The Lone Pine

Posted on April 27, 2019 by crispina kemp
Lone Pine

All by myself, don’t wanna be: 23 April 2019

I remember this hilltop pine plantation. I watched it grow from knee-high dinky saplings, to a dark and forbidding pathless place, devoid of life. I returned after twenty years away to discover the canopy had risen high, and the light flooded in, dancing around the red-barked trunks, a place that invited footed beasts, myself included. Then, last year, the loggers moved in.

No, no tears. That’s only the crown of the hill. There’s a rich and diverse deciduous woodland all around it.

For the title, Here I Stand, in #2019picoftheweek Challenge

[For details of #2019picoftheweek challenge see MariaAntonia]

 

 

Posted in Photos | Tagged | 14 Comments

CCC24: Knock-knock

Posted on April 25, 2019 by crispina kemp

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #24

KNOCK-KNOCK

Now who is that, come so late to complain of his fate?

KNOCK-KNOCK

Who dares to tap in the dead of night just to plead his miserable plight?

KNOCK-KNOCK

The lord turned over, ignored whoever had come to implore.
For the lord has a heart iron-bound like his door

While the iron-bound oaken door above—to be found at All Saints church, Chedgrave, in Norfolk—dates only to early C19th, it sits in a C12th doorway.

Carved arch to the door at Chedgrave church

Alas, this isn’t as glorious as the doorway at nearbyAshby St Mary which I featured in a post By the Parishioners Doorway in July last year.

Ashby St Mary c;lose up

Ashby St Mary c

 

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , , | 30 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #24

Posted on April 24, 2019 by crispina kemp

CCC24

Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
If you tag it #CCC others should be able to find it by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge | Tagged , | 53 Comments

Beneath the Pier

Posted on April 23, 2019 by crispina kemp

Cromer Pier, at the turn of the tide: 8th May 2018

Down to the shore I went, to find some pressable pieces.
A frond of seaweed that looked like a mat.
a short frayed length of plastic tat,
and a paper bag, with sand pressed in its creases.

Back in the studio with a length of card added
which was purposely multiple random hole splattered,
my imagination now churned and chundered:
what pleasing picture might I conjure?

Items displayed, I began the process:
Cut to size, cow-gum applied and dried,
Ink mixed and spread, card to print-guide.
Beneath the Pier: despite the stress, new off the press,
a seascape print, my graphic’s tutor to impress.

Written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt:
Impress, in 104 words

Posted in Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , | 22 Comments

For England and St George

Posted on April 23, 2019 by crispina kemp

St George (left). England’s Protector, Celebrate today 23rd April

I am a female English born, my birth-certificate tells me so;
Though I will admit a tiny bit (1% of the total genome) in the Levant began long ago.
Doubtless that bit joined the Diaspora, at least for the one lustful night,
For the Jews of Europe contributed another itsy-bitsy 1-part-in-a-100-byte.
And I’m thinking my itsy-bitsy Jewish ‘bit’ to-or-from Russia did emigrate
Which explains that further 1%. Totting it, that makes 3%. Great.

The olive groves of Italy and Greece donated 2% of me
And the passionate paella-eaters of Iberia added a further 3.
Could this 5% be the combined contribution of the Roman invasion?
Yet it’s the bigger chunks are my forefathers most recent donation.

A whole 20% from the Celtic fringe
From Scotland, a redhead nicknamed Ginge.
Add 19% from the Vikings and Danes.
Yet a measly 3 from this land of leafy green lanes!

So whence the rest, the other half of this English lass with an English past?
From Germany, Netherlands, Flanders and France
I’m a typically English lass, made from nights of foreign romance.

A modern take on The True-Born Englishman by Daniel Defoe

Poem for St George

Posted in History, Poems (Some Silly), Thoughts | Tagged , , | 28 Comments

What Pegman Saw: Semjaza’s Descent

Posted on April 22, 2019 by crispina kemp

This wasn’t his first tour of duty; he’d been stationed here twice, though it was his first visit to this southern continent.

He shuddered and quivered: his body’s rebellion. How did the grey techs do it? It wasn’t only the unimaginable distances; it was the way the sleep reversed most signs of aging. Think what that did for his pulling-power; it had to be worth a little sickness.

Beneath him … white, a blanket of cloud … his craft cut through it … it thinned …

Woah! Shit! No!

He’d have hit the brakes hard if his craft had had them.

Land in the high places, the grey techs said, where the natives can’t see your craft.

Yikes! But what were those natives doing, building houses up here?

Semjaza pulled up, a steep bank to his right.

Too late; ill-judged. His craft smashed into the mountain’s granite face.

 

Wordcount: 148

Written for What Pegman Saw: Cusco

Posted in Mostly Micro | Tagged , | 31 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Flauna

Posted on April 21, 2019 by crispina kemp

Flauna: A photo featuring both flora and fauna

A peacock butterfly soaks up the sun amidst a bed of red dead-nettles: 17 April 2019

Bees love the nectar-rich dead-nettles: 23rd March 2019

I like the nectar of the harmless dead-nettles too. Just tweak out a flower and nibble the base of the sweet nectar-holding tube. Yum. Makes a walk doubly pleasing. (A word of advice: don’t try it where farmers have been spraying!)

Posted in Photos | Tagged , , | 45 Comments

No Age Restriction

Posted on April 20, 2019 by crispina kemp

On finding a playground mid-walk: 17 April 2019

So while weary-footed Mum took her ease, my daughter played. Well, there was no sign to give age-restriction and she only just tops a young girl’s height … Playtime

[For details of #2019picoftheweek challenge see MariaAntonia]

Posted in Photos | Tagged | 21 Comments

CCC23: Papa Painted the Walls

Posted on April 18, 2019 by crispina kemp
pink cottage

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #23

Papa painted the walls
He painted them pretty pink.
He went to the slaughter-house.
begged a bucket,
mixed it with lime-wash
and thickly slapped it
Pretty, that pink.

Yeah, but how many died for that bucket of blood?
So? They were foreigners all.

Written for Crimson’s Creative Challenge 23

The traditional cottage in Norfolk and Suffolk was painted in shades of pink, produced by adding ox-blood to lime-wash. And so began my poem.

Until recent years, Norfolk villagers refered to any newcomer not Norfolk-bred as a foreigner. A ‘foreigner’ could live in a village 50 years and still be considered foreign. This attitude probably dates to the Dark Ages, when Norfolk and Suffolk (then considered an homogenous whole) was set apart from the rest of Britain by water (the Fens) and dense woodlands that stretched far to south. In those days, intruders were usually bent on theft or conquest, and therefore were feared and fought. And so arises my final line.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, History, Poems (Some Silly) | Tagged , , | 44 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #23

Posted on April 17, 2019 by crispina kemp
pink cottage

CCC#23

Welcome to my weekly challenge—open to all—just for FUN, FUN, FUN

Here’s how it works:

Every Wednesday I post a photo (this week it’s that one above.)
You respond with something CREATIVE

Here are some suggestions:

  • An answering photo
  • A cartoon
  • A joke
  • A caption
  • An anecdote
  • A short story (flash fiction)
  • A poem
  • A newly minted proverb, adage or saying
  • An essay
  • A song—the lyrics or the performance

You have plenty of scope and only two criteria:

  • Your creative offering is indeed yours
  • Your writing is kept to 150 words or less

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it
If you include Crimson’s Creative Challenge as a heading, WP Search will find it (theory)
If you tag it #CCC others should be able to find it by ‘Searching’ in the WP Reader (fingers crossed)

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN.

Details of the photo are given, if relevant, below this line

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge | Tagged , | 59 Comments