black and white
“Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.”
― George Carlin

white
a ghostly memory
of damask roses
night-booming jasmine
olive trees, heavy with fruit

black
reimagined into white and
gone the fear of bombs
gone the crumbled buildings and crushed hearts
the abandoned cities, the empty streets
now the children play, they study
the houses stand and the gardens grow
hope towers, a moral high-ground
the ghost is the dove
and the hawk has flown

© 2016, poem and Illustration, Jamie Dedes; All rights reserved; the Bleeding Heart Dove photo below is courtesy of morgueFile.

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT

Times and places of peace leave no scars to jog our memories and stoke the fires of our hope. Remember peace or imagine it: What would a world at peace look like?

If you feel comfortable, leave your poetry or prose or a link to it in the comments section below.  All work shared in response to this prompt will be published in a post here next Tuesday.

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23 Comments

  1. i love the imagery you paint in this piece.
    the line
    “the ghost is the dove
    and the hawk has flown”
    is fantastic.well penned, keep’em coming.

    Liked by 1 person

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      1. That is what I do in large part but I call it ‘digitizing’…a fancy word for doctoring. I commend you for your strong will and determination Jamie. Yes, I guess, I too, am hanging tough. I am actually trying out some different ways to do my art…my actual art on paper and canvas. Hoping for the best. 🙂

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  5. on a hill

    above a bay containing a quiet sea
    not quite knowing
    so many years ago
    the drift of my soul
    or the even more alien drift of the soul
    of that other now just
    a sometimes voice on the telephone—
    this single event
    comes back to me now
    when I could very well do without it:
    it was a moment before going back for hotel teatime
    on a hill complete with sensation of slipping down & off
    above a bay containing such a quiet sea

    such a long remorseful soul-drift
    between then & now

    and that is all you’ll know of it
    except that you’ll compare it
    with that small event that drifts
    in & out of your own recollection
    particle & wave depending on your angle
    (both together when you look away
    from what’s held in place
    by time & space maybe something like
    a hill… a bay… a sea quietly moving there
    stuck like a tune on an old record)

    my self the zero coordinate
    (emergent uprising)
    held in place momentarily by
    the elements that constitute
    a State of Being:

    walker & path walked;
    dreamer & dream-journey;
    thinker & web of thought

    *

    This was a moment of peace that may seem like some kind of scar but my own quiet state now is a ‘zero coordinate’, unifying all, which is a rather larger moment of peace still warmly linked to that hill above a bay… I feel myself there right now nearly sixty years ago!

    The poem comes from my ‘The Recovery of Wonder’ (Hub Editions 2013)

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  7. EXPLAINING A PEACE-SIGN TO A TODDLER

    It never occurred to me how impossible
    it might be to describe a concept to a child
    An innocent whose frame of reference
    doesn’t yet extend to encompass such
    atrocities as war
    So how to explain the need for peace

    I give him a teddy-bear that is tie-dyed,
    a souvenir from a trip to New Orleans;
    I don’t notice until he’s holding it that
    the bear is sporting a peace sign on its
    miniature T-shirt, and naturally the 2 year
    old wants to know what it “says”

    He understands the hexagonal red road
    signs mean “stop”, and the inverted yellow
    triangles mean “wait” (yield actually, but
    it’s a word still beyond him)
    But peace? I try to explain about fighting
    and then no fighting
    He nods wisely, asks me if it’s like when he
    and his brother “hit” and then get into
    trouble
    Is it “peace” when they both stop hitting
    In a way, I tell him, in a way…

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    1. Wow! Touching and memorable. I like it. Since this will be your first time to be featured here, I’d need you to send a short third-person bio and, if you’re comfortable a photograph. I tried to visit your blog, but te link doesn’t seem to work.

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  8. my second response Jamie

    .reflect.

    it is an older mirror,
    speckled with time.

    liquid memories,

    we make a place of safety
    with our thoughts and habits.

    our work. our souls
    are in our chests.

    look here, she said.
    please, do not touch
    the ladies bed,
    with lavender and velvet pillow.

    the way is barred now,
    the time is past.

    things have become misshapen.

    sbm.

    Liked by 1 person

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  9. My third response:

    Inhale Dappled , A Perfumed Air,

    step through cast
    illuminated windows
    of tree crowns,

    birdsong lilts blossom fall.
    Key all senses keener.
    See claw hunt feather.

    Feathered mams rescue bairns
    from hungry talons. Bigger birds
    snatch fluffy kids from nests

    to feed their young. Beetles battle
    over territory. All fend, forage
    in this vision of quiet.

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  10. Hi Jamie,

    Here is my second response:

    Rob Time

    of it’s place.

    Early morning await vintage diesel train
    to Great Yarmouth.

    One off First Class Pullman name on backs of armchairs, table light, upturned China tea cups and side plates for

    complementary tea and coffee and Chelsea bun.

    Pass Manvers Industrial Estate where I used to work and Rotherham where she used to work.

    Green and golden fields.

    We brought a pack up. Dining Experience too expensive. Pringles and Pound Shop Special Toffee.

    Sun shining. Expecting rain at the coast.

    Liked by 2 people

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  11. Morning Jamie,

    Here is my first response:

    We Stop Decay

    devote lives to prevent decay
    of wood, breath, bone, brick,
    gardens of our minds,
    faculties of our hearts

    Each day we weed, we resow,
    rework, rebuild
    the wood, breath, bone, brick,
    gardens of our hearts,
    faculties of our minds.

    Laugh to heal the stench
    of rot, worm eaten
    brick, bone, breath, wood
    landscape of flesh
    fresh produce of light.

    Born to decay in decay
    heal the ever opening wound
    brick, bone, breath, wood
    flesh of landscape
    light produce of flesh.

    Laugh.

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  12. Thankyou Jamie.My first response this week.

    1.. that feeling, that .

    arrives unexpected from darkness, some winters’ mornings,

    opening the door to the sound of one black bran bird calling.

    track four repeated. that

    comes on waking finding peace and comfort bound in clean
    linen.

    arises with perfume, an uncertain memory.

    it may be chemicals, peptides in the brain as love, what
    ever the germ or warfare

    I find no word to describe, no random feather nor dust on
    my plate. pass a finger.

    that feeling of trimmed nails upon the keys pounding
    words and silences.

    while music plays. that feeling. that.

    syrup stings my tongue.

    sbm.

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Thank you!