Blogs

  • splitting seconds

    combo-02-reflect

    Image is a mashup of photos by Jaymantri @ pexels.com and Trinck @ pixabay.com. The imagery employs some amount of Gaussian blur combined with a zooming effect. Neither of the original photos is anywhere near 71st Sinaiyah.

    splitting seconds

    this is what a WTD moment
    on 71st Sinaiyah at my 10:
    10:00 AM looks like from
    the driver’s seat:

    narrow asphalt lanes
    no longer than a mile
    going and coming empty
    but for the single file of sad cars
    illegally parked along the curbs
    — but only illegal for stray 
    traffic cops to say —
    withering dull or glossy
    under the desert sun on
    either side of 10:09:58 AM,
    twin solid yellow lines solemnly mark
    separation at the middle of the world
    promising a robust paradise
    at the foreseeable future bend,
    when from the corner of an eye
    a red ocher car whips up to life:
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  • lost in time

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    the image by annca @ pixabay.com has been slightly modified by an overlay of a 1950’s family photo

    lost in time

    one day gone
    and i don’t remember anymore
    how my little brother looks like
    — blame my eyes for they have seen 
    much to the seclusion of simplicity 

    a lock of golden hair
    mingling with the innocence of
    a face, or the hippie look
    of david bowie?
    sweet brown eyes round and full
    of crinkled laughter silently
    echoed within the brown of the eyes
    but it could well be
    the piercing green of that creature
    in the exorcist 

    the pristine curve of
    pinkish lips in the manner of a
    smile and the reddish dimple of
    a child three years old,
    but no — i envision the sneer 
    of a fox and the dimple of 
    a gorilla. 

    i reach for the picture in my
    pocket, but alas
    the picture of my little brother
    has blurred away
    with the passing of
    moments.

    © said sadain, jr.  1974

    Notes:

    The poem “lost in time” first saw print in the Focus Philippines Magazine, 9 Nov. 1974 issue.  The film The Exorcist (released to cinemas in late 1973) apparently confused my young mind enough back then to deserve being mentioned in this poem. So did David Bowie’s look confused me a lot, looking really more of hip than hippie with his gender-blending beatnik-ness that could easily color nightmares. While not much of a fan of Bowie’s music or his style, I did pay attention to some of his songs’ poetry, such as Life On Mars and Starman, this early interest to seemingly augur my later-life fascination with the exploits of Elon Musk  😀

    — SSJ, 10 Nov. 2018

  • countless colors shall bring tomorrow

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    Image is cropped from a photo by Engin_Akyurt @ pixabay.com

    countless colors shall bring tomorrow

    the fires of life taste the flavor
    of dwarf gardens in poets’ dreams
    raised by cold river on rushing currents.
    nearby, a bare tree smiles at the sky
    and rises directly to the wind:
    behold the promise of a fountain fall
    to dissipate the fancies on rays
    of countless sun colors that knit
    the fabrics of a boundless morrow.
    ________
    © said sadain, jr.  2018

    Notes:

    I pride myself at being a part-time writer. I have to live up to that designation, that is why, among other things, I went off the grid for a while, away from this blog 🙂 No apologies there. But I did not expect the off-gridding to take longer than it did, for other more pressing reasons, and for that I apologize. Perhaps I need to change the appellation from being a Part-Time Writer to simply being a Now-You-See-Him-Now-You-Don’t Writer. I’ll take pride in that too 🙂
    Thank you for sticking around and reading this blog. Have an enjoyable weekend, everyone.
    — SSJ, 2 Nov. 2018

  • The Right To Peace and Plenty

    The Right To Peace

    “It is time all nations and all people live up to the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human race.”

    — Secretary-General António Guterres 

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    photo by sasint @ pixabay.com

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  • a mother’s whisper

     

    mother-song

    image is a mashup of photos and artwork of darksouls1, 41330 and PublicDomainPictures @ pixabay.com 

    a mother’s whisper

    the sad letters of empty pages
    sit with me and my daily wages,
    mother whispers from miles of hue:

    back home my son they look for you 
    on window sills where hang the stars 
    that pluck the notes from your guitar,
    are you this coffee memory 
    across the table, across the sea? 
    the frogs and turtles have come to pass 
    to sing the chorus of the grass, 
    to drown in rain of lines unwritten 
    to wait for you pick up the pen, 
    to write your blank letters on sad edges 
    to read with me the sky’s pages

     

    © said sadain, jr.  2018

    Note: 

    I shall be away from blogging for at least a month, to drown in rain of lines unwritten, to sit on pages of algorithms. Until then, here’s wishing you good health and starry nights.

    — Said, 23 August 2018 

    boy wearing gray hoodie

    Photo by Juan Pablo Arenas on Pexels.com

  • Fireflies: a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs

     

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    ヒメボタル  photo credit: © Tsuneaki Hiramatsu, digitalphoto.cocolog-nifty.com

    “….a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightning bugs….”*

    As a child, I used to chase and marvel at the fireflies twinkling in the night. As an adult, I now look at the fireflies as a glowing refutation of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution:

    Bioluminescence, the process by which fireflies produce light without heat, is said to be a very efficient process. According to firefly expert Dr. Marc Branham, associate professor of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of Florida, almost all of the firefly’s energy involved in bioluminescence is given off as light. Compare that to a traditional incandescent bulb that uses a lot of energy to produce light, while wasting 90% of that energy as heat released to the atmosphere.  Bioluminescence thus would seem like a very desirable survival mechanism for the human being, a beneficial mutation waiting to happen and to be preserved, much like the appendages of man that the theory of evolution would have us believe were the spontaneous product of natural selection as life evolved from amphibian to terrestrial.

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  • barren beach

    green car near seashore with blue ocean

    Photo by Simon Matzinger on Pexels.com

    barren beach

    it is the ebb it seems:
    the tide has left
    tiny corals naked
    like forever-dancing
    pale-faced stuffed
    monkeys
    under the glaze of
    the midday heat.
    the drought is settled
    even beside the sea
    upon this empty reach.

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  • the significance of being black or white

    the significance of being black or white

    black, some people believe,
    is the murder of colors
    and white, their liberation

    while others claim black is
    the acceptance of colors
    and white, their rejection

    but neither black nor white
    can tell the whole truth
    about the world of colors.

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  • blood moon risen

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    Total lunar eclipse over the Jeddah sky (is that white dot the red planet Mars?). Photo by SSJ, 27 July 2018

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    Total lunar eclipse over the Jeddah sky (is that white dot really the red planet Mars!?). Photo by SSJ, 27 July 2018

    a blood moon risen,
    is it blemished with my sins,
    wounded with my pains?

    © said sadain, jr.  2018 

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  • the falling ( a love story)

    the falling (a love story)

    he feels she likes him
    she feels he likes her
    past iambic convos
    their arms brush electric
    as armrest fades to clouds
    this must be love astir
    floating from their bosoms
    flutterbies of light

    and all 
    the light 
    to breathe 
    to breathe

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