Salut/Rencontres

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths you Can’t Avoid

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”  – Oscar Wilde

“We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what the are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

– John Locke

“Language forces us to perceive the world as man presents it to us.”

– Julia Penelope

 

 

Salut/Rencontres

Antoine comes to the café

Each morning

A magazine in hand

Periodicals about small boats

Or great ships

The sea courses

Through his veins

Antoine skims le journal (newspaper)

Drinks his café

Diving deeper into

His nautical world

Pausing to acknowledge

Friends

Today he shows me

A new book “Milk Cows”

U boats of WWII – hardback

En anglais

In turn, I produce my

Latest paperback of French poems

On parting we raise les livres

And laugh

Bisous,

Léa

Affair with Hemingway

“I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye – that was the trouble – I wanted to kiss you good night – and there’s a lot of difference.”  –  Ernest Hemingway

“They love me like a pack of wolves.”   – Ernest Hemingway

“Love is forever. Lust is for the moment. Got a moment?” –  Michael Gorman

 

Affair with Hemingway

 

Remote corners du café

Closerie des Lilas

Summer evenings beneath stars

Sidewalk tables and stories

Late at night – mon chambre

I take you to my bed

Crawl deep inside your stories

I have my way with you

You reach out through time

Together, we do Paris

Huddled in corners

Sipping wine and champagne

Dark Smokey tables shared

Avec Fitzgerald, Ezra et

Ford Madox Ford

War stories, the bulls

Nights at Bricktops

Josephine’s rocking the joint

Gertrude’s salon

Champagne et art du jour

Picasso, Modigliani

Breathless with anticipation

I surrender and plead for more

It is the life – it is life

Bereft, insatiable, pleading for more

C’est magnifique!

 

Bisous,

Léa

Red’s own story

“And whenever I’m in a situation where I’m wearing the same as 600 other people and doing the same thing as 600 other people, looking back, I always found ways to make myself different, whether it be having a red lining inside of my jacket, having red shoes, it hasn’t changed.”
– Jeremy Irons

“When in doubt wear RED.”
– Bill Blass

 

Red’s Own Story

 

She is the thick

Slick enamel

That covers my nails

A pointer when tracing

Concentric circles

On bare flesh

She is the sports car

Darting along the highway

Hugging the curves

Turning an eye

She is the ripe

Succulent strawberry

Her flesh firm

Yet yielding

Tantalizing dipped in dark chocolate

Suits her best

She is the

American beauty

Long stemmed, heady fragrance

Her tight buds unfurl

Exposing her inner delicacy

We forget the thorns

She is the creamy dark war paint

On my lips

A signature

When and where

I choose to leave my mark

She is fire

On the move

Churning inside

Rising up

Beckoning me on

She is

Passion

 

Bisous,

Léa

No place like home

This post resonated so perfectly as if the writer was peering into my thoughts.

Solitude of a Night in Prague

If you are not familiar with the work of Randall Collis, please do yourself a favor and read through this post.

Global Sojourns Photography

I’ve never welcomed the darkness as much as tonight. The isolation clears my head; this solitude of nothingness, paraphrasing the philosophy of the Dao de Jing, …holds everything.

Such silence is rare here on the streets of one of Europe’s oldest cities, where in the daytime each passing second arrives quicker than the last. At this hour, however, time essentially stands still.

The shadow of night creeps through my body, its blackness cloaking my soul to reveal a calmness lacking the past few months.  The lights, blinding during the day, become relief at this hour.  An hour of perception.  An hour of contrast, of paradox.

All encasing a world I seldom visit; deep into the night where elegance and vulgarity sit side-by-side on a curb, fused together through their unique naïveté by the darkness that surrounds.

The grace and coarseness of their melody illuminates who I was, who…

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Novel Writing: What if it’s all for Nothing?

Uninspired Writers

Good morning, creatives and creators. I hope you’ve all had a good week.

Mine started slow and has ended better! In the earlier stages of the week I was having some bad writing days, and some major writer’s doubt. But I’ve tried to be kind to myself, to relax and give myself a break. As such, I’m now back on track.

But one thing was nagging at me, something that I’ve seen many other unpublished writers worrying about to. This awful question, after years of working hard on a project, rewriting, revising, studying; what if it’s all for nothing?

It stems, I think, from a fear of rejection a worry that our works will never be read or appreciated. And with that in mind, I wanted to share some thoughts with you all, including ways to stop that question from taking over.

1. It’s never for nothing
I’ve put…

View original post 405 more words

When you are not writing…

by Diane Laney Fitzpatrick I know, it sounds like a lame excuse, doesn’t it? “It’s not that I’m not writing. It’s just that I’m thinking about my next chapter while I play this game of Solitaire on my phone. With Law and Order reruns playing in the background.” Those of us who have […]

via How Not Writing Can Help Your Writing — A Writer’s Path

Poetry Day!

POETRY DAY IS INTERNATIOAL, there are readings here in France and I have no doubt there are others…

Calling ALL scribes! This is a terrific opportunity for you to let your voice be heard, as Saturday, October 7th is RANDOM ACTS of POETRY DAY Whoa! Are they sure they know what they are doing here? Unleashing bards and bardettes from all over the world to explode with poetic joy, any and every where they […]

via Random Acts of Poetry Day October 7 — Annette Rochelle Aben

Silence

“Silence is a true friend who never betrays.”   – Confucius

“True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.”  – William Penn

“Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.”  – Marcel Marceau

                                                                                  –

Silence 

 

That is not what

She is saying –

Music – a passion

But silence – silken, warm

Comforter, blanket, cape

To withdraw –

The cocoon where

Creativity germinates freely

Where her mind

slows its frantic pace

From chaos to

Inspiration

 Repressed mantra

– 

Silence – her fortress

It has her back

Shelter from the storm

 She hears the predator coming

The clacking of her heels

Rattling of keys

Always different from other disasters

Silence, sounds its warning

Flight, the favored response

Hushed cantata

–

Soldiers

Recount lying in wait

As the enemy approaches

Rubber sole alarm

The heart skips beats

Hands quiver, mouth dry

Words, forsake her

Her litany to be alone

 Quelled psalms of youth

–

Soil, secure, reticent, fertile

Where seeds finds solace, 

Nourishment, sanctuary,

Strength, time – her friends

Adapting, evolving, processing

She bursts forth

 Her ode to joy

 

–

Bisous,

                                              – Léa                  

                          

 

Hemingway – advice for a writer

While reading Hemingway, again, I stumbled upon the following quote and couldn’t resist sharing it. Though Hemingway was addressing writing and writers I believe it applies to all creative endeavours. 

 

“In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and bend the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the grindstone and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.”                                      

– Ernest Hemingway, from his Preface – The First Forty-Nine Stories

Bisous,

Léa