PROMPT: Unwind

Daily writing prompt
How do you unwind after a demanding day?

Reading is best for me. It’s low energy and as long as I don’t do it on the phone I’m not subjected to the blue light that they use in phone screens (specifically to keep one from unwinding.) Reading eases me to sleep, especially if I don’t pick writing that’s too stimulating.

“Drinking at Night in Dongpo” by Su Shi [w/ Audio]

Drunk at night in Dongpo.
I sober, then drink once more;
I return at three A.M.
To hear boy's thunderous snores.
I knock but there's no answer --
Lean on my staff and listen
To water, and feel my regrets
As ripples in river glisten.
I could vanish in this boat,
And see out my life afloat.

Note: The Song Dynasty poet Su Shi [苏轼] was also known as Dongpo [東坡] or Zizhan [子瞻.]

Encore [Haiku]

hidden sun
drops out of cloudbank
for an encore.

DAILY PHOTO: Sunset from Gudibande Fort

Fortress [Senryū]

ancient fortress:
tree grows through cracks;
the tree will win.

“One of the ‘Hundred Views of Fuji,’ by Hokusai” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]

     Being thirsty,
I filled a cup with water,
And, behold! -- Fuji-yama lay upon the water,
Like a dropped leaf!

PROMPT: Social Media

Daily writing prompt
How do you use social media?

For endumbening. Whenever I feel I’m being too cerebral, I go to social media and IQ points drip away by the minute.

And, you know, to keep up with family and such.

DAILY PHOTO: Gudibande Fort

“A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass” by Gertrude Stein [w/ Audio]

A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and
nothing strange a single hurt color and an
arrangement in a system to pointing. All
this and not ordinary, not unordered in not
resembling. The difference is spreading.

PROMPT: First Thing

Daily writing prompt
Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

We’re all screwed. Embrace the chaos or head for the hills.

There is a class of problems that brute force solutions, even when they nudge the needle in the desired direction, always end in devastation.

One can’t drive an aircraft carrier like a jet-ski and expect anything other than a bunch of drowned sailors and destroyed planes.

[Guess who’s been reading the news.]