Hi everyone, today I am hosting a fun literary quiz over at Story Empire. I’ve featured quotes and a clue form four love stories (classified as romances on Amazon and Wikipedia). Do come over and join in the fun. I’ll add in the answers tomorrow.

literary quiz – how well do you know your classic novels: romance

Dan is holding a writing challenge this month as part of his Thursday Doors Challenge. This is my second entry and is based on two of Resa’s gorgeous contributions which you can find here: https://nofacilities.com/thursday-doors-writing-challenge-2024/

You can link up to Resa here: https://graffitiluxandmurals.com/2024/05/12/art-remembers-us/

This pipe is meant for smokin’

You keep comin’ and beggin’ me to give you

Somethin’ you think you’ll really love

You’ve heard it will give you an euphoric and relaxed feelin’

The same as drink, food, and sex

***

The smoke is intended to make you high

An’ that’s just what you want

But one of these days you’ll learn just how it muddles you right up

***

You want brighter colours and louder sounds

You want to twist your experience of time and now

But it makes you uncoordinated, driving a danger

Makes you uninhibited, a hazard to your health

***

The smoke is intended to make you high

An’ that’s just what you want

But one of these days you’ll learn just how it muddles you right up

***
The younger you use it, the more permanent its effects

You don’t want to believe what I’m atellin’ you

But I swear your focus, learnin’ and memory

will take a sad knock – your brain physically changin,

connections and links slowly but surely eroding

The smoke is intended to make you high

An’ that’s just what you want

But one of these days you’ll learn just how it muddles you right up

Are you ready, kid? Start smokin’

This poem is based on Nancy Sinatra’s rendition of These Boots are Made for Walking which you can listen to here:

Two more poems for this same picture:

Blue Woman (shadorma)

Eye catching

Blue blooded woman

So relaxed

Eyelids closed

Gently puffing on a pipe

Hallucinating

Inspiration (shadorma)

I see her

Through the open door

Skin bathed in

Soft blue tones

Of exotic backstage lights

My inspiration

Another poem inspired by a different picture contributed by Resa.

The Umbrella (tanka poem)

I promise I’ll stay

Until the zepher catches

My blue umbrella

Gently whisking me away

Beyond the smoking chimneys

Dan is hosting a Thursday Doors Writing Challenge. You can find the pictures to inspire your creative writing here: https://nofacilities.com/thursday-doors-writing-challenge-2024/

I selected the picture below, created by the talented Teagan Riordain Geneviene, for my poem entitled Masquerade. You can find Teagan’s latest post here: https://teagansbooks.com/2024/05/09/whos-at-the-thursdaydoors-6-podcasting/

Masquerade, Phantom of Elections Past

Masquerade, peek behind the door

Masquerade, aging faces gathered round a boardroom table

Masquerade, each man trying to make his mark

Masquerade, there is deceit and self-interest on every mind

***

Lots of talk, translates to little action

Money talks, so profit margins always triumph

“Preserving the planet an important consideration”

“Does it make money?” the counter argument

***

Behind the door, the debate continues

Cost of implementation at the forefront of any change

The question is, how to evade the protesters

How to convince them, it was given due consideration

***

Faces expressionless, decision made

Global warming relegated to the backburner

Adverse weather a niggle – an irritation

Earth’s salvation, not worth the price

Of stepping on well-shod corporate toes

***

Masquerade, silken lies trip off tongues

Masquerade, empty promises that will never be fulfilled

Masquerade, plastic grins fixed in place

Masquerade, ensure you are evasive, elusive, and convincing

***

Masquerade, the majority easily won over

Masquerade, flashy cars displace thoughts of food security

Masquerade, beautiful people overwhelm righteousness

Masquerade, distraction techniques easily fool the masses

***
Exercise in voter appeasement complete

Slippery snakes slither behind the door

Another rally, another issue shelved

At this rate, transformation will never come

***

Politicians raise their glasses, clink!

Toasts drunk to further bloat egos

Ordinary people easily manipulated

Oblivious to glib evasions and half truths

***

“We’re all old so it really doesn’t matter

We won’t be here to reap our just deserts”

No consideration, no compassion

They live for today, tomorrow’s baton will be passed on

***

Their successors will be held accountable for past mistakes

Until elections swing around again

Oh, what a sad and desperate masquerade.

You may have recognised this piece as a parody of Masquerade from Phantom of the Opera💚. The original is marvellous so please enjoy.

Painting the Roses Blue

We’re painting the roses blue Note 1

Not with brushes and oils

But with genetic engineering

Rushing in, where angels fear to tread

Transgressing the laws of nature

Haldane’s Rule nonchalantly disregarded Note 2

The consequences of hybridisation ignored

With deliberate, well-thought-out steps

We’ve ‘agriculturised’ grain crops Note 3

Financial gain for few ensuring they’re seedless

While recklessly spreading our own seed

Ensuring endless hungrily waiting mouths

Perfect setting for a ‘Day of the Triffids’ reality show Note 4

Note 1 – We’re painting the roses blue is a twisting of the song from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. Painting the roses red didn’t have a good outcome for these ‘card people’.

Note 2 – Haldane’s rule is important because it talks to the preferential sterility or inviability of hybrids of the heterogametic (XY) sex. The rule states that if one sex is ‘absent, rare or sterile’ in a hybrid population, then that sex will be heterogametic (the sex which has sex chromosomes that differ in morphology – in humans, the heterogametic sex is the male sex where the gamete’s sex chromosomes are X and Y).

Note 3 – I know that agriculturised is not a recognised word – wink! – I made it up.

Note 4 – The Day of the Triffids is a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by John Wyndham. The novel centres around an aggressive species of plant, ‘breed’ by humans, which starts killing people following a natural disaster which leaves most of the world’s population blind. The novel is a pessimistic view of evolution and natural selection, where mankind is no longer adapted to survival, and the upper hand passes to the triffids.

This poem is for Sadje’s What do you see #237 poetry challenge. You can join in here: https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2024/05/06/what-do-you-see-237-may-6-2024/

The Ute Indians in Glenwood Springs, Colorado & The Legend of Chapita

Sarah is a seventeen-year-old girl who has been through a lot in life already. In Delilah, she was abducted at fourteen and sold to the Ute Indians near Telluride, Colorado. Now, in Sarah, she has found acceptance in the tribe and become Hair of Fire, but a rogue Sioux warrior steals her away from her tribe and takes her to a sacred place hidden away deep in the Colorado wilderness.

This fictional place was created from an actual place which exists just outside of Canon City, Colorado, where one can hike back into a box canyon, where the water from above has worn away the rock of the canyon wall over time, making it easy to believe that the native tribes of the region might have held this place sacred. The real place is not in a location where the story would take my character, but I wanted to use it because the legend associated with it was an inspiration for the fight that transpires when Sarah’s mate tries to rescue her, so I moved the setting deep into the wilderness of the Colorado Rockies.

I read about that legend back in 1985 in the local paper, The Canon City Daily Record, and it stuck with me, perhaps because it is a place that I had hiked to frequently with my husband and kids. It is a tragic love story. I could not access that article when I was researching for the book, but I’ll recount it here to the best of my recollection.

The Legend of Chapita

Chapita was a beloved Ute squaw, mated to a Ute chief who adored the ground she walked on. Torn from her home by a ruthless neighboring tribe in a violent raid, she was taking her to the location mentioned above, where her own tribe caught up with them and there was a great battle. As the chaos of battle unfolded around them, the chief of the neighboring tribe took her forcibly to the sacred circle above, holding her captive on a perilous ledge, threatening to kill her if the Ute warriors didn’t stop fighting and leave the canyon. The Ute chief, consumed by love for his mate, faced an impossible choice – to abandon her or sacrifice everything. In a heart-wrenching act of desperation, he chose to end her suffering with a single arrow through her heart. The echoes of their tragic love story reverberated through the canyon as the Utes emerged victorious, but at a devastating cost.

*Note: More recently, I learned this legend couldn’t be true. Called “Queen of the Utes”, Chapita was the mate of Chief Ouray, and she survived him after his death in 1880 and went on to called a peacemaker. as she continued to strive toward peace in his footsteps. But it is still a cool legend and inspiration for my tale.

Glenwood Springs, Colorado

Lost and alone in the wilderness, young Hair of Fire doesn’t know what to do. Her tribe is on their way to their summer hunting grounds and she doesn’t know how to find them. Determined to find the place called Yampah, the young white squaw sets out through the treacherous mountain terrain in search of the place called Yampah, the place of sulfur springs believed to be big medicine by the Ute people, in hopes of being reunited with her people when they return to their winter lodgings in the fall.

That place is Glenwood Springs, Colorado, distinctive with its shimmering sulfur pools filling the air with the pungent sulfur odor and ethereal mists from their steam, creating a mystical atmosphere of the landscape. It is no wonder the Utes attributed healing powers to bubbling sulfur pools, making it a stopover to soak their weary muscles on their long journey.

The infamous Doc Holliday spent his last days there, in hopes that the vapors of the sulfur pools would ease the symptoms of tuberculosis. We know today that the vapors may even have exacerbated his condition.

Today, Glenwood Springs is a tourist destination, where people soak and swim in the Glenwood Springs mineral hot springs pool, breath in the misty air of the Yampah vapor caves, and eat or have a drink at Doc Holliday’s Saloon, and visit the place rumored to be Doc’s final resting place in the Linwood Cemetery. For me, Glenwood Springs is the place where the elements of my story come together to tell the tale of Sarah.

References

“Ute History and the Ute Mountain Tribe”. Colorado History–Colorado Encyclopedia. https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ute-history-and-ute-mountain-ute-tribe

“Ute Indian History”. Glenwood Springs Colorado. https://visitglenwood.com/history/ute-era/

“Chapter V: The Utes in Southwestern Colorado: A Confrontation of Cultures”. Frontier in Transition: A History of Southwestern Colorado. BLM Cultural Resource Center. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/blm/co/10/chap5.htm

Cooney, Tim. 8 July 2023. “Ute removal policy comes to a head in the 1887 ‘Colorow War’”. Aspen Journalism. https://aspenjournalism.org/ute-removal-policy-comes-to-a-head-in-the-1887-colorow-war/

“Vapor Caves Historical Timeline”. Yampah Spa Hot Springs Vapor Caves. https://www.yampahspa.com/history/

About Sarah, Women in the West Adventure Series book 2

Sarah is a young girl trying to make a place for herself in the world.

Sarah is not the young girl stolen away from Delilah anymore. Now she is Hair of Fire, mate of Three Hawks, even as she blossoms into a young woman and tries to make a place for herself among the Ute tribe.

When she is stolen away from the life she’s made, she struggles to survive in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. A streak of stubbornness and determination take this tough, feisty heroine up against wild beasts of the forest and the rugged mountain landscape to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where she receives a less than welcoming reception by some.

Will this young woman find her way back to the Ute tribe, which she’s come to think of as family, or will she discover a place among the colorful inhabitants of the Colorado hot springs and mining town?

Follow along on her journey to learn who she truly is and where she belongs in this rough, and often hostile frontier.

Universal purchase link for Sarah: https://books2read.com/Sarah-Women-in-the-West

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and her Time-Travel Adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

For today’s MTB poetry prompt we are writing Bop Poetry created by Aafa Michael Weaver.

Poetry Style: a 23 line poem which has 3 stanzas ordered thus, with a same one line refrain after each:-

• a six-line stanza – that poses a problem
• an eight-line stanza – that expands upon that problem
• a six-line stanza – that solves, or fails to solve, the problem

Include this same 1 line repeat after each stanza:
‘I found a box and put a room inside’
OR ‘I found a box…[add your own words to complete the line]

You can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2024/05/02/mtb-boxing-clever-to-the-bop/

Well, I wrote a Bop poem, but I changed the repeated line a bit from the prompt.

Opening Pandora’s Box

This poem is another of my chaos nature poems that depict creatures in an unnatural nature setting. For this poem, I imagined a glass aquarium containing tiny tropical fish. The setting is a desert as what is more unnatural than ocean creatures in a man-made desert. Water is a very scarce resource.

A box overflowing with water

Clear and inviting – consumable

A mirage in this barren wasteland

An illusion – a refraction of light

from the sky, by heated air

Wicked distortion of reality

Pandora’s box once opened, cannot be closed

Temperatures soar, the box sweats

Its glass walls glisten with moisture

Flashes of bright colour disturb its clarity

Translating into thrashing tails, frantic fins

Tiny bubbles rise, pockmarking the surface

Heat saturated liquid starts to boil

Desperation leads to innovation – swarming

Colourful darts combine to thwack one side

Pandora’s box once opened, cannot be closed

Under onslaught, the box lurches

Precious fluid cascading over edges

River of water turns to a river of blood

Box tips! Creatures slither out

onto hot sand; they frizzle and fry

While vital liquid slowly drains into dead sand

Pandora’s box once opened, cannot be closed

These are the last of my photographs of doors from my recent trip to Ivory Tree Lodge in the Pilanesberg National Park. You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2024/05/02/back-in-oakland/

These are photographs of some gorgeous hartebeest we saw during our trip. Hartebeest is an African antelope and belongs to its own genus, Alcelaphus. I don’t see them often as most game parks with high numbers of predators don’t keep them. They are expensive and tend to get eaten so they are a poor investment. I was very pleased to see this delightful herd.

W3 prompt

This week’s prompt:

II. Destiny’s prompt guidelines

Compose a free verse poem of no more than 12 lines on the theme of ‘belonging’.

Each of us interprets this word uniquely, and its significance may evolve throughout various stages of our lives. Feel free to delve into your personal reflections and follow where your thoughts take you.

W3 Prompt #105: Wea’ve Written Weekly

I do not belong

I do not belong

In this hot, barren wilderness

Huff! Huff! My blowhole evicts

A spew of grainy sand

Swish! Swish! My tail throws up

Choking clouds of fine particles

I am an alien presence

A stranger in a strange land

This is no place for me

A whale cannot survive

In a manmade desert

I do not belong

This poem is a nature chaos poem about a blue whale stranded in a manmade desert. The idea for this poem came from Frank Prem’s poetry book, White Whale. You can find out more about Frank’s book and read a review of it here: https://frankprem.wordpress.com/2024/04/30/white-whale-review-by-patricia-furstenberg/

d’verse challenge: Quadrille #200: Today, your 44 word poem must contain the word “blaze” or a derivative. This challenge is hosted by Mish and you can read her poem here: https://mishunderstood.wordpress.com/2024/04/29/oasis/

Small bee-eater

On an angled branch of a tree

Unadorned by leaves

Sits a little bee-eater

It’s gorgeous; ablaze with colours

Green, yellow, red, and black

Bzzzz! Its head snaps forward

Sharp beak clicks

A tiny splash of yellow and black

Vanishes down its bright throat

What Amazon says

International Impact Award Winner

Shawnee and Mayhem continue to wreak havoc on the Killzme Corporation—the largest animal trafficking ring in the country—by killing one poacher at a time. The stakes grow increasingly higher when the nefarious group retaliates by putting a bounty on their heads.

Meanwhile, the traffickers set their sights on capturing Orca for profit and pleasure.

With a ticking clock and no place left to hide, Shawnee and Mayhem alternate between undercover surveillance and clandestine battles to save their loved ones and the Innocent Ones from Killzme’s evil plans. Skills are tested. Tenuous alliances are formed. Not everyone will make it out alive.

Set in a world of cultural wonder, environmental threats, and looming danger, this heart-stopping eco-thriller will have you glued to the page from the first sentence to the last.

My review

Merciless Mayhem is a different genre of read for me as I don’t read much in the thriller line. It is this book’s eco based plot line involving a group of characters who are determined to help save wildlife from exploitation by ruthless corporations, that attracted me. It turned out to be a good decision, and I thoroughly enjoyed the fast paced and exciting storyline that revolved around the exploitation of orcas and other sea creatures for financial gain.

The reader is introduced to Shawnee and Mr Mayhem and it is soon apparent that the pair have recently been embroiled in a nasty showdown with a corporation called Killzme which captures and sells endangered animals. Shawnee’s grandfather, Jacy Lee, goes missing, the evidence pointing towards a kidnapping, and the pair know the kidnappers are employees of Killzme, seeking revenge. Mr Mayhem comes up with a conservative plan to rescue Jacy Lee, but excludes Shawnee in an attempt to keep her safe from danger. This does not suit Shawnee, who sets off on her own with one of Mr Mayhem’s crow companions, to rescue her only surviving relative. Shawnee is captured by Killzme and, as a result, becomes involved in new Killzme animal operation. After this fast and captivating start, the story keeps going at a bottleneck pace guaranteed to keep the reader engaged.

Mr Mayhem is a mysterious character. His wife died saving Shawnee at an unspecified earlier date (I have not read the previous books), and Mr Mayhem has not recovered. He is still grieving and has embraced the friendship of Spirit Ghost, a white crow, her son, Poe, and another crow called Odin. These three birds all play supporting character rolls in the story. Mr Mayhem is devoted to saving wildlife from evil corporations like Killzme and has adopted Shawnee as his assistant. He is a ruthless man, who will stop at nothing in pursuit of his objectives. He is happy to kill for his cause.

Shawnee is young and still learning. She doesn’t have particularly good self-control and can be unpredictable and misguided in her behaviours. Devoted to her grandfather and also to wildlife, Shawnee does her best to learn from Mr Mayhem and become a good fighter for the cause. She is headstrong and comes into conflict with Mr Mayhem and his crow friend, Poe, but her heart is in the right place.

I found the information about the Cheyenne traditions, culture and spiritual beliefs very interesting, although the use of two names for each character did require some getting used to. In the beginning, I found it quite confusing.

This is a great story, but the book does contain scenes of attempted sexual assault and graphic violence which some readers may find disturbing.

Merciless Mayhem is available from Amazon US here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CJVW4699

Here is your assignment! Choose one of the artworks contained herein, and write a poem inspired by the artwork. Simple enough, right? There’s just one catch–you may not use the word cat anywhere in your poem, including the title. Other feline terminology is acceptable. Do let us know which work you have chosen in your post.

You can read other poems for this prompt here: https://dversepoets.com/2024/04/23/if-you-dont-like-cats-im-sorry

Louis Wain, What Shall We Do With The Feathers?

“Pushy!”

The shriek electrifies my fur

Alerts the feather ball to danger

Destroys my hunt

The baby bird flaps across the lawn

Leaping straight into the pool

Drat! I don’t like water

Turning, head held high

I stalk away

My human snatches up

the long-poled pool net

Scoops the bundle out of the water

Out of the corner of my eye

I watch her rub it dry

She sets it under a flower in a pot

Bonus!

There is no accounting for her stupidity

She leaves

I watch her walk up the path

I feel the grin

It’s splitting my face

My stomach grumbles

One leap – I’m perfectly balanced

on the lip of the pot

One swat – the quivering baby flies

up and out; landing on the grass

with a slight bounce

Eager for a game

of play with the mouse

or, in this case

play with the bird

I pounce

It’s dead

How disappointing

Baby birds are no fun

It died of shock before I could start

my teasing and tormenting

Pathetic!

“Yowl!”

I call my sister over

We enjoy our snack

“What about these?”

Smudge waves a paw

at the bloody pile of feathers.

“Don’t worry, sister,

I have a plan”

“Pushy!”

The screech pulls me from sleep

What now?

“Maybe she didn’t like our gift”

We look at each other

And grin