#The Sky Behind the Forest: Selected Poems

[majestativa]

The path I follow is a knife blade.

— LILIANA URSU ⚜️ The Sky Behind the Forest: Selected Poems, transl. by Liliana Ursu with Adam J. Sorkin & Tess Gallagher, (1997)

[syneilesis]

[fic] DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF—

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF—

Love and Deepspace | Caleb (Xia Yizhou) x Main-Character!Reader | G | 1.2k words | ao3 link

This is not reality. This is a dream.

Tags/Warnings: Canon compliant, dreams, experimental writing, poetry, prose poem, Decoherence Myth, Ultimate Weapon X-02 Caleb, cameos of select planets from Novis and Hexal Quadrants, no resolution, Caleb POV, some utterly cringe lines I'm sorry

Notes: Tragically unbeta'd. I don't know what came over me to write this. Some things to remember: the first and last sections the "you" pronoun refers to Caleb. Aquaviel section has MC referred to as "she", while the rest of the planet sections has MC as "you". A little confusing but please bear with it. Also, I used an image for the Aquaviel and Florivena sections because of its formatting. Tumblr does not support complicated text formatting sad. The ao3 version of this fic has the better formatting so please check it out.

Don’t open your eyes yet. Listen first. Do you hear the distant rush of a stream? Or the cheeky twittering of birds above? Do you hear the rustle of grass around you, softly swaying along the caress of cool breeze? Feel it, its touch against your skin. Can you feel it?

Then.

Open your eyes.

Look around.

This is not reality.

This is a dream.

Your dream, and you have those every now and then. But this is different, because you can almost taste the summer on your tongue, its sylvan humidity that teases a past rainshower.

This is a dream, because she’s here with you, smiling openly, unafraid and free, and you know, deep down, that this will never happen in reality.

◘

AQUAVIEL

◘

FLORIVENA

◘

AURORIS

You’re running, and you’re fast. You’re running along the river of light, each of your step rippling across the array of colors like disruptive vibrations that eventually shattered your glass prison.

You’re running, and you’re smiling, arms flared open to feel the wind against your body. You twirl once with an open-mouthed grin, and light fractures into a kaleidoscope of joy—yellow, green, orange, white.

You’re running, and you’re not slowing down. You’re gaining speed. Faster and faster, your feet ablur, your silhouette smudge-dash across a crystal sky. Faster and faster and faster until you grow wings and fly away from here, a trail of rainbow left behind.

◘

VIRIDIANA

i.

here, it is truly endless summer, daisies bending like ballerinas stretching before a performance, wind slightly stinging, sunlight warm on the cheeks. your eyes aglow with afternoon light, a smile dancing at the edges of your mouth. it comes to mind a memory that never was—an old film reel playing stutteringly behind his eyelids, faded vintage, laughter catching at peripheries. your face, turning to him, then away, hand astretch. in that non-memory he didn't take your hand. the sky spanned above you, vast and quiet. you kept saying his name. caleb, caleb, caleb. it was seared into his being: your voice, his name. his hand reached out—

ii.

it means green, green like the forest at extreme distance, the crunch of leaves underneath your boot crisp as you tread nearer. in the field of daisies you float like an apparition come to him in a dream, diffuse in this luminous summer. a cloud passes, blocking the sun, and for a moment you're human, your metal fingers flesh and warm on his palm. “i like this world,” you say, “it's always summer here. it's always perfect.” the sun escapes, and you're an android again. “do you want to stay here,” he asks, and you look at him, diffuse in this luminous summer, and answer, “let's make a home here.”

◘

MIRAXIS

They're dressed differently. Soft fabrics that do not cling to their flesh frames. They look smaller than they are, more human than machine. Something throbs inside Caleb, a dull ache like a prolonged press of a finger on tender bruise.

They're smiling and, when Caleb's gaze slides lower, holding hands, fingers tightly entwined. He chances a glance at you and discovers a peculiar sheen in your eyes. Not unfamiliar, no; it's something he catches a glimpse of in his reflection, too, especially during times he was alone in the lab, pressing his palm against the glass that separated him from you. His mouth works to articulate a question that's clamoring in his mind—but he never gets the opportunity to speak.

“You look like us,” you begin. “But not at the same time.”

You—the mirror-you, the mirage-you—tilt your head at the statement, your markedly long hair spilling along with the movement. Caleb wonders if these illusory figures could understand speech. Behind them an amusement park sprawls across the horizon, open and brightly lit, its music wafting towards them like a tinny jingle from a radio.

A hot feeling twinges within Caleb's chest. This here, before him—this pair that bears their faces cast by this world of illusion—is an implication of a life they could have lived, once upon a time. Far away from the harsh fluorescent lights and the coldness of the laboratory where they spent most of their years—the rebellion and the destruction and the pain of separation and escape. The palpable loneliness. The half-silvered mirror that cleaved them. Only the promise of freedom remains, a stubborn ember glowing under the rubble of decay. A promise that Caleb refuses to let go.

“In another life,” the mirage-Caleb answers. “Perhaps.”

Caleb lifts his head. He takes a step—

◘

When you open your eyes again, reality bleeds into your consciousness and the world sets itself back upright. You're in the cockpit, and when you turn your head she is asleep on the other pilot's seat. It is night, the sky in the distance is speckled with stars. She groans a little and shifts position. Before you know it, your hand cradles her head and adjusts its angle for more comfort.

Tomorrow, you will fly again in pursuit of your ancestral homeland. It will be a long and arduous journey, and there will be challenges, certainly. Lurking in the corners is, after all, your inevitable oblivion. But right now, that does not matter; what matters is her freedom, come hell or high water.

Another groan from her, another shift. You tilt forward, ready to catch her in case, but she settles quietly and sighs, still sleeping. Then: your name.

Caleb, she whispers.

Caleb.

And then a smile. Faint, but it's there.

You exhale deeply, heavy yet relieved, leaning back. She must be dreaming, you think. You hope it is a good dream. You hope it is a happy dream.

Because tomorrow hell will come, and it is inescapable.

But for now, under this peaceful night, this is enough.

It has to be enough.

◘

Endnotes:

The planets mentioned:

Aquaviel, Hexal Quadrant - the planet's lake surface is like a perfect mirror.

Florivena, Hexal Quadrant - the flora are sentient and can move around places, carrying their own soil and water.

Auroris. Novis Quadrant - it has light that looks like a river of rainbow colors.

Viridiana, Novis Quadrant - a perfect summer planet.

Miraxis, Hexal Quadrant - the Mirage Island of lads lol.

[aerialashes0]

Unique and Meaningful Ways to Scatter Ashes in the UK

When it comes to saying a final goodbye to a loved one, scattering ashes offers a meaningful way to honor their memory. In the UK, there are countless options for creating a heartfelt tribute that reflects their life, personality, and the bond you shared. This article explores ashes scattering ideas and helps you plan a dignified farewell.

Why Choose Ashes Scattering? Ashes scattering is a deeply personal way to celebrate a loved one’s life. It allows you to return them to nature, symbolizing the circle of life. Many find comfort in selecting a location that holds special memories, creating a connection that endures. Whether it's a serene countryside, the rolling waves of the sea, or a cherished garden, this choice can make a farewell truly unique.

Memorable Locations for Scattering Ashes in the UK The UK offers an array of stunning landscapes for scattering ashes ideas UK. Each setting provides an opportunity to create a lasting tribute.

By the Coast The vast and open seas symbolize freedom and eternity. Scattering ashes by the coast can be both calming and symbolic. Ensure you follow local guidelines and choose a time when the area is quiet for a reflective moment.

Countryside Retreats The UK’s picturesque countryside provides tranquil settings for scattering ashes. From the rolling hills of the Lake District to the serene fields of the Cotswolds, these locations offer peace and privacy.

Forest or Woodland Forests and woodlands evoke a sense of permanence and life. Scattering ashes in these environments can symbolize returning to the earth, fostering a connection with nature that endures.

Lakes and Rivers Lakes and rivers hold a timeless beauty, making them an ideal place for ashes scattering. The flowing water symbolizes the continuation of life and memories, offering comfort to those left behind.

Creative Ashes Scattering Ideas Beyond traditional locations, there are creative scattering ashes ideas UK that can make the farewell even more special.

Ashes and Wildflowers: Combine ashes with wildflower seeds and scatter them in a garden or meadow. As the flowers bloom, they create a living, vibrant memory. Aerial Scattering: Using aerial services to scatter ashes from the sky is a dramatic and beautiful way to say goodbye. The ashes are released over a chosen location, ensuring a broad and lasting tribute. Water Biodegradable Urns: For those who prefer water-based farewells, eco-friendly urns that dissolve in water are a thoughtful choice. They allow ashes to merge seamlessly with the environment.

Planning a Respectful Tribute When planning an ashes scattering ceremony, it’s important to consider legal and emotional aspects. Always check with local authorities to ensure your chosen location permits ashes scattering. Involve close family and friends in the planning process to create a shared moment of remembrance.

Consider incorporating a small ceremony during the scattering. Reading a poem, sharing memories, or playing a loved one’s favorite song can make the moment even more heartfelt. This collective experience can provide solace and help loved ones find closure.

Final Thoughts Scattering ashes is a deeply personal and meaningful way to honor someone’s life. Whether you choose a scenic UK location or opt for a creative approach, the process allows you to celebrate their memory while creating a connection to the places and things they loved. With so many scattering ashes ideas UK available, you can craft a tribute as unique as the person you’re honoring.

[likablog2]

Exploring the deep meaning of Denny Ja’s selected work: the wind that infiltrated the heart

In the world of Indonesian literature, his name has become an undeniable icon. Denny JA, a prominent writer and culturalist, has inspired and touched the hearts of many people with extraordinary work. At his 47th birthday celebration, Denny JA again presented a work full of meaning and beauty, titled Wind that infiltrated the heart. Through his attractive writing, Denny JA invites the reader to understand and reflect on the deep meaning of his work.    The wind that infiltrates the heart is a collection of short stories that describe the journey of human life in various contexts of life. Denny Ja jelly observes and reflects the social, cultural, and emotional conditions that are around him. Every short story in this essay poem builds a unique and inspiring atmosphere, giving such a deep feeling to the reader.    In the first short story titled Sekuntum Mawar behind the pebbles, Denny Ja invited us to walk across the life of a young girl who had cancer. Through a beautiful writing process, it describes the struggle, strengths, and weaknesses experienced by the main character. This story teaches us about the meaning of life, the importance of respecting every moment we have, and how we should be grateful for what we have.    The next short story, under the sky of Jakarta, takes us to the center of the metropolitan city crowd. In this story, Denny Ja took the perspective of a pedicab driver who had spent most of his life on the streets of Jakarta. He highlighted the simplicity of life and persistence of the main character in dealing with life difficulties. Through this story, Denny Ja teaches us to keep struggling and not giving up in facing life challenges.    Then, in the short story of a paper boat on the beach, Denny Ja built a touching love story. He described the journey of true love between two people with different backgrounds. This story teaches us about the importance of understanding, respecting, and receiving differences in relationships. Denny Ja brilliantly brings the reader to feelings full of empathy and romanticism.    Not only that, Denny Ja also explores more complex tempex in several short stories such as the sun on the hill, traces of the land of life, and the country behind the fog. Through this story, he invites us to reflect on the meaning of life, life goals, and self -existence. Denny Ja is able to present a strong narrative and inspires, making the reader amazed and inspired.    In the wind that infiltrated the heart, Denny Ja also displayed his love for the nature and natural beauty of Indonesia. Through the short story of rain melodies on the edge of the rice fields and the sound of wind in the teak forest, he presents a picture of the coolness and peace of nature. Denny Ja beautifully described the wonders of nature and through this story, he taught us to maintain and respect the nature of the surroundings.    In this latest work, Denny Ja also aroused awareness of various social issues that exist in the community.

Check more: Exploring the deep meaning of the 47th selected work of Denny Ja: The wind that infiltrated the heart

[the-lost-girl-in-the-tardis]

Eater Of Time

Pairing: Eleventh Doctor x Gender Neutral Reader

Song: Babylon- Barns Courtney. Darkness of the Day- Cadalay

Warnings:

An: This is something that I plan on re-writing in the future. Maybe even making it into a short story. But it's an idea i've been toying with for a long time now so please consider this as a first draft of sorts. Any feedback will be appreciated.

Tags: @simplymurdock

Word count:4586

Last part first

"Help me. Remind me why I'm here."

-Kim Addonizio, from 'Death Poem', Wild Nights: New and Selected Poems.

"What are they?" Your voice shakes. The creatures in front of you move and shift along the shadows. Their eyes are hungry. Feeding off of the very being of you.

"Eaters of time." The Doctor spoke from beside you. Quiet. Soft. Almost scared if one could believe it. You glance up at him as he still stares back at the creatures.

"Eaters of time?" You ask. One of them lurches forward and the Doctor places you behind him. His sonic whirs uselessly against them. The darkness they spread swallows the little green light. "Doctor." You whisper. "Doctor please. What are they?"

You have never seen that look on his face before. So broken. Empty. You've seen his joy, his anger, his sorrow. This. It.

"They eat time, Y/n. Specifically the time someone has lived. They eat it. Consume it. Almost immortal because of their hunger." He pulls you away from him and towards the open forest the two of you had trekked god knows how long ago. "I'm sorry." He gives you a hug. Presses a kiss to your brow. "I am so sorry. But I need you to run. Go. To the Tardis. She'll take you home."

"I'm not leaving you!" The creatures surge as your voices rises. "Doctor. I will not leave you." You voice is hoarse. Your body strung tight. Muscles and a base primal fear begging you to do just that. Run.

His face hardens and you catch a glimpse of the Doctor that only those who whisper his name in fear have witnessed. Not at you. No. But that foolish heart of yours. The one that begs to stay. To help.

"I need you to run. Now." He begins to push you away from it all. Away from the baying creatures. The forest seems to grow. To swallow the both of you as he pushes you further and further away. "Go! Before they-"

First part second

"Let me sit here, on the threshold of two worlds. Lost in the eloquence of silence."

-Jalalud'din Rumi (1207-1273) 13th century mystic and poet.

"One of the most beautiful forests in this galaxy." The Doctor whirls as he steps in front of you. Throwing the Tardis doors open with a flourish he grins. "Y/n I give you Tenebris Silva."

Beautiful indeed. The forest had a dark ethereal beauty to it. Shadows clung to the spaces in-between. White fog flowed and clung to the trunks of the trees. Deer like animals peered from around them. Their large eyes catching the light from inside the Tardis before darting off into the darkness.

The trees were such a deep green they matched the eternally night sky. The tops brushing the sky as if they were painting the smattering of stars and clouds high above. They moved and swayed with the breeze. Creaked and groaned as the wood fought against the wind far above.

All you could do was look in aw. Spinning on the spot as your feet dug into soft earth and pine needles. The air was so sweet. So clear and clean. It was if you were taking a breath of air for the first time. You breathed in deeply. As if you were trying to etch this air into your lungs. Commit it to memory so you would never forget.

You could hear the Doctor laugh as you did this. You must have looked a little silly you thought. Spinning about like a child. Still, you didn't stop. Trying to drink in every bit of this place you could. Trying to remember it so that one day you could look back. Such a happy memory it would be.

The Tardis doors closed and for a brief moment you were plunged into darkness. The half moon provided little light. As did the stars far away as they were. You jumped when you felt the Doctors hand land on your shoulder. A flashlight was pressed into your hands as the Doctor turned his own on.

"Come along then. There's a cabin here." The two of you began to walk. The Doctor stopped. Muttered to himself then began walking in the complete opposite direction. You couldn't help the laugh that escaped you. "Oh hush you. Unless you don't want to see the once in a lifetime meteor shower." You really did laugh at this.

"You wouldn't." You nudged his shoulder with yours. He tried to keep that angry look on his face but it soon fell.

"No. Not to you." His free arm wrapped around your shoulder. "But you'll love it. When they fall they light up every color you could ever imagine. It's like a firework show but better." His head dipped low. "And I can guarantee whatever you are imagining isn't even going to compare to what you are about to see." He pulled his head up. "Although that doesn't mean that you lack imagination. Or that you don't have a brilliant mind or." You stopped him by shining your flashlight in his face.

"Stop it you." You turn your head shining your light about the lightly worn path the two of you were taking. It was more of a deer trail really. A thin worn dirt path with a decent amount of brush on either side. "How far is it to this cabin?" You shiver. The planet may have an eternal night but it was no colder than a normal night on Earth.

"Not far." The Doctor responded. "Tired already? The fun hasn't even begun! We're supposed to." He stopped. Shined his light away from the path. You followed yours with it.

"Doctor?" You ask. Peering around him as he plucked something off of the brush next to him. You heard him hum as he brought it in front of him so you could see.

"Fabric. That's strange. No one else is supposed to be here. Or have been here for a long time." The fabric was a dark denim. Similar to the jacket you were wearing now. The Doctor moved it about. Checking it every which way. He brought it to his nose and gave it quite the loud sniff.

You arched a brow and chuckled. "That smell any good?" The Doctor looks to you. Shakes his head. He looked as if he were trying to recall something. He pockets the fabric and pulls you along the path.

"It's nothing. Probably. Maybe." The two of you broke through the brush. The tree line opening up to an open field with the cabin in the center of it. The ground breaks off to a cliff face with mountains jutting above the horizon. "And no. It didn't smell good." The both of you laugh.

The cabin is dark and very very big. It toward at least three stories and spread the length of a football field and then some. There was no electricity either. Candles and lanterns lined the walls. The Doctor flicked his sonic as the two of you entered. The inside of the cabin bathed in soft orange light.

The floor was carpeted. Paintings hung on every available inch of wall. Only broken by cabinets or hanging plants. The air smelled of something familiar to you. One you couldn't place.

You took the time to look around while the Doctor scribbled away in what you assumed to be a log book. Like the kind that hotel owners have. You brushed your fingers along the frame of one of the paintings. Was this place a hotel? You would have to ask the Doctor.

"Alright! Off to our rooms then." The Doctor spun bringing his hands together. The lanterns lit themselves as the two of you climbed a flight of stairs to the next floor.

You couldn't help but get a weird sense of deja'vu as you walked. Something bugging you in the the back of your mind. You shrugged your shoulders as a shiver ran down your back. While the Doctor was unlocking the door to one of your rooms you glanced back down the hallway. The further down it went it seemed like the darkness swallowed the light.

Your ears began to ring as your continued to look about. Something. Something wasn't entirely right. One of the lanterns flicked before going out briefly. Cold washed over you and you couldn't help but feel like you were being watched.

"Y/n?" The Doctor's head popped over your shoulder as he looked down the hallway with you. You jumped and spun on the spot. A hand over your know rapidly beathing heart.

"Jesus Doctor! You scared the life out of me." He looked from down the hallway to you. A curious look on his face. 

"Are you alright?" His hands were on your shoulders. Eyes searching your face as if he could find the answer he was looking for there.

"Ya. I." You stuttered out. "I was just lost in thought in all." At this he gave a soft huff. 

"Must have been some thought." His voice was quiet. "Anyways. Your room!" The door swung open to reveal a lavish room. A large canopied bed with sheer, wine red curtains. A dark chestnut chest sat at the end of it. As you walked through the door you saw a plush couch that matched the color of the bed. In the center of the room was a small table with chairs at either side.

"This looks like something my parents would love to be in." You said. You turned. Brushing your hand along the fabric of the couch. Then again. That smell. Something so familiar you could almost place it. It was stronger here. "That being said. It's beautiful Doctor." The Time Lord in question  was leaning against the door frame. A soft smile on his lips. "Thank you for taking me here." You genuinely meant it. Everything this man has shown you. You wish you had more than just words you could say. 

"No need for thanks y/n." He pushed himself away from the doorframe. "Cards?" He pulls a deck from his pocket. How deep those things are you'll never know. You've seen him pull out things that range from childrens toys to tools, and the oddball snack.

"You always win though." You grumbled. "It's not fair." Despite your protests you sat down at the table. The Doctor had already been dealing out the cards.

"Ace of spades?" You asked with a yawn. The cards blurred in your hand. It could have been ace of spades. It could have been the queen of hearts. 

"Go fish." Another yawn. You pull out a card from the half hazard pile on the table. 

"Doctor?" You ask. Shuffling the cards around in your hand. You had well over ten cards. Maybe more. The Doctor hummed in response. "It's late." You laid the cards face down on the table.

The Doctor turned his wrist. Checking the time. "That it is." He shuffled his cards. Picked his head up.  "Oh." His mouth rested in a small o. Slightly looking away. "Oh! You need to sleep!" He laid his own cards down. Standing up as he took in your tired state. Head rested on your hand. Eyes struggling to stay open. Slightly nodding as you tried to stay within the waking world. "Oh you need to get to bed." 

You were laughing as the Doctor lifted you to your feet. "Come on to bed with you." You through your jacket on the table. "Humans. Really I forget sometimes." You doubted that. The poor man was apologizing left and right as you unlaced your boots. Tossing them to the left of you somewhere. 

"Doctor its fine." You were sat on the edge of the bed. You almost sunk into it the mattress was so soft. "Really." Instead of listening he was rattling off everything that could happen with sleep deprivation and "Really. It's ridiculous how much you lot need to sleep. Oh what am I going to do." You tuned him out after a bit.  Instead choosing to lay back onto the bed.

There. Again. That familiar scent. Sort of woodsy. It was clean and bright with something spiced at the end. What was it? You turned your head.

Oh. Your bag.

When did you bring that?

Sure enough there was your backpack. The poor thing was worn in a lot of places but you used it every time you stayed the night somewhere. It was essentials mostly. Toiletries. Extra clothes. Phone charger and camera. And your perfume.

You sat up abruptly. The Doctor stopped his rambling then. He was watching you as you pulled the bag into your lap. You were digging around when he came next to you. There. The bottle.  

You pulled your perfume out of the bag and looked at the bottle. It was something you used almost all the time. This one was brand new though.

The bottle was halfway empty. Did you put the wrong one in?

"When did I bring this?" You whispered to yourself. Head tilting as you tried to remember when you had packed the bag let alone brought it with you. The Doctor said nothing as you placed the bottle back inside the bag. There was something in the air between the two of you. Something you were both forgetting. Something important.  

"Time for bed. Ya?" You spoke after a moment. You looked up at the Doctor. The two of you staring at one another for a moment. Something unspoken passing between the both of you. 

"Sleep well. I'm right across the hall." The Doctor told you. You didn't move even after he had left the room. The smell of chocolate and patchouli lingering in the room when he did. It fades after a few minutes. 

You're sat at the edge of the bed. The pajama's you planned to change into sitting in your lap. There was just something you were unable to shake. How was it you were able to smell your perfume when you've never been here before? And your bag. How was it here? You didn't remember grabbing it when you left the Tardis.

And that scrap of fabric. The one the Doctor had tucked away.  " No one else is supposed to be here. Or have been here for a long time." The Doctors words echo in your thoughts. Then how was it here? Just how long has this planet been alone for? 

A once in a lifetime experience. Then how come there wasn't more people? This place could house hundreds upon hundreds of people and their families. 

You change into sweats and a long sleeve t shirt.  Laying your old clothes on the table you had been playing cards on just moments ago. Your jacket. You couldn't help but stare. Something you wore quite often. An unassuming piece of fabric you had never really given a second thought to before. 

You shook your head and laughed at yourself. You were being silly. Thinking to deeply into something that wasn't event there. Drawing the covers back you crawl into bed. The Sheets were smooth and silky. Soft against you as you sunk down into the mattress.

Sleep came quickly and easily. Your body and mind to tired to be able to do much else. 

Second part Third

"I am fragile and Unholy. Open. Ravage. Eat."

-Tanaka Mhishi, Literary sexts II ( Via Ghost tears)

Something was horribly wrong.  What it was he didn't know. And oh how he hates not knowing. Especially  when the lives of one of his companions were on the line.

There were clues here. Blaringly obvious clues that go together. He just couldn't figure out how. There, in the woods. A scrap of fabric torn from y/n's jacket. It was clearly theirs. The scent of their perfume still clung to it. And it was here to, in the hotel. It floated in the air so thickly he could almost taste it.  What was normally a scent he found comforting and refreshing turned his stomach.

Why. Just why would they do that? Why would they do something that made it so clear that they were here before? 

Then there was the ledger. Names upon names from hours ago. The planet had a day night cycle that would last one earth week before plunging back into the day. They're names were at the top. So why was it dark? 

The Doctor found himself leaving his room. Stopping momentarily in front of y/n's door. His ear pressed against the wood. He could hear their breathing. The soft speaking they always did. Although they didn't admit it. Safe. They should be safe for now.

He opened one door. Then another. And another. 

Each one was filled to the brim of life. A lack of people but clearly it had been lived in not to long ago.

The last door he checked he opened so harshly it smacked against the walls. The door bouncing back with a mock laughter as he entered. His sonic went wild as he scanned the room. His twin hearts began their panicked beating before his own thoughts could catch up.

They needed to leave. And now.

 Chronophage.  Chronophage . Chronophage . Chronophage .

The words were painted on every single wall and every available surface there was.  The Doctor brushed his fingers against the paint. It was tacky. Not quiet dried yet. 

"Time eater." His body rushed with cold. "Time eater." He spoke again.

That 's why. Oh they were most defiantly here before. It could have been days. Weeks. Months.  The Doctor turned on heel. Running back down the length of the hallway.  There was no knowing on how long it has been. But he knew that y/n had less time to give. They could gorge themselves on the lives he's lived. Let them take it all.

But them? Oh gods not them.

He was rounding the corner when he heard it. Palm pressed against the wall as he steadied himself. Paintings fell. Crashed to the floor. 

His body when ridged when a shrill scream echoed down the hall. 

If he could he would have ran faster. Willed his body to do so. Praying with the names he knew that they would be ok.

Crashing and banging. 

"Doctor!"

He has never heard them scream like that.

.

Something had woken you from your sleep. It wasn't that uncommon for you to wake multiple times when in a new place. You body to on edge to truly fall into a deep sleep. Every strange noise would have you tossing and turning. 

So the next time you woke you took  a moment to just lay there. Eyes closed as you listened to the sounds around you. There was the softness of your breathing. The creaking of the hotel settling. Somewhere outside and animal bayed. Calling out to the moon that filtered light through the curtains canopying your bed.

You were warm and comfortable. Cradled by the thick blankets and pillows surrounding you. You breathed in deeply. Sighed. Another deep breath and.

What was that?

Fabric rustled in front of you. The sound of skin gliding across silken material hit your ears next. You stilled. Cold washing over you as your began to realize that you were not alone.  The bed dipped next to you. The wood creaking and groaning from the added weight.

Your breathing stuttered. Everything stilled. 

For a moment you tried to convince yourself that it was the Doctor. That he was just playing a cruel joke on you. But you couldn't find the smell of chocolate and patchouli. A scent you found comforting. Safe.

No. No. No.

Something hovered above your cheek. Something so cold you could feel it before it even touched you.

Your body wound itself tightly. Your heart pounding a rhythm in your chest. Your fist balled beneath your pillow. 

And with a yell you struck. Cried out. 

The creature screamed as it scrambled backwards. Taking the curtains and the blankets with it. 

Move. You needed to move.

You were glued to the spot. Sitting near the edge of the bed but to terrified to move. You tried to. Tried to at least yell. To cry out for the Doctor.

Everything stilled. 

The fabric on the floor moved. Going up like a joked attempt of a sheet ghost before falling away from the figure it was draped on.

It was tall and skinny. Skin going from hues of grey to a deep rich black. That black seemed to swallow it. To consume the room. You could almost feel it. It was so close to being tangible that you could feel pinpricks hit your skin. It was painful. Almost fire like.

It's head tilted. Golden eyes widening when it saw you move. Just a twitch of your leg.

It leaned forward.

Move.

It's hand brushed the now bare mattress.

Move.

The darkness followed with it. Flowed over the white of the mattress.

MOVE!

And you did. Falling backwards onto the floor before scrambling to your feet. The creature stood to move with you but got caught on the railings for the curtains. You took this brief moment to grab your boots before darting to the door.

A shrill scream left you lips when you heard it growl and snarl. It toppled the bed in its anger. The tables and chairs being thrown to the side as you crossed the threshold of the door.

"Doctor!" A sob tore through your throat. Nothing but desperation left your lips.

'"Y/N!" The Doctor caught you in his arms. Held you closely as your body shook. "We have to go. We need to go. Now." The both of you turned towards what was once your room. The creature inside was yelling. Crying. Upset that you had left.

Quickly you pulled your boots on. Allowing the Doctor to take you hand the two of you ran from the hotel. Down the halls. All but flying down the stairs and towards the large double doors the two of you had crossed not long ago.

Third part Last

"If there is a light then I am going to swallow it. If there is a god then i'm going to make him cry."

-s.osborn, from "blasphemies as the 5th street station, " published in The Rising Phoenix review (vialifeinpoetry) 

The forest was dark. Deep and heavy as it swallowed the both of you. The creatures would not leave you be. They followed every step you took. Swallowed every sound you made. The two of  you were prey in the worst way possible. A horrid game of cat and mouse as they turned you around again and again.

The Doctor had explained the best he could. These paradoxil creatures. That the two of you had lived this moment more than once. They would send their victims back again and again with a little less of themselves each time. 

They consume the life you have lived and use it for themselves. They take and take and take until they are almost immortalized.  Their own veritable fountain of youth.

Their victims would becomes less of themselves each time. Losing pivotable live moments that shaped them into who the had become. Entire lifetimes lost until they became a husk. Unable to do anything  more that live on a robotic life.  And many did not last long afterwards.

You could see the path that others took. Deep footsteps pressed into soft dirt. They had dropped things ranging from clothes and jewelry. Childrens toys and the odd suitcase here and there.

"We helped them." The Doctor told you. Spinning in circles as he tried to use his sonic to find the Tardis. The poor girl was calling out to him. A victim in this just as much as you were.  "There." The Doctor stilled. The light of the sonic bright and green. It sung out a high pitched tune as you stumbled up next to the Doctor. 

You were tired and worn. Mentally exhausted and hurt from head to toe. Both of you were  in a sorry state. The Doctor had lost his dress coat. His bowtie  had been torn away and the white of his shirt was slowly being stained a muddied brown. You were no better. Holes in your shirt from where the brush tore it. There was mud stained from hip to ankle from when you tripped. 

There again. There they were. Slinking around the trees. Calling out to you. Hungry. They were so hungry.

You were pulled away from them. The Doctors hand was on your upper arm. His face was alight with worry. "Run." The word was whispered. Desperate as he spoke to you.

Run you did. Cut off time and time again the closer you got to the Tardis. They were not going to let you go. 

"Why won't they let us go." It was a broken sob that left your lips. To worn and tired to truly care about the way you sounded. You wanted to go back to the Tardis. To find comfort in her and the Doctor as the two of you tried to put this all behind you.

"Me. They won't let me." The Doctor drew you in close. "I am sorry. So so sorry." He hid you away from the world for just a moment. He could see the Tardis in the distance. She called out to him. Begged him to come back. To bring the two of you back to her where she could get the both of you to safety. To anywhere but here. 

He could feel you tremble and shake. The soft push you gave as you tried to get even closer to him. "No." He felt you mutter into his neck. "No. I know what you mean by that." You pulled away. "I will not let you sacrifice yourself. We leave. Together or not at all."

The Doctor, for the first time, cursed you humanity. Cursed the fact that you cared so deeply.  He pressed his head to yours. His hand curling around the back of your neck. You could hear him speaking. Muttering in a language that the Tardis refused to translate. Even now. In this moment. 

The creatures. The Chronophage. You could hear them. Speaking. Whispering. Calling out to you. Begging you to help them. That they were starving. Near death. How could you be so selfish just feed them.

For a brief moment you see it. The meteor shower the Doctor had brought you to see. The  reason why you were even here. It seemed the shower itself were in your eyes. It took your breath away as the air around you lit up in color. 

The Doctor had pulled away. Watched you as you watched the sky. Something you would never have seen in your lifetime if it had not been for him. He has seen this before. Time and time again he would come back. He was grateful that in this moment, despite the horror around him, he got to see it though you. Such a soft look on your face as you forgot about the beasts around you. 

Chronophage. Time eaters. Eater of time. There is only a few names that made the Doctor fear for his life. 

 It would be a miracle if you two made it out of here. Already the both of you had lost pieces of yourself that would never return. Moments in time that you will never get back. The simplest things shaping you into who you were. And not for the first time the Doctor mourns your loss.

There. The Tardis. Just feet away. 

Already he was losing you. The creatures were feasting even as the two of you ran. The Tardis had thrown her doors open. Calling out as loud as she was able. Soft yellow light bathing the ground in front of her. 

Not again. She would not lose the both of you again. 

[quantumlocked310]

In the Bed of Love - Chapter 3

We’re back in this little Greek Mythologically inspired world, and this time we switch POVs between our two protagonists. It’s a short one, and the reveal of Hvitty’s poetry (which is real Greek poetry and linked in the notes for this chapter and the Masterlist notes). Enjoy!

Summary: Our intrepid Hero Hvitserk, burdened with glorious purpose to prove his godhood, takes the epic journey to slaughter the Gorgons, but stumbles in love along the way.

Warnings (so far): greek mythology inaccuracies, slow burn, an only child trying to write sibling relationships

Ratings + Word Count: [General - 1,063w]

Series Masterlist (contains extra notes about Greek words and some of the Gods mentioned) 

Super relevant notes: 

Quoted Poem: Paulos Silentiarius - The Greek Anthology V. 274

++++++++++++

Hvitserk had watched her find the errant paper. In the morning light he had witnessed her fury and suspicion, and decided to spend his day as far from the hill as he dared to reconsider his plan. As the sun rose in the sky his ideas formed and he decided on his path. He would leave his trinkets and poems by the goose and hope his feelings would emerge from the page and endear his goddess to him.

It wasn’t Hvitserk’s favored way of flirting, he much preferred being able to touch his partner, and lean close so he could whisper to them in his sultry voice. But his sultry voice on paper would have to do for now. He needed the object of his affections to know his true feelings.

Going through his pack, Hvitserk selected the writing for his next day, and sat down to write more about his love. His muses were screaming to detail the curve of Y/N’s shoulder in the morning sunlight. The way her flowing robe wound around her voluptuous body, and gave him just a glimpse of a sumptuous thigh when she sat on the stump.

The shadows around him get longer, and Hvitserk realizes he has likely missed training for the day. Reluctantly he stalks toward the statue garden and watches as the three sisters disappear into the Oikos. Our hero does not move from his spot at the edge of the forest, and he waits for the light to disappear. In the mysterious twilight he creeps toward the goose statue, and leaves his chosen offering for his goddess monster.

His sleeping spot for the night is far from the first one, knowing he will have to be careful with where he leaves any trace of his presence. Hvitserk creeps around the forest and does not create a fire this night, opting to eat from his gathered nuts and dried meats out of his pack. Sated and tired, our hero curls up and sleeps until dawn.

Dawn rises, and the early morning light wakes the young hero, who emerges from his slumber eager to see how his love will react to the missive he chose.

He stays crouched behind the low shrubbery and tree trunks to watch her, and while he doesn’t catch her finding it, she is reading his words. Hvitserk watches, his heart in his throat, as the Gorgon mouths along with the words. He wishes he could observe her face closely, and see if she is blushing, or if her eyes are shining with happiness.

The words he chose were short. One of his first musings on that day by the river. His Gorgon stares at the paper and mouths the words over and over. Hvitserk already knows them by heart.

My image is stamped on your molten heart

Your beauty is engraved on my soul

He had written her name on the outside this time. So she would know it is a gift for her. And he watches her fold the paper over and run gentle fingers over the dried ink.

His heart gallops at the reverent gesture and his body lurches forward without his permission. Hvitserk’s very soul cries out to leap to his goddess and scream that he is here to heap his affection upon her. But he sees a movement out of the corner of his eye. Up at the Oikos Marmor is walking slowly down the hill toward his love.

As he watches her sister get closer, Hvitserk witnesses the Gorgon wipe her face in an unmistakable gesture that she had been crying. What he does not know is the conflict within his goddess, and how she yearns for what her secret admirer could give her, but is terrified all the same.

+++

You hear armor gently clinking behind you and wipe away the few tears that have fallen. The fluttery feeling in your chest from yesterday expanded and filled your body. These strange feelings of elation, suspicion, fear, and hope were overwhelming and spilled out of you in the form of a few hot, salty tears.

Your sister comes up next to you, pressing her shoulder close to yours. It is her gesture of strength as Marmor has never been one for overt displays of emotion. She speaks quietly and patiently as she stares out into the forest that marks the edge of your territory, sharp eyes looking for any errant movement.

“It’s a good plan. Lull this braggart into a sense of security and then we pounce. This idiot does not know what we are truly made of yet.”

“I… I’m not sure I want to any longer.”

“What do you mean, sister? They cannot be allowed to taunt you with crude drawings. We will find them and take revenge.”

You let out a sharp laugh, before handing her this morning’s missive. “Mar, I do not think they meant it to mock me. Not anymore. Look. I think they meant it to be… flattering.”

She looks down at the poem in her hands and lets out a soft “Oh.” Then her face takes on a sinister grin.

“Y/N has a secret admirer!” Marmor pokes you in the shoulder as she says it in a teasing tone, and a slow smile forms across your face as you roll your eyes.

“I still have to be careful. We don’t know who they are or what they want.”

“I know what they want,” she says slyly while wiggling her eyebrows at you.

“Okay. What they really want. No one has ever… desired my company.”

“Of course they have! They’ve just never told you about it.”

“Uh huh.” You murmur sullenly at the thought of your lack of suitors and sensual experiences.

“Come on, sister. We will play this as we planned. See what this mysterious admirer leaves, and wait for them to tip their hand. Stenny and I will be behind you the whole time.” She gently bumps your shoulder with hers before promising, “I’d sooner turn this upstart into marble before letting them hurt you.”

“Thanks, Mar.”

“Come inside. I think Sten was making sweet cakes.”

She hands you the paper, and you follow her inside. The fluttering in your chest has gone back down to an annoying size, and you’re left feeling bereft and hoping against all odds that your admirer is not a fake.

++++++++++++

If you want to read other stuff I write here’s my masterlist

Taglist: @deans-ch-ch-cherrypie​​ @punkrocknpearls​​ @solinarimoon​​ @artemiseamoon​​ @alexhandersen-marcoilsoe-fandom​​ @southernbe​​ @vikingstrash​​ @ritual-unions-gotme​​ @pomegranates-and-blood​​ @mrsalwayswrite​ @jadelynlace​

[some-sn-transcripts]

Spirit of Anuwa - Extra

Profile

Zoey | 18 years old | Female

Height 170 | DoB 7/25

Hired to head to Wasteland, where she has witnessed the power of faith and nature.

About Design

Zoey carefully draws down the outline of Vanta Tribe’s clothes under the faint light. Every piece of ornament and fabric here has its own curvature and texture, containing the smell of plants and mountains. The raw power of nature is like a magical magnet, as if it can contain everything, while gently hiding itself from outsiders’ eyes.

Howl of Anuwa

The object of mythical faith is emerging in the endless night sky. Some are waiting, some are recording, and some are praising. But no trace is left in Zoey’s heart. It isn’t until the voice of Anuwa breaks the chaos to greet the moon, that Zoey finally has a glance of the mythical being and accepts its existence.

Flowers of Light and Moon

The flowers blooming at the girl's feet glow in the darkness. The white and slender petals have outlined the earth’s veins in detail. Just like a poem on the mountains written in the nature’s language. Where are they from? The answer cannot be found from knowledge of the past, and perhaps not from the future either.

Exotic Girl

(Not Unlocked - lv.45)

Modern Technology

(Not Unlocked - lv.60)

Crystal Ball for Divination

“Would you like a crystal ball for divination? It’s the Wasteland’s specialty!” Hearing the call, Zoey stops at a stall. Her fingertips move across the countless delicate ornaments, and stop at a humble crystal ball at the corner. The white petals inside the ball look just like those in the mountain that day, plain yet elegant, giving away a faint fluorescence. Of course, the crystal ball cannot predict the future, but it does remind Zoey of the correct direction.

Farewell to Wasteland

(Not Unlocked - star 3-0)

-

Home Screen Lines

“The unique fragrance in the air is from the local plants. When the moon is full, you can hear the howling of wild animals.”

“I can’t acquire the power I want from here. I’m all that I can rely on.”

“The wind and sand will wipe your footsteps. Going forward is the only way to survive.”

“Victory belongs solely to me, but “unexpected events” only makes the game more interesting.”

-

Audio

Summon: “Perhaps, you have also seen miracles?”

Meet: “You can see the fortune-tellers everywhere in Vanta. Some of them might not be very convincing, but many people believe them anyway.”

Select: “Amazing miracles may be born out of the purest faith.”

Awakened: (Not Unlocked)

-

Skill Details

The Call of Flowers - The blooming flowers on the young girl’s toes are the calling from Jabarra.

Moon Night Whistling - Anuwa’s howl cuts through the sky, exposing the cold moonlight behind the clouds.

Tribal Festival - The young girl stands before the altar, listening to nature’s ancient whispers in the moonlight.

(Not Unlocked - TBA - star 3-0)

-

Clothing Set Pieces

Forest Echo (headwear) – A pure austere black is outlined with emerald and gold patterns for a sense of mysterious aloofness.

Realm Ritual (hair) – Dark chestnut hair weaved into thin braids. The golden jewels glisten in the sunlight.

Moonlight Meditation (earrings) – Earrings are fashioned after a delicate Anuwa statue, reminding one of the mysterious howls in the night forest.

Nightlight Focus (necklace) – An exotic chain seems to pull glistening moonlight down to the ancient Vanta lands.

Spirit of Anuwa (dress) – The girl of the Divine Mountain wanders the mountains, dressed in pink sash and adorned with ancient Vantan totems.

Sola Vines (bracelet) – A light bracelet of green and gold made from Sola vines unique to Vanta.

Prophecy Scepter (handheld) – An ancient Vanta scepter passed down for generations, made of undying holy wood and pearls fashioned from moonlight.

Hidden Lands (hosiery) – Dark green plaid diamonds on white socks. The inner-facing area is adorned with rustic gold patterns.

Shadow Totem (shoes) – Vanta-style shoes that are popular with tourists. The surface has black Anuwa patterned with dark gold.

[majestativa]

They are like priestesses […] prayerful, unconquerable.

— LILIANA URSU ⚜️ The Sky Behind the Forest: Selected Poems, for Cella Delavrancea and Gabriela Melinescu, transl. by Liliana Ursu with Adam J. Sorkin & Tess Gallagher, (1997)

[theresabookforthat]

Friday Reads: Spring!

Current conditions to the contrary, Spring sprang this week! Or so our calendars tell us. We are readers, we are patient: It won’t be long before snow and rain yield to sun and blooms. To cultivate that feeling of renewal this weekend (one likely spent indoors), we invite you to enjoy the following books for children and adults, all under the auspices of “Spring”!

SPRING GARDEN by Tomoka Shibasaki

Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, part of our Japanese novella series, showcasing the best contemporary Japanese writing.

Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door.

 THE GREAT SPRING: WRITING, ZEN, AND THIS ZIGZAG LIFE by Natalie Goldberg

From beloved writing teacher and author of the best-selling Writing Down the Bones: a treasury of personal stories reflecting a life filled with journeys—inner and outer—zigzagging around the world and home again.

 SPRINGING: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Marie Ponsot

From the award-winning poet of The Bird Catcher, this life-spanning volume offers the delight of both discovery and re-discovery, as Ponsot tends the unruly garden of her mind with her customary care and passion. The book opens with a group of new poems, including “What Would You Like to Be When You Grow Up?”—a question that has kept Ponsot’s work vital for more than five decades.

 THE LANGUAGE OF SPRING: POEMS FOR THE SEASON OF RENEWAL Selected by Robert Atwan; Introduction by Maxine Kumin

The Language of Spring collects some thirty of the most evocative English-language poems on the experience of spring. The poems range from the traditional and formal (Gerard Manley Hopkins’s "Spring" and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s "English Sparrows") to the contemporary, experimental, and diverse (Henry Reed"s "Naming of Parts," Marie Ponsot"s "Mauve," and William Carlos Williams"s "The Widow"s Lament in Springtime"). Each poem beautifully illuminates another small spot of time in the enthralling season of renewal.

 SPRING SNOW: THE SEA OF FERTILITY, 1 by Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima’s Spring Snow is the first novel in his masterful tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Here we meet Shigekuni Honda, who narrates this epic tale of what he believes are the successive reincarnations of his friend, Kiyoaki Matsugae.

 THE FIRES OF SPRING: A NOVEL by James A. Michener

An intimate early novel from James A. Michener, now remembered as the beloved master of the historical epic, The Fires of Spring unfolds with the bittersweet drama of a boy’s perilous journey into manhood. Featuring autobiographical touches from Michener’s own life story, The Fires of Spring is more than a novel: It’s a rich slice of American life, brimming with wisdom, longing, and compassion.

 COMING IN MAY!

SPRING by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Spring follows a father and his newborn daughter through one day in April, from sunrise to sunset. A day filled with everyday routine, the beginnings of life and its light, but also its deep struggles and its darkness. Third in Knausgaard’s seasonal quartet, Spring is a deeply moving novel about family, our everyday lives, our joys and our struggles, beautifully illustrated by Anna Bjerger.

 FOR YOUNGER READERS

 WAITING FOR SPRING 1 by Anashin

Mizuki is a shy girl who’s about to enter high school, and vows to open herself up to new friendships. Of course, the four stars of the boys’ basketball team weren’t exactly the friends she had in mind! Yet, when they drop by the café where she works, the five quickly hit it off. Soon she’s been accidentally thrust into the spotlight, targeted by jealous girls. And will she expand her mission to include…love?

 THE PENDERWICKS IN SPRING by Jeanne Birdsall

Springtime is finally arriving on Gardam Street, and there are surprises in store for each member of the family. Some surprises are just wonderful, like neighbor Nick Geiger coming home from war. And some are ridiculous, like Batty’s new dog-walking business. Batty is saving up her dog-walking money for an extra-special surprise for her family, which she plans to present on her upcoming birthday. But when some unwelcome surprises make themselves known, the best-laid plans fall apart.

 CHERRY BLOSSOMS SAY SPRING by Jill Esbaum (National Geographic Kids)

Cherry Blossoms Say Spring looks at the life cycle of a cherry tree, the history behind the gift of the Japanese cherry trees to our nation's capital, and the association of cherry trees and spring. Vibrant scenes from the Cherry Blossom Festival and the flood of visitors to the Tidal Basin are balanced with shots of the natural beauty of these trees.

 SPRING BLOSSOMS by Carole Gerber, illustrated by Leslie Evans

During a stroll through the forest, two children come across the small and white flowers on a crab apple tree, the rich, red buds on a red maple, and many more. Along the way, readers learn that some trees have both male and female flowers—each with a distinctive appearance. Told in lyrical rhymes with beautiful linoleum-cut illustrations, Spring Blossoms offers a unique blend of science, poetry, and art studies.

  For even more on books about the season visit: SPRING READING

[alishbakhanus]

The most beautiful banquet halls for a wedding, or a place for a celebration.

Pakistan is a huge city with many entertainment options. So, to the question: “Where in Pakistan to celebrate a birthday?” There is a large number of a variety of answers for every taste and budget.

1.     Restaurant or café

This is perhaps the most popular place to celebrate a birthday. Moreover, many organizations offer good discounts for birthday owners and even offer additional services – for example, a birthday cake as a gift.

There are a lot of restaurants in Pakistan:

•        Classic restaurants with a great menu,

•        A cafe with live music where you can eat and dance,

•        Restaurant “In the Dark”, where guests eat in complete darkness, and guess dishes only to taste,

•        A café for art lovers with classical music evenings and themed events,

•        Club bus “Shears”, the interior of which is a transformer with sliding slides, buffet area, karaoke, ballroom,

•        – “Expedition”, a true northern corner in the center of Pakistan: this is a restaurant, a bathhouse, a taiga with a mountain river.

Thus, you can always find an option that is acceptable to you and your friends.

As a budget option, lofts are gaining popularity in Pakistan – fairly spacious rooms where you can order a banquet, dance and have fun by paying a certain fixed amount (from 5 to 15 thousand rp).

2.     Nightclub

This option is suitable for lovers of dance and night fun. Most Pakistan clubs also offer discounts on birthday parties, and DJs congratulate the heroes of the occasion from the stage.

If you want privacy and an intimate atmosphere, but don’t mind clubbing, there are quiet lounge areas. Many nightclubs offer karaoke and hookah.

Your birthday falls in winter, and summer is still far away, but do you want a lot of warmth and the sea? Why not celebrate your birthday in the water park?

It will be fun for both adults and children, and the active pastime will help you and your guests to be healthy and fit. A great alternative for festive holidays! And you can always drink light cocktails for the health of the birthday person in the specially designated area of the water park.

If you like extreme rest and activity and don’t want to give up your preferences – celebrate your birthday in paintball. In both Pakistan and the Pakistan region there is a wide variety of paintball clubs where you can relax with a large company for little money. An excellent option would also be the training ground for one of the Pakistan Paintball Front clubs.

You will be under the constant supervision of professional trainers, so even if there are newcomers in the company, you do not need to worry about their safety in the midst of “hostilities”.

At the end of the day, all the people of your company will be able to relax with pleasure by the fire or on the gazebos, enjoying delicious barbecues and snacks.

3.     Birthday on board

If your birthday falls in the summer, then charter a boat sailing along the Moskva River. Of course, such a celebration cannot be called a budget event, but this option is ideal for celebrating special dates.

You can order a buffet table in the ship’s kitchen or by using the services of a catering company. An evening disco on the open deck will complete the holiday.

You can be sure that an evening on a boat surrounded by the lights of Pakistan will be an unforgettable experience for you and your guests.

4.     Kebabs in Pakistan Forest Gardens

For summer birthday owners, there is another option for a place where you can celebrate a birthday – budget and tasteful. Have a picnic in one of the BBQ! You can choose forest gardens with free barbecue areas, or rent a barbecue area or gazebo for a small fee.

As you can see, there are many opportunities to celebrate a birthday in Pakistan. It is enough to decide in advance what to expect from your celebration, and of course, take into account the opinions of the guests. Agree, it would be wrong to go to barbecues with vegetarians or invite guests with sea sickness to a boat trip.

Great bread and offerings – you know, that’s all people need. That is why we are so fond of different festivals, as there are many delicacies on the table, and the festivities for which different numbers are specially prepared, whether it is poems performed by a touching girl or a lavish fire show.

In order for any celebration to pass without unpleasant and annoying surprises, it is better to think about whether you can deal with it yourself, or it would be better to contact a specific company that provides high-quality services for the comprehensive preparation of festive events … If you choose the option to solve all the problems yourself, then write down all Something in the beginning, point by point, everything you might need for the table, to decorate the room, to entertain the attendees, the musical design, if desired, the fireworks.

It is worth considering the details of the holiday. If the child’s birthday is supposed to be celebrated, then the decoration of the hall should be using balloons, with a minimum of flowers, and invited artists working in children’s cartoons will delight more than performing classic romances.

If saving time is more valuable to you by assigning the honorable duty of preparing the holiday, and thus, all the responsibility to the people who do it every day, find a good and reputable company. As a rule, the range of services of these companies is very wide: from preparing a banquet to inviting artists, as well as the possibility of embodying various unusual moments, for example, pyramids of champagne glasses, a chocolate fountain, and life-size dolls of different characters that children love. The ideal choice for a kids’ party is to request the organization and management of a children’s party from professionals. Specialists Kids Club Viki land will prepare and organize an exciting party for your child. There is a scenario for children of all ages and hobbies: a “cars” or “mutant” style party, a pirate, a gangster, a spy. Or maybe an educational or sports leave? It is up to you to decide.

Food is also served – not quite a familiar word that means preparing for a holiday at a customer’s site, or in a specially ordered place, for example, on a motorized ship. In this case, the company provides ready meals to the agreed location, decorates them, and delivers service personnel. Catering for corporate events is often requested in companies as there are large enough staff to accommodate them in the nearest restaurant.

The most important advice – do not seek to impress and collect all the fashionable and relevant news. Do what will really cheer you up and your guests, because at the end the holiday comes to an end for that, so that everyone in attendance takes away their worries a little and becomes happier.

Pakistan restaurants are ideal for those who do not want to celebrate their birthday at home or in the open air. In the facilities of the capital, you can fully enjoy the holiday without worrying about cooking and cleaning for the guests. For birthdays there are discounts in restaurants and cafes on their birthday. Finding a good restaurant is already half the success of a successful vacation.

On our site, we have collected the most suitable places for every taste:

•        Cozy restaurants in Pakistan for a birthday party in a narrow circle

Lovers of meat dishes and rare wines will appreciate the “45 ° / 60 °” restaurant. Sky Lounge is another establishment with a great ambiance. A panoramic view of Pakistan from the 22nd floor of the restaurant will help you celebrate your birthday in a special way.

•        Separate room facilities for large companies

In “Maharani” for birthday, depending on the number of guests, you can book a cafeteria, a VIP area or a full restaurant. Several halls for 30 to 800 people, a summer terrace and panoramic rooms are available at the Crowne Plaza Pakistan WTC.

1. Birthday bars and clubs for fun lovers

One of the most famous restaurants in Pakistan is Doran Bar – a good choice for a birthday. Here you can dance, sing karaoke and sample signature cocktails from the “Star” bartenders. A bar birthday can be celebrated in Noor, which is famous for its DJ parties and large bar menu. Additionally, the bar has a complete menu.

2. Café in Pakistan

Especially on your vacation, some institutions may invite artists or conduct a show program. For example, in the “Bump Lounge” you can order a DJ, musician or musician of various styles. On his birthday, the birthday man gets a 15% off at the restaurant. On the “rooftop”, visitors are presented with different scenarios for the celebration, lighting equipment, sound and animators. In this restaurant in Pakistan, at a discount of 15%, the person celebrating his birthday gets a cake and champagne on his birthday. Also, some institutions can organize a special entertainment program or animation for children.

3. Birthday discounts and deals in Pakistan restaurants

Many restaurants and banquet halls offer discounts and promotions for birthdays! Explore our range of restaurants with photos, descriptions and customer reviews and choose the best place to celebrate your birthday so that only fond memories are left behind.

Good day to you, dear regular readers and guests of my blog! Today I will present to your attention the most beautiful wedding banquet rooms in different parts of Mother Lahore. I will reveal all the highlights and reveal all the flaws, if any.

But there is one small problem. There are a lot of places for a banquet and wedding, but I’m not enough! So, I desperately need your help. I am awaiting the most honest and sincere reviews about the places I already celebrated.

I suggest I do it as follows. Select the city and name of the restaurant or banquet hall, then leave your opinion. Do not forget the pictures, if you have them, so that everyone can fully appreciate the objectivity of your judgment.

And don’t forget that “McDonald’s” for some “McDonald’s” is the supreme aspect of gastronomy, for others, and at Pushkin Café — not pretty enough, tasty and expensive.

Although it is at the end of 2016, it is among the ten most expensive and prestigious enterprises in Pakistan.

But let’s not get ahead of the locomotive and gradually turn to the list of the most beautiful banquet halls.

4. Wonders of architecture or the best cuisine

Actually, I am not suggesting you choose between beautiful and delicious. In my opinion, in the best restaurants, the two are inseparable. This applies not only to the exterior appearance of the institution itself, interior and exterior, but also to serving staff, furniture, dishes, appliances, and even serving dishes.

Make yourself comfortable, I will show you the best options.

5. In Pakistan and the Lahore region

Naturally, we will start from the center of Pakistan. And if “Cafe Pushkin” is one of the most expensive offerings, let’s try to combine two incompatible concepts: Pakistan and inexpensive.

•        In the northeastern administrative district, I found an inexpensive, but very interesting place, and to be precise, this is a whole network with the name “Grable” which is tasteless. But in reality, everything is better than it might seem. Here is the link to their wonderful site.

This is the smallest ballroom with capacity from 50 to 120 guests. It seems to me that such a beautiful and lit room does not require additional decoration, but it will be enough to arrange and fill the atmosphere with balloons.

It is worth noting that we have a banquet menu (not a buffet table, but a full one) from 1500 rubles per person. In my opinion, these are very ridiculous prices even for Saratov.

•        The banquet hall at Tatev Restaurant is the best option for holding a wedding in the Northwest Administrative District. If you are planning your celebration for 300 people, I advise you to choose the above-mentioned option for such an event. They also have a ballroom that can seat 500 guests, and this hall can accommodate 220 people with utmost comfort.

And generally it doesn’t need additional decorations either. Very worthy, as they promise, for 2000 rubles per person, and who knows how the soul will unfold.

•        Great place in the southwestern administrative district – Note . This is a bar, a restaurant, and even a pub. But see for yourself which one. And the prices pleasantly surprised me – from 1900 per person.

Those who have visited this and other places in Pakistan and the Pakistan region, tell us about your impressions in the comments. Most of all are interested in very tasty cuisine and high level of service.

Courtesy: best shadi hall in Lahore

[limejuicer1862]

*

My goal in life is the destruction of 5G masts. I cut my sandwich into triangles as a lower-middle class pretension. Back outside, my window, one time, a cream room, a view of the street’s antenna. The problem with David Lynch is how he makes too much sense. Back in the simulacrum, a boy, my age, rangers in North America, first as tragedy, then as… ironing out our balaclavas, filling out our milk bottles; backpacks unattended on park benches, on the bus.

*

A page of Baudrillard, hides the truth to view witnesses fraying little by little into ruins, discernible ruined empire, rotting carcass of the soil double ends simulation, this fabled second-order no longer that of a territory, no longer saturated, a hyperreal map one must

return without origin, shreds unusable a questionable sovereign difference – the charm abstraction, the coextensivity of poetry, the representation produced no imaginary. Operational, in fact, no longer memory radiating synthesis, no space without atmosphere, no worse

curvature. Imitation, nor duplication; leaving room for simulated liquidation.

-Alex Mazey

.the title changes.

there is too much interference things could be left alone things were alright anyway

the battery is low yet plugged in the radio buzzes.

things are distorted

so i did what he says, whilst running up and down the stairs.

source to av, only there aint no av, not on that one anyhow.

press my scart lead, that is probably it.

press the sky button, the sky does not respond.

we still has television snow.

mine are bifocal and can distort gently if i concentrate poorly on the centre i have had help a while grateful at least that i can see unlike some of my family

yesterday I watched a documentary about monkeys

-sonja benskin mesher

The new starboard

Our larvae split their skin in the signal-fry, warmed over by the wire-witched currents of one filigree moon in a hundredweight sky

and if we no longer see the stars how do they counsel a chart for a new grub, or pull a blood’s spirit-iron toward the dissolving north

and if we no longer feel these waves how may we know our own water, what deeps us for the giddy bubble of this sailing. And I know

there are rocks here still, they make chimneys of it to vent everything we can’t burn railing sparks against the sky- silver that meshes none of our tides true

and it will rain hot tonight, the sizzle pelting the new hatchlings

-Ankh Spice

Of Forest And Stick

Foe forest, faux forest fee-fi-fo forest. Where giants hurl their broken stories from broadcast heaven to stone cast ground. Real, this least of things.

Inarticulate metal arms pluck down your dreams, to place within the flakes of soul slow dying desiccation.

Sick insects wave. These metal poles sway clamped to roof and breast.

All point as one, their martyr fingers show. As minds walk psychotic in their circular days.

To stars and planets that orbit our night sleep late night drunk deep on their celestial milky ways.

Antennae wave hello. Behind smudged glass walls as we sit and stare into this aquarium hell of our own making.

As we spread across our furniture of forked cartons, plastic and messy despair We start to take on our corrupt story.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/of-forest-and-stick.m4a

© Dai Fry 4th May 2020.

Reception

Quiet the cluttered airways. Listen. Too many voices reaching skyward, Clamoring for reception, Propelling selfhood upward,

Destroys collaborative Synergy. And interference causes failure. After all, Man-made towers were only Ever meant to fall.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/reception.m4a

-st

Every Stem Is

an aerial, antennae whose signal carries an image and a sound of growth and bloom.

Leaves are directors, flagellum, reach out, test the air and vibrations.

Listen can your hear the messages, or is it distorted,

image overlaid on image, sound overlaid on sound?

It processes fake news, phishing and cyber attacks. discerns real from false. scents and trails.

A filter bubble, an information sceptic decides what diminishes it, what makes it grow.

what makes it turn towards warmth, towards brightness.

More than a conduit.

-Paul Brookes

effluorescence

concrete flowerbed: aluminium amaranths dream of fecund earth

-Rich Follett

These gray structures loom Like a dead alloy forest A mill’s epitaph

-Carrie Ann Golden

The Arrival (EEN)

Blue eclipse sudden shudder silver vibrations strange sensations mauve hues silent screams shattered dreams rainbow screams black void bleak skies pink cries identity hides no way out seek beware who goes there wait stop where no here why there marble hush turquoise crush hide smile cry illusion confusion static wailing connections failing conscience melting blood moon a light alight powder dawn seek destroy rebuild regenerate no rescue failed sight emerald night pyramid flight incoming yellow tongue purple feast horrible sightings a drone atone leave us alone lavender glass chards charge cut chaos comet rush – Reverse

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-arrival-een-mp3.mp3

The Arrival (TWEE)

Falling earth new birth cosmic boom blast break away descend evacuate take position brace brave pathetic beast eject object reject investigate attack no way back hold blinding strobe light up get up move no room fire storm go swerve dive testing resting make haste chase erase record a face strange days delete reboot reverse rethink incoming homecoming survive surrender sharp solar bursts the thirst implosion ration succession orchestration new nation sinking earth toxic rebirth black hole tar soul screeching silence severed signals strange sour suns

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-arrival-twee-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Bios and Links

-Alex Mazey

(b.1991) received his MA (distinction) from Keele University in 2017. He later won The Roy Fisher Prize for Poetry with his debut pamphlet, ‘Bread and Salt’ (Flarestack, TBA). He was also the recipient of a Creative Future Writers’ Award in 2019. His poetry has featured regularly in anthologies and literary press magazines, most notably in The London Magazine. His collection of essays, ‘Living in Disneyland’, will be available from Broken Sleep Books in October 2020. Alex spent 2018 as a resident of The People’s Republic of China, where he taught the English Language in a school run by the Ministry of Education. His writing has been described as ‘wry and knowing,’ with ‘an edge that tears rather than cuts or deals blows.’

Twitter: @AlexzanderMazey

Instagram: alexmazey

Here is my interview of Alex:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-alex-mazey/

-Rich Follett

is a High School English and Creative Writing teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than forty years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and the late Felino Soriano’s CounterExample Poetics, for which he was a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human &c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com.)

As a singer-songwriter, Rich has released five albums of independent contemporary folk music. His latest. Somewhere in the Stars, is available at http://www.richfollett.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, playwright, and director.

-Ankh Spice

is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (NZ). His poetry has appeared in a wide range of international publications and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He truly believes that words have the power to change the place we’re in, and you’ll find him doing his best to prove it on

Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams or on Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

-Carrie Ann Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse.

-sonja benskin mesher

born , Bournemouth.

now

lives and works in North Wales as an independent artist

‘i am a multidisciplinary artist, crafting paint, charcoal, words and whatever comes to hand, to explain ideas and issues

words have not come easily. I draw on experience, remember and write. speak of a small life’.

Elected as a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the United Artists Society The work has been in solo exhibitions through Wales and England, and in selected and solo worldwide. Much of the work is now in both private, and public collections, and has been featured in several television documentaries, radio programmes and magazines.

Here is my interview of sonja benskin mesher:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sonja-benskin-mesher/

-Samantha Terrell

is an American poet whose work emphasizes emotional integrity and social justice. She is the author of several eBooks including, Learning from Pompeii, Coffee for Neanderthals, Disgracing Lady Justice and others, available on smashwords.com and its affiliates.Chapbook: Ebola (West Chester University Poetry Center, 2014)

Website: poetrybysamantha.weebly.com Twitter: @honestypoetry

Here is my 2020 interview of her:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2020/04/08/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-samantha-terrell/

-Don Beukes

is a South African and British writer. He is the author of ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ (CTU) and ‘Icarus Rising-Volume 1’ (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, editor of Scarlet Leaf Review for the ‘Best of the Net’ in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’ in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second ‘Cape Sounds’ in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing). He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of this World’ is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.

Here is my interview of Don Beukes:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/11/02/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-don-beukes/

-Dai Fry

is an old new poet. He worked in social care but now has no day job. A keen photographer and eater of literature and lurid covers. Fascinated by nature, physics, pagans, sea and storm. His poetry seeks to capture image and tell philosophical tales. Published in Black Bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore Press and the Pangolin Review. He can be seen reading on #InternationalPoetryCircle and regularly appears on #TopTweetTuesday. Twitter. @thnargg Web seekingthedarklight.co.uk

Audio/Visual. @IntPoetryCircle #InternationalPoetryCircle Twitter #TopTweetTuesday

-Paul Brookes

is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews.

-Mary Frances

is an artist and writer based in the UK. She takes a few photos every day, for inspiration and to use in her work. The images for this project were all taken in the last two years on walks during in the month of May. Her words and images have been published by Penteract Press, Metambesen, Ice Floe Press, Burning House Press, Inside the Outside, Luvina Rivista Literaria, and Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness. Twitter: @maryfrancesness

-James Knight

is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.

Website: thebirdking.com.

Twitter: @badbadpoet

Here is my interview of James Knight:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/01/06/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-james-knight/

-Sue Harpham

is an admin worker, currently not in work Married, 2 sons. Loves poetry and words. She considers herself a writer of scribble rather than a poet. She has written a novel and is using her spare time to finally get it published (self-publishing) which has been an ambition of her for the last 10 years.

Welcome to a special ekphrastic challenge for May. Artworks from Mary Frances, James Knight and Sue Harpham will be the inspiration for writers, Alex Mazey, Ankh Spice, Samantha Terrell, Dai Fry, Carrie Ann Golden, sonja benskin mesher, Rich Follett, Don Beukes and myself. May 5th. * My goal in life is the destruction of 5G masts. I cut my sandwich into triangles as a lower-middle class pretension.

[robindluzenwriting]

Sabina Ott and Dana Berman Duff at Aspect Ratio in Visual Art Source

Review by Robin Dluzen

Sabina Ott and Dana Berman Duff, "What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes," installation view, 2019, 2 channel HD video installation, 8:31 min. TRT

Continuing through February 16, 2019 A 35-year friendship binds the late Chicago artist, Sabina Ott, and L.A. artist Dana Berman Duff. This exhibition, “What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes,” is the finale of their collaborations after Ott’s passing last year. The two artists had been constant travel companions over the years, and a trip to Iceland had been planned in preparation for this exhibition. Only Duff made it overseas, as illness kept Ott in Chicago. The loose plan was to create a collaborative piece of video work (Duff’s expertise), combined with text, sound and installation (Ott was a master of environments). The pair had chosen Iceland for its lava tubes and glacial ice caves, and the extraordinary video footage that Duff brought back is the basis for the exhibition, which she saw through to completion without her friend. “What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes” is poetic and mysterious — an expression of two artists contending with the human life cycle from their combined vantage points. A carved styrofoam, iceberg-shaped kind of settee occupies the center of the room between the twin screens of the two-channel video. The piece opens with a view of a lava tube from the interior, a peaked pile of snow among the rocks covering the floor, seemingly formed as the precipitation fell from an opening above. On one screen, a ribbon of haiku text streams in with the light pouring through the ceiling, winding through the tube towards the viewer, then passing to the next screen, retreating into the opening on the other side. On the former screen, the camera is seemingly pressing in towards the point of origin, while the latter pulls back from the identical cavity on the other side, all set to a soundtrack reminiscent of resonant moving air. Not only does knowing the artists’ personal stories locate the content of this piece within the context of physical existence and what happens after, the haiku itself (written by Stephanie Barber) drops phrases like “astral plane,” “violence of days,” and “carve the caves of the afterlife” through the course of the poem. “What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes” reinforces Ott’s notion (as stated in her Ethical Will) of humans originating from and returning to water, with the end of the video piece featuring text mingling with falling snow, then trickling water, and eventually, the expanse of the sea. The work’s effect is one that is both circular and linear, ever moving towards the point of origin and away from the outlet. Punctuated by the fleeting quality of the poem, it is in effect an illustration of a temporal experience within one that doesn’t really have an end. Adjacent to the video environment are two smaller installations: a selection of 100 unique, polychromed clay orbs, or “Lava Balls,” and a six-screen assemblage of Duff’s video, entitled “The World is Round: Remembering Sabina.” Here, interspersed among video of roses, dogs and snow covered mountains is footage of Ott from various points in her life: pacing a parking lot with her cell phone and a cigarette, waving fallen branches at the camera in a lush forest. Duff explains that she often pictures her late friend “floating overhead in the sky,” and in this piece, with the six screens installed horizontally, viewers look upon them from above, as if from Ott’s metaphysical vantage point. While “The World is Round: Remembering Sabina” has sound, too, in the gallery it’s quiet, like whispers. Chicago’s art community lost a beloved and impactful figure, and in this exhibition, with Ott’s voice softly punctuating the richness of the deep and vacuous noise of “What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes,” Duff both brings a part of her friend into this space while also respecting the resounding emptiness that has been left behind.

[topfygad]

Five Amazing Ways to Experience the Great Wall of China

China’s most famous structure has drawn curious travellers for more than a century. While most who visit the Great Wall of China will visit the popular Mutianyu section of the Wall on a day-trip from Beijing, there are more in-depth and unusual ways to experience this man-made Wonder of the World.

We’ve boiled down our five amazing ways to experience the Great Wall here:

1) PICNIC ON THE RAMPARTS

For an unforgettable Great Wall experience, hike to Zhengbeilou Tower and enjoy a gourmet picnic atop the ramparts. Follow a trail past original sections of the Wall towards restored ramparts, ascending to Zhengbeilou Tower for stunning panoramas. At the watchtower, refuel with a gourmet picnic of wine and cheese, reveling in the rugged beauty of the surrounding countryside.

Highlights: Contrast original with restored wall sections Walk far from the crowds Enjoy unspoiled panoramas Share a gourmet picnic of cheese and wine

2) CAMPING ON THE GREAT WALL

Experience the magic of the Great Wall by staying overnight on its ramparts. Hike three kilometres through scenic countryside from Huanghuacheng to a section of the Wall with four restored watchtowers. Relish a home-cooked dinner in a local guesthouse, then walk by torchlight beneath twinkling constellations to a watchtower ‘campsite’ for the night.

Highlights: Camp overnight on the wall Enjoy a home-cooked meal at a farmer’s guesthouse Trek through scenic countryside Sleep under a spectacular night sky

3) HELICOPTER FLIGHT OVER THE WALL

  This luxury Great Wall experience provides unrivalled views over its oldest remaining sections. Soar over dramatic peaks and valleys, tracing unrestored segments of the Wall on the way to Hero’s Slope. This hard-to-reach high-altitude spot features a stone plaque inscribed with a poem by Chairman Mao. Fly on to Guanting Reservoir wetlands, then over the lush grasslands of Kangxi Prairie before heading back for a private Champagne toast.

Highlights:

Get the best possible views over the Great Wall Fly over two breathtaking sites: Guanting Reservoir wetlands and Kangxi Prairie Rise above the crowds in deluxe comfort Celebrate the experience with a glass of Champagne

4) A TREKKING ODYSSEY

This totally immersive Great Wall experience not only showcases the Wall itself, but the villages in the surrounding countryside. Covering some challenging ascents to some high-altitude watchtowers, this explorative journey passes along both original and restored sections of the Wall, and explores local villages for a taste of life beyond the ramparts.

Highlights:

Venture to remote, crowd-free parts of the Wall Trek through pine forest to the high-altitude ‘Stairway to Heaven’ watchtower Go beyond the tourist trail and explore local villages Stay overnight in cosy, traditional guesthouses

5) GO REMOTE WITH AN EXPERT

Leave the crowds behind with a daytrip to a remote section of The Wall in Jinshanling, 2.5 hours from Beijing. Learn about the Wall from an expert guide on a fascinating journey along the ramparts, passing 15 watchtowers and traversing segments barely touched by restoration. Have lunch in a traditional farmhouse and meet a renowned local photographer with his own stirring stories and images of the Wall.

Highlights:

Get expert insights into the history and architecture of the Wall Trek 3 or 4 hours along a remote stretch with 15 watchtowers Enjoy lunch in a local farmhouse See the Wall through the lens of an award-winning local photographer

The above is just a small selection of amazing experiences on the Great Wall of China. For more information on the Great Wall tours, contact our travel consultants at [email protected] or simply drop us an email enquiry below!

Drop us an enquiry now! 

  source http://cheaprtravels.com/five-amazing-ways-to-experience-the-great-wall-of-china/

[glaucussubmerged]

Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes

That was the unearthly mine of souls. like silent silver-ore in heavy darkness they moved, like veins. From between the roots the blood welled that coursed towards mankind, as dense as porphyry in that lack of light. Nothing else was red.

There were rock-faces there and void forests. Bridges spanning nothing, and that vast, blind, shade-grey lake that hung over its own distant depth like raining sky above a landscape. Mild and filled with patience, meadows spread away beside the single path laid out between them like a pale strip of bleaching cloth.

And along this one path they came.

The slender man cloaked in blue walked ahead, dumb, gazing impatiently in front of him. His stride ate up the path in great torn-off bites. His closed fists hung heavily outside the falling folds, no longer conscious of the light lyre growing in his left hand like the twined rose into the brance of the olive tree. His sense looked as though divided: while his sight ran on ahead, like a dog, time and again stopping, coming back, and waiting far off at the next turn— his hearing trailed behind him like an odour. Sometimes it seemed to him to reach as far behind as the footsteps of those two others who were to follow up the great slope. And then once more he heard only his climb's echo behind him, and the wind of his cloak. And yet, he told himself, there they still were, said it aloud, and heard ir die away. There they came, the two of them, if walking fearfully softly. Should he be allowed to turn round, once (if looking back were not to wreck the whole task, not yet quite fulfilled), he would be bound to see those quiet two who followed, treading softly and in silence:

the god of despatch and far messages, with travel-hood above his brilliant eyes, his slender staff held out in front of him and a god's wings beating at his ankles; and given into his left hand: her.

So loved that one lyre sang with more mourning than any mourning-women; that a world came into being made of mourning, in which all things reappeared: wood and valley and road and hamlet, field, river and creature; that round this lamentation-world turned, just as round the other earth, a sun, and then a starred heaven, a lamentation- heaven of silence with disfigured stars. She was so greatly loved.

But now she walked beside this god, her steps hampered by the long grave-wrappings, uncertain, gentle, and without impatience. Self-absorbed, like someone near her time, oblivious of the man ahead, her husband, and of the path that led up into life. Self-absorbed. And her being-dead was filling her like fullness. For like a fruit all of sweetness and dark she too was full of her immense death, which was so new she could not take it in.

This was for her a second maidenhood: she was untouchable; her hymen, like the newest flower at dusk, was closed, her hands by now so unused to the hand of marriage that even, ethereal as he was, the god's incomparably gentle guiding touch injured her, like too far an intimacy.

Already she was not the fair-haired girl at times resonant in the poet's songs, no more the wide couch's scent and island, and in this man's ownership no longer.

She was already loosed like long hair, relinquished like the flowing rain, freely shared like an inextinguishable store.

She was already root.

And when the god stopped her abruptly with the anguished words: He has turned round—she did not take them in, those words he spoke, and softly asked: Who?

Far off, dark before the radiance beyond the entrance, someone stood, whose face was indiscernible. He stood and saw the god of despatch, on a strip of path between the meadows, with a sorrowed look and not a word turn and follow the figure already walking back along the path, its steps hampered by the long grave-wrappings, uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.

Rainer Maria Rilke from Selected Poems

trans. Susan Ranson and Marielle Sutherland 

[thebroadkillreview]

Walter Bargen's "Natural History" plus @SScottWhitaker's review of Trouble Behind Glass Doors #Poemaday #NationalPoetryMonth

Natural History

There’s no hurry to our staring.

There’s nothing we can do to change

what we see even as we slowly maneuver

our stiff bodies along this hallway.

Craning our necks, we look into a too low sky

and its fading painted clouds. We drop

out chins to look down as if we might charge

ahead into the glass and find ourselves inside

or out, but we won’t know the difference.

We count the sparse weed stalks within these four

tight corners and move cautiously closer,

nose nearly to the smudged pane, trying to bend

our sight, defy our seeing, parse our hope,

our belief, with a simulacrum of understanding

how this bird’s crown feathers remain motionless.

Wings cup the air, as it hovers and doesn’t hover

over an insect that will never move,

never be caught, just as the bird will never alert us

to its presence, tethered to this one pose,  

wired to this country of our beautiful blindness.

Walter Bargen has published eighteen books of poetry.  His most recent books are: Days Like This Are Necessary: New & Selected Poems (2009), Endearing Ruins (2012), Trouble Behind Glass Doors (2013), Quixotic (2014), and Gone West (2014).  He was appointed the first poet laureate of Missouri (2008-2009).  His awards include a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship (1991), the Hanks Prize (1996), the William Rockhill Nelson Award (2005). His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in over 150 magazines. www.walterbargen.com

--from the archives of The Broadkill Review

Visit us at our new home  broadkillreview.com

Support us by purchasing a title from the Broadkill River Press, co-sponsor of the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize.

Connect with us on Twitter . Also from the archives: A review of Walter Bargen's Trouble Behind Glass Doors.

Walter Bargen is watching. In the Missouri Poet Laureate's newest book Trouble Behind Glass Doors $13.95 University of Missouri-Kansas Press, Bargen crafts poems out of negative space, recording what is not happening as well as what is occurring in small towns and personal lives alike. Whether Bargen wears his laurel like a poet of a small town parade or the harbinger of the end of the world, Bargen’s work shapes a world where human interaction is held together by inaction and action, and it is the tension between the two that gives Trouble its emotional punch.

Trouble is a well oiled machine of language. It opens with three epigrams concerning hope, framing the theme for the three sections of Trouble. Paul, from Romans, gives us a message of patience and hope, Baudelaire warns that hope and desolation go hand in hand, and Kafka states that “hope is not for us.” And Trouble delivers as promised. It’s a work that grows darker by the poem, and one can feel the cold terminator of night marching across the wide open spaces of the Midwest.  

Section one finds the poet as an outsider/laborer; whether speaking as a working artist, or speaking for those who feel outside the norm, Bargen’s verse reminds that slow mundane work frees as well as fetters. Consider the opening poem “Dyslexic Forest” where the disinterested and disenfranchised student “falls asleep in class,” but yet is aware of the mystic way his writer/neighbor “reads to the stones” and “calls to the clairvoyant moon.”  The student knows how the writer’s work is a noisy affair, and class, he almost smirks, is a boring place, quiet and full of un-work, the un-imagination. What the boy does not say, but is shown in Bargen’s poetic narrative, is that work of the mind can be a magical experience for those uninitiated. The boy learns much from listening to the poet across the hollow, and not so much from school. In “Forest” the writer is a lonely illumined soul, a common motif in literature from ancient Greek poetry to the prose of Stephen King; the very forest of words a writer tends must appear to be a vast wilderness to those who struggle with words and ideas. There is a connection though between the boy in the forest and the writer, albeit a tenuous one, just as there is connection between the poet and the small town in which he lives and serves as a parade marshall in “Poet as Grand Marshall of the Fall Parade.” The poet works through anxiety over being lauded in the parade, but when the poet “passed out poems once the candy ran out” the gulf between the artist and people has never been wider. Candy is certainly better than poetry, and after all the poet is not a football player, nor a cheerleader, and the part of his body that he offers up to the fall parade is not as strong nor as lithe, but is as important even if it is unseen; his mind. The poet is fettered to his work as he is freed by it, and it is this tension that gives the first section power and punch. But the theme of writer/outsider is most crystallized in the haunting “Poet in Prison” where the speaker passes through the gates of the prison, section by section, on his way to a creative writing class for those inside. Nowhere else is the poet more aware of the differences between himself and the harsh world. America imprisons more citizens than any other nation in the world, and probably boasts more poets as well. The descent into the prison is as close as the modern poet will ever achieve to Orpheus descending into the underworld, and just as important. But Bargen doesn’t preach or pat himself on the back, he instead shows us the lonely, the unwanted as they are.

Loneliness and disconnection haunt the first section of the book, but age, dying, and finality haunt the second section of the book. It begins innocently enough in “The Whole Facts” as car parts lay strewn across a yard, but through the poet’s imagination they are transformed into body parts from a war. But for the speaker the experience is a reminder of life, of hope, despite the violence the imagination recalls.

The second section of Trouble finds death hanging about, an old friend calling who will soon die, an obese stroke victim, a poor deluded Don Quixote, almost bare of hope save for his chance to be “knighted and benighted each Friday midnight/at the Thirsty Turtle and Gladstone Bar & Grill.”  But it’s not just death, or the end of our greatness that Bargen explores. The promise of the end to intimacy and friendship, as well as the promise of death is evocatively explored in “Point of No Returns.” Here the speaker presents us with a relationship with two people who are “propelled and repelled/by each other’s presence,” a relationship that has reached a point of no return,  “there was no point in us/ever knowing why we were not lovers/and will always be doubtful lovers.” Here the tension is as much about the promise of what is to come, as it is about the past, about what is about to happen and about may not happen. Sensuality, and eroticism carried special weight when we speak of desire. It is no accident that the French call the orgasm the little death, for desire burns out just like a life. That promise of finality all wrapped up with desire continues in “Blouse,” which could be a companion poem to Robert Pinsky’s “Shirt,” where Bargen’s music is as tight as that which is “stitching the chapters of a lonely woman together... Premonition of coming clawed critics./The fourteen to forty crowd who spills midriffs/And cinch bulging thighs with zippered denim...their dislike, disdain disturbingly/Uncivilized.” But the promise in “Blouse” isn’t as hopeful or mysterious as the promise of a sexual liaison in “Point,” it’s a slippery promise , one that proffers that a piece of clothing, or a kind word can transform us, pick us up out of the doldrums, and put us upright, make us feel young and desirable. Bargen shows it fails more often than not.

The dying and finality of section two hardens into death and cruelty by the third section where Bargen’s poems show us war, the end times, when neighbor turns upon neighbor.

It’s not often that murder is made poetic in American letters. It’s there to be sure, consider Larry Levis’ murderous thieves from Elegy, Carolyn Forche’s “The Colonel”, Frank Bidart’s psychopathic “Herbert White,” or Martin Espada’s cruel racists. Bargen’s disturbing “Neighbors” belongs right down in hell with them,  and finds the poet employing crisp lines and stanzas to mimic the blade crossing a throat, and the containment of the camps. At one point the protagonist of the poem has been roused from his house by a ski-mask wearing neighbor turned enemy, who marshaled him into a internment camp to begin his new life. He witnesses the horror, and Bargen’s lines might as well be a rag wiping the blade. “They sleep standing shoulder to shoulder,/Through a crack in the shed wall he sees/Neighbors strip a neighbor with long hunting knives/Then cut off a pound of flesh...as he bleeds away, the body doused/with gasoline, this man’s life and his own are aflame.”

War, and foreign conflict are the subject of many of the poems in the final section, as well as a fervor for the apocalypse, but the themes are present in the poems that are not explicitly about war and cruelty.  In “Booneville Bridge Demolition” all of the small folk, lovers, children, and small town witnesses live and love and gather in the shadow of the demolition that is to come, and that ultimately waits for us all. Destroying a bridge could as easily be an act of war as it is about civil service in the name of public safety, or a metaphor for destroying those we love while we are in the throes of emotional turmoil. “It could easily be a holiday celebration...but for the ripping and tearing...so much giving way...after many years of holding up both sides...the unbridgeable..the aftermath of all their crossings uncrossed.” And this is how Bargen leaves us, bereft of structure to hold us together, bereft of decency, yet still hoping, spending all of our luck on what may or may not be there anymore.

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[majestativa]

Death himself could fall for her.

— LILIANA URSU ⚜️ The Sky Behind the Forest: Selected Poems, transl. by Liliana Ursu with Adam J. Sorkin & Tess Gallagher, (1997)