"Stands It Alone" (poem)
Mission Creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals.
That, according to Wikipedia.
Earlier today I was looking at @old-guy-photos' feed. He runs a photography contest called, "Monochrome Mondays." And don't worry, the rest of the days of the week are covered with alliterative titles as well. Monochrome, is case you don't know, means Black & White.
Today, @old-guy-photos posted a bunch of B&W photos of ... his hairbrush! For months, I've avoided making entries into these contests for fear of making a fool of myself. I'm a writer and poet. I have an outlet for my creative juices so I don't need to conquer all other art forms.
But a hairbrush! I'm a competitive guy. @old-guy-photos was just begging for a whooping.
So, I yelled at my daughter, "Get your damn phone out. We're taking some pictures!" She seemed less than enthusiastic to join my crusade. She did volunteer that she had gigabytes of photos on her phone that she could turn into B&W's. Beggars can't be choosers. I agreed. She found a beautiful shot she'd taken of the world-famous lighthouse at Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia (where I'm originally from).
Ha ... I'll show @old-guy-photos with his fancy cameras and fancy studio equipment. But then I got to thinking ... I could really kick his butt if I wrote a poem to go along with the picture. And so, I did. The problem is poems write themselves. If you force them "to fit," you ruin them. And, my daughter's B&W photo was clearly a daytime depiction with calm seas ... while my poem required raging seas at night.
Hmm. Google.
I found a beautiful 1824 Black and White painting by Robert Stevenson called, "An Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouse." A painting ... not a photograph. Now @old-guy-photos is not a stickler on rules (he's an old guy ... he can't remember them), but come on: It's not a photograph; it's not mine; and, by this time I decided to include QuillFire's slightly colorized logo - so, not technically Black & White either.
So, reluctantly, I'm scrapping the contest entry. I like the picture and poem too much. Nevertheless, I'm still going to post it into his feed and hope he won't notice.
He's old.
Paul
I will say this was funny and creative! You should join in the challenges, they are easy and fun. You don't have to do a poem with every post. Now remember tomorrow is tree Tuesday, if you are on. Cant get much easier than that!
@old-guy-photos,
It was that damn hairbrush. How could I not exceed the idea of a hairbrush. So once the ball got rolling ... Ah, the hubris of Man.
Monochrome Monday and now needlework Monday followed by tree Tuesday! Every week starts fab. It never occurred to me that it had to be of a high standard. I would never had written a single poem if not for the steemit poetry slam. You can hold the slam responsible for all the alleged poetry, I had not written any creative writing before. I'm not sure if everyone thinks that's a good thing 😂.
I need to refresh my memory on the other days. But for now I will leave you with this beauty for Tuesday.
This is my son's favourite tree. He has named it Noddy.
PS. That brush was art.
@girlbeforemirror,
I'm feeling a bit forlorn. In my 50 years, it never occurred to me to have a favorite tree, let alone a name for one. I think I may have missed out on something vital in my childhood. This could explain a lot.
After going way overboard on today's challenge, I thought, OK, tomorrow I'll just snap a picture of a palm tree and be done which it. But now that I'm thinking about it, there's a poem in there somewhere. A "boy and his dog" has been done to death. There's even a lot of literature on horses and cats.
But a "boy and his tree" ... that's the undiscovered country.
Self-evidently, I need some sleep.
Noddy has been inundated with spiders and the boy is scared to approach his dear friend.
They are leaf curling spiders.
They pick up noddy dropped leaves with their web and nest inside. There are 100s of them. They are not deadly. If you zoom into the original picture above you can see some on the fence.
https://australianmuseum.net.au/leaf-curling-spider
I took this with the macro lens that clips on my phone.
Loved your poem and the art work is awesome :)
@andysantics,
Thanks Andy. I think it's pretty beautiful as well.
I like how consice it is :) But then again, you are probably one of the best poets on steemit. I enjoyed it!
@madevi,
Thanks mate. I actually really like that poem. As you read in the article, it started on a whim and wasn't meant to be anything substantive.
I was trying to come up with an idea for the second stanza and I was taking the perspective of a sailor on a ship, relieved to finally "see the light." I thought that too cliche so started mulling other ideas. But then, I thought, "What other people might also be watching the light?" A wife. A daughter looking out a window.
"Please God ... let Daddy come home," popped into my head. Flash of bright light. And that was it. Screw the Photo Challenge. This could be a GREAT poem. Poetry comes first.
Anyway, good to speak with you again. I was absent for a spell.
(you hear an engine rev and horn honk)
MEEP! MEEP!
(the window on the humvee rolls down to reveal a warm smiling face)
"Hello! I'm @shadow3scalpel and with the help of my protege, @chairborne, we are actively assisting veterans, retirees and active servicemen and women here on Steemit. We feel it is our 'duty' to support each other. Any questions or comments you may have, simply respond to this comment, thank you!"
(the window rolls up and the engine roars as it drives to the next person on the list)
Comment by @killerwhale. This is a opt-in bot.
@shadow3scalpel,
Shadow, thanks for dropping by (and the upvotes). I just joined the vets group but I'm very excited to be a part of it. I didn't know it even existed until @derangedvisions clued me in. I'd love to be a part of anything you guys are doing. If anyone should be able to organize, it ought to be us. Blow the bugle ... and I'll ride to the sound of the guns.
DM me anytime.
That was pretty funny!! and rules are there to be broken. Right? 😄
@mariannewest,
@old-guy-photos and I are buddies so I take liberties. He's a great guy and has a great sense of humor.
If I'm being honest, once I'd thought of the line, "Please God ... let Daddy come home" (about half way through), all bets were off and I knew I was going to shatter the rules in ignominious fashion ... like Al Capone with a bottle of whiskey. I could have used the daytime photo, I could have put the poem above or below the photo and the logo is all over my feed.
But ... I fell in love with the poem and that's the thing I had to elevate (not really the point of a photo contest).
OK ... so that's my daisy-chain of excuses. You ended up with a color-picture in a B&W photo contest ... how? If you come back with, "Well, I'm color-blind, I'm going to feel like a heel." Just teasing, who cares? The Old Guy doesn't, and, he seems utterly infatuated with trees. In fact, I think tomorrow is TreeTuesday.
If only I could take a picture of a palm tree (I live in Florida) without thinking of a metaphor.
Anyway, nice to meet you. Let's not be strangers.
BTW, my name is Paul.
It was a very funny teasing post - and I totally get it that the poem took over. We never know where the inspiration strikes.
And I should have saved the photo for the tree day lol
Nice to meet you, Paul.
I guess my name is obvious - Marianne :)
You should definitively join #treetuesday. And you can join more than one entry per day. And it doesn't have to be a poem. One line is enough :)
Ps: please, don't say that people are old. They are experienced :)
Like the color of the hair. It's not gray. It is silver!
@ervin-lemark,
When my daughter was in Elementary School, I used to volunteer once a week as a Math Tutor and I also organized Class Science Fair projects. That's EXACTLY (verbatim) what I used to tell the students. Silver not grey.
Throughout the years, I developed something of a surrogate father relationship with several of the kids (their Dads weren't around). One day, one of the boys in class was goofing around and insisted that my hair was indeed grey. One of the girls got so upset that she started crying and, through her tears, screamed at the boy, *"IT'S SILVER!"
Grey means old ... and old ... goes away someday.
My daughter has taken Advanced Language Arts from Grade 1 to Grade 11 (current grade). One of her English teachers had read some of my poetry online and asked me to give several guest-lectures to her class about poetry. One of my lectures included a bit about rhetoric, specifically, euphemism. I demonstrated some of the techniques that poets, politicians and advertisers have been using since Ancient Athens.
I gave the class an assignment: Write a poem about how euphemism could be used to deliberately manipulate and distort people's belief systems. One of the boys from Elementary School, now much older, wrote a poem about how Mr. Paul had used euphemism in an attempt to manipulate them into believing that his decidedly grey hair was, in fact, silver.
I gave him a grade of 100%. :-)
With respect to TreeTuesday, I'm waiting for my daughter to get home from school. Then, were going to scour the golf course behind our condo for an interesting looking tree. This morning, before she left for school, she tried to get me to swear not to write a poem. I did not capitulate ... although, time constraints may force me to surrender my sword.
We'll see.
A great story. Thank you for writing it down. Make an article out of it.
You can make two #treetuesday posts ;)
It is very correct That you have decided to join the contest organized by @old-guy-photos, because here it is always fun and interesting :). I always see a lot of interesting works of other participants and your creative approach - this is also proof :). No restrictions and no rules. I liked that this participation inspired you to write poetry. It will be cool to see you here in the future. I wish you success, @quillfire
@madlenfox,
@old-guy-photos has been my mentor since about Day 10 on Steemit. He's invited me repeatedly to join in the Photo Challenges. I never had the time. This last 24 hours, however, has been a hoot. And, guess what ... my daughter loves taking pictures of flowers. She has a multi-gigabyte library on her phone. She was showing me some of her best work last night. Beautiful.
When she gets home from school, we're going out for a stroll on the golf course adjacent to our condo. We're going to find a tree. She and I are very close, so, the fact that she loves this idea means "I'm in" whether I like it or not.
Thanks for the warm welcome and encouragement. This is a great group.
The Old Guy was right after all.
I had no idea there was something like that.
Yup, I could do some fun in picture poetry.
Monochrome kind of suits me.
@aschatria,
Yikes. You need to ask Old Guy what deviations, if any, are allowed. I'm afraid I may have opened Pandora's Box. I've read a number, "Oh, wasn't that creative," comments about my entry. Maybe I'll ...
My entry was an Exercise in Self-Disqualification. It broke every rule of the Challenge. A B&W painting instead of a photo; the image wasn't mine; text superimposed on the image; etc. What aspect of "submit a Photograph in Monochrome" did I get right? Not one.
I'm the Al Capone of photo challenges ... and I'm only on my second day! I'm the F- student at the back of the class ... don't copy off my paper! I need to copy off yours.
I smiled when I got to the part of the post where you said
And hey buddy the shot your daughter took shot of the world-famous lighthouse at Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia is cool it went ahead to depict the title of the poem stand alone.
You really are a good poet.