped and filled..
"Babe get in here, you're a bitch when you come down!"

A dream?
Mine are vivid but...
"Fuck c'uum ohn!! Already.. Babe."

Babe?
I ain no ones babe in call...
That smell..sweet chemical soar..
And this floor..?
Is a floor i am definately standing on..
A hardwood floor remembered all too well...

Pid pad down familar hall..
Hell..oh fuck..!!
I know this route..
And the chrystal call
That fills my nostrils..
Alive!
And did..
Almost to death..

I look at my ex..
Disgust and disbelief inhaled through
Sharp breathe..


Yoouu fuck!!
What are you doing in my New reality?

"Babe..maybe you've had too much..
Nehh..cum have another hit an then fuck me..".

Lonely road
Here I stand, staring at the sky
with many questions,
but no answers why.
Like why am I standing here all alone, forced to face these fears all on my own?
I was once told, i'd walk a lonely road,
but I couldn't imagine how far this road could truly go,
But here I am, i'm still a walking man.
I'm still walking man, through
this uncharted land.

    Well I guess it's true what they say that this is not paradise.
Who am I to argue, I gotta take what I can take.
Even though I thought to end it all, I even thought about it twice,
but I came so far to end it with a choice that wasn't worth to make.

  My momma told me when I was a young man
"Don't ever beg for nothing boy. This world is not about giving out any hands."
many years have passed and momma I finally know,
what you tried to tell me so long ago.
I see my demons!
They hide in society!
The're everywhere I see!
I even feel them inside of me,
but still I stay upon this road that lies ahead.
Until another lonely soul finds me here
lying dead..


    Well I guess it's true what they say that this is not paradise.
Who am I to argue, I gotta take what I can take.
Even though I thought to end it all, I even thought about it twice,
but I came so far to end it with a choice that wasn't worth to make.

Thanks for the entries, everyone!

A New Year Past

loved the buzz
abstinence for too long
alone as always
except this time
there was a cheap red
near my bed

feeling the room spin
closing my eyes
letting go
feeling the whirlwind

'she has a new dress?'
'yes she has isn't that good?'
'my dress is from last year'
'mine too. Mother said
we didn't do well'
'yes rubber price is down'

I stared in horror
at my best friend's face
ten years old
with a scar on her cheek
she looked back puzzled
'what's wrong with you?'

standing up looking around
saw the old church on the grassy field
my siblings all toddlers and babies
clinging on my mother's black skirt
she was young and beautiful with bunned hair
a few friends rushed by holding catechisms

my best friend ran with them
the bell was ringing
bong-bong-bong
my mother was entering the church
I ran towards her
didn't see the flower pot
fell on my face

getting up, I looked at spilled wine
on the floor
falling out of bed was not bad
I just get back on again
sleeping the eve to the new year

I just wished I stayed in that reality
decades past
and rewrite my little book
of life.

Summer Camp (short prose)

I’m driving through Mojave Desert, visiting one of my sisters before the long summer season sets in with a vengeance.  She's one of the counselors at a summer camp for girls, and has invited me to come up for the weekend.  The drive is long but filled with rugged scenery, especially once I reach the mountains. The winding road becomes a narrow, rocky lane strewn with boulders hazardous to a vehicle that isn’t a 4-wheel drive.  I slowly make my way up the slope as the road becomes narrower until it's barely enough to allow one-way traffic.

It’s ages since I’ve been there; a young girl during summer vacation.  My parents dropped me off where the buses were, with eager girls, from ages 8 to 16, getting on board, while drivers loaded sleeping bags and overnight cases into the bottom storage of the buses.  I was 9 when Mom announced that I’d get to go to summer camp, by myself.  I had never been on my own; it was always with family: Angeles National Forest, Yosemite, Death Valley, camp grounds along the west coast, and taking the all-day boat from San Pedro to Catalina Island for deep sea fishing.  I remember when I caught my first fish – an ugly barracuda!  I loved those trips, getting up at 4am, piling into Dad’s van – with Mom, and my two older sisters.  Once the buses set out in a caravan filled with girls with arms waving out the windows, hair flying in the wind, we’d all join in a singalong at the top of our lungs;  every camp song we could think of, over and over, for miles and miles.

I break from my reverie when I realize the sun is down, the night has settled in, and clouds are gathering.  I turn on the wipers as it begins to sprinkle.  The road, more like a trail at the moment, will level off, becomes less rocky, where I will head for the camp’s parking lot near the main structure that houses the staff where my sister is, waiting.  My vehicle jolts violently whenever I hit large boulders, and the rain is falling in sheets, socking me in for the night.  I tighten my grip on the steering wheel and feel myself shiver.  I lean forward, squinting, trying to see with my high beams.  It's hard to navigate despite the wipers.  The road gooey with mud.  I feel desperate and reach for my cell phone.  I can’t feel it – where is it?  Had it slid onto the floor?  I reach up to turn on the cab light as I hit the brakes just as a flash of lightning sliced through the darkness, illuminating the relentless rain. It seems like it's been coming down for hours, but it's probably only been about 15 minutes.

It's a disoriented feeling; the sensation of careening over a waterfall.  I crane my neck, looking behind me through the back window.  The SUV is sliding backward, the mud causing it to lose traction, heading towards the railing. Too sudden for me to react in time, the SUV rams into the barrier, whipping my head back and sending my body forward into the steering wheel, knocking the air from me.  

There's only the sound of rain pelting the roof, and the faint roll of thunder.
…..

I look down and find I'm sitting astride a black horse whose name was Navajo.  How bold I was, telling the camp counselor I could ride (oh yes, born to it, I said).  I loved everything about horses, except how to ride them.  I sat on the resentful beast, squirming in the saddle, trying to keep my feet in the stirrups (they were too long, or I was too short).  

I brought up the rear of a caravan of 9 and 10-year-old girls spending two weeks of summer in the Tehachapi mountains.  Swimming, hiking, singing old camp songs, like –
I been workin' on the railroad, all the live-long-day..., performing skits round the campfire after a supper of beans and franks.

I been workin' on the railroad, just to pass the time away...,  Buying pixie sticks, chewing gum, and Hello Kitty glitter at the camp's general store that looked like a log cabin.  Every building in camp looked like a log cabin.

Can't you hear the whistle blowin', rise up so early in the morn'... We had to get up every morning at the crack of dawn.

Can't you hear the captain shoutin’, Dinah blow your horn..., and you had to run down a hill in your nightshirt with a towel, bar of soap, and toothbrush in your hands so you could get a spot in the loo before the older girls came in.  They would hoist themselves up to look down into the stall where I'd be shivering on the john.  I'd look up and would always let out a high-pitched scream,

Dinah won'tcha blow, Dina won'tcha blow, Dina won'tcha blow your ho-o-orn..., they did it to all the first-timers, and I'd make a break for it and run back up the hill until they'd clang the triangle over a loudspeaker way up in a pine tree - the call to breakfast.

Someone's in the kitchen with Di-nah, someone's in the kitchen I kno-o-o-ow, someone's in the kitchen with Di-nah... strummin' on the ol' banjo...

So there we were, the 9 and 10-year-olds. The older girls were prolly on their period, and were not gonna ride those ol' horses, so they were all hanging out at the camp cee-ment pond in their bathing suits.  I wasn't gonna swim in that water, I might find a tampon floating nearby, ew!  I was the last one in the string of girls making their way down a winding mountain trail, with the mountain on the right and a sprawling view of the valley below on the left.

Down in the valley, valley so low, hang your head over, hear the wind blow... . Green pastures surrounded by the mountains, the sky and clouds.  It really did look like a purple mountain’s majesty, like in the song,
...above the fruited plains... America, America...  

"Wait a minute, what's that out there?", we all shouted, pointing.  The cute wrangler guy, who was leading the tenderfoot girls on an adventure, replied,

"Oh, that's the stables."

"You mean where the horses live?"

"Uh huh."  

...and crown thy good with brotherhood...  Navajo let out a deep rumbling whinny that I could feel right through the saddle, and vibrated my thighs that were sweating on the leather cause I was wearing shorts.

Navajo bolts out of line and takes me along whether I like it or not (I don't!), heading for the bend in the trail ahead where there's a fence to keep people from rolling down the mountain.  I'm too scared to holler, besides, no one would hear me because all the other girls were screaming!

The fence was getting closer fast.  My feet flew out of the stirrups.  Everything’s a blur.  I was certain to pitch out of the saddle any second.  As it happened (and you knew it would), the big handsome wrangler galloped up just in the nick of time, grabbing the reins and pulled the homesick beast to a halt mere moments before sailing over the fence.

As for me, I couldn't wait to get back to my bunk so I could make something out of ice cream sticks and Elmer's Glue-All; the obligatory camp craft project.  Maybe something like a little box where I could keep my pixie sticks, chewing gum, and Hello Kitty glitter.

...from sea – to – shi -- ning – sea. . . . .
. . . . .

“She’s waking up.” My ears suddenly fill with sound, like coming up for air after being underwater.  I blink as if sunlight is on my face; my head nestles into a soft pillow.  I look over at a window and see the rain has stopped, the clouds are gone, and a full moon hangs high.  There's the warm touch of a hand.  I follow the arm it's attached to and see my sister, smiling.


©2016 Jade-Pandora

Pensara..
The second piece i have seen from you today..
Both honest..and reaally cool doll.
Uplifting, and truely enjoyed.
Thank you for sharing something real.
Dig when poets do that.

Jellybean Dreams

I've got sweet jellybean dreams
Riding around in my big booty machine
Happy New Year we kissed and all screamed
Woke up with an Afro listening to the Supremes

James Brown sings Say It Loud
I'm Black and I'm proud!
Guess I'm not African American just yet
So I don't have it like George Jefferson I bet

More like Florida and James I sing the Good Times theme
I'm back to the future and the projects are still just as mean
Yeah my Bologna has a name - it's O-S-C-A-R
A-Rabs hiked oil prices so there's no gas for my car

I'm a cool cat so I don't mind if I walk
I gotta bop in my step and still slang in my talk
Wait is that Obama at that! corner store?
If he went in there he's looking to score

Commander and Chief is gonna be soarin' high
He wants to watch Puff the Magic Dragon fly
Me, I'm buyin' my girl a Big Mac and two apple pies
Cause I don't care if it goes to her thighs

You ever try to dance the Bump with a skinny chick?
Not me baby, I like my girl who's nice and thick
Stretch that mini skirt and rock the go-go boots
Get on the Soul Train baby and say toot-toot

Yeah I got no bread for gas for my jellybean
Life in the projects is still just as mean
But come first Sunday I'll be in church
Still drunk from Barack's party
so I'm singin' like Lurch

http://blog.ebayimg.com/motors/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/1976_amc_pacer_14-600x377.jpg

Lmfao!! Lobo! Still drunk from Baraks party..and singin like Lurch..
Rollllin hehehe!s...

Congrats all around ! Lobo--love the Pacer picture --my grandparents used to have a red one !  Fishbowl on wheels .... My first car was a 1982 AMC Spirit, butter yellow with orange racing stripes --lol! Loved that car though and your write brought back many memories of yesterdays

Congratulations LSP! Awesome write. And Jade, wow! Thank you Mlavender for the mention, honoured.

Thank you, ma'am, for hosting this inspirational competition, and for honoring us.  My congratulations to two of the most terrific people here on DU -- Lobo, and Idryad!  It's a real privilege to have my work included with theirs, and with everyone who participated!🌟💓