New Life
Copyright-Janet Webb
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The car stopped on the narrow road, in front of the old house.
He could not believe the shape in which the house ended after those years when he was far away. Now that she was sick he thought of the old family house for a quiet life. He must find a cure, he must find a way to save her, he must…
Oh darling, look at it, we’ll have to repair, paint and clean it all… My God, so much work…. she sighed looking at him with love.
No, darling, don’t you worry. I’ll build you a new life.
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100 words, memyselfandela 2013, Friday Fictioneers
Listening
She is the only one listening
They might call her a simple cat
But she is her only true friend,
More faithful than any human
Her extra pair of eyes,
Smarter than a dog,
Faster than a jackal.
The old lady and the cat
One can see them everywhere
Never apart.
After a long painful day
She is the only one that sees
The effort it takes to simply walk.
In the end I think
They are not a cat and an old lady
But two angelic souls
Taking care of each other
Trapped in this concentrationary dimension
Called life.
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100 words
memyselfandela, 2013
Photo Source: Black and White
Silence
immobile
in this immense purple burn
wildfire
on my aching soul
i have no strength to move
so i surrender this beauty
quiet passage
from life to life
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memyselfandela, 2013
Zdob şi Zdub – Doina Haiducului / Doina of the Outlaw
Freamătă frunza în vânt/ The leaf quivers in the wind
Murmură apa în râu/The water murmurs in the river
Spicul plecat la pământ/The wheat spike bent to the ground
Vălură lanul de grâu/makes waves in the wheat field
Fiul codrului sunt/Son of the forest I am
Liber ca pasărea-n zbor/ Free as the flying bird
Doina haiducului cânt/The song of the outlaw I sing
Plină de jale şi dor/Full of sorrow and longing.
Puşca-i logodnica mea/ The rifle is my fiancee
Murgul e fratele meu/The horse is my brother
Viaţa în codru e grea/The life in the forest is hard
Traiul haiducului-i greu/ The living of the outlaw is harsh
Puneţi pistoalele-n brâu/ Put your pistols around your waist
Boierul la târg a pornit/ The boyar is on his way to the market
Sloboade armăsarul din frâu/Free the horse from the reins
Răsplata prin noi a venit/ The reward has come through us.
Tremură stelele-n cer/ Stars shiver in the sky
Liberă e inima mea/ My heart is free
Doamne nimica nu-ţi cer/Lord, I ask you for nothing
Decât o viaţă în şa/ But a life in the saddle
Tremură stelele-n cer/Stars shiver in the sky
Draga îmi iese în cale/My beloved comes on my way
Doamne nimica nu-ţi cer/Lord, I ask you for nothing
Decât o viaţă călare/But a life of riding.
Seara la rug, obosiţi/ In the evening by the fire, tired
Cântă haiducii de dor/The outlaws sing of longing
Laşii au fost pedepsiţi/ The cowards have been punished
Bem bogaţiile lor/ We drink their riches
Drumul omului-i greu/ The path of the human is hard
Până la ultima stea/ Till the last star
Liber e sufletul meu/Free is my soul
Liberă-i inima mea/Free is my heart.
Noapte de vis pe perdea/ Dream night on the curtain
Trasă de-o mână uşor/ Pulled slowly by a hand
Vino pe-o rază de stea/Come on the ray of a star
Dragă în poiana cu dor/My darling, in the meadow with longing
Tremură stelele-n cer/ Stars shiver in the sky
Liberă e inima mea/ My heart is free
Doamne nimica nu-ţi cer/Lord, I ask you for nothing
Decât o viaţă în şa/ But a life in the saddle
Tremură stelele-n cer/Stars shiver in the sky
Draga îmi iese în cale/My beloved comes on my way
Doamne nimica nu-ţi cer/Lord, I ask you for nothing
Decât o viaţă călare/But a life of riding.
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Translation from Romanian: memyselfandela, 2013
The Doina (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈdojna]) is a Romanian musical tune style, with Middle Eastern roots, that can be found in Romanian peasant music, as well as in Lăutărească and Klezmer music. Similar tunes are found throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In some parts of the Balkans the doina is referred to as scaros/scaru.
Béla Bartók discovered the doina in Northern Transylvania in 1912 and he believed it to be uniquely Romanian. After he found similar genres in Ukraine, Albania, Algeria, Middle East and Northern India, he came to the conclusion that these are part of a family of related genres of Arabo-Persian origin. He particularly linked the Romanian doina to the Turkish/Arabic Makam system. Bartók’s conclusions were rejected by some Romanian ethnomusicologists, who accused Bartók of anti-Romanian bias. Since then, however, the similarities between the Romanian doina and various musical forms from the Middle East have been documented by both non-Romanian, and Romanian scholars. Until the first half of the 20th century, both lăutari and klezmer musicians were recorded using a taksim as an introduction to a tune. The taksim would be later replaced by the doina, which has been described as being very similar, though not totally identical to the taksim. Ethnomusicologist and doina performer Grigore Leşe, who recently performed with a group of Iranian musicians, said that the doinas of Maramureş have “great affinities” with the Arabo-Persian music.
The doina is a free-rhythm, highly ornamented (usually melismatic), improvisational tune. The improvisation is done on a more or less fixed pattern (usually a descending one), by “stretching” the notes in a rubato-like manner, according to the performer’s mood and imagination. Usually the prolonged notes are the fourth or fifth above the floor note.
The peasant doinas are mostly vocal and monophonic and are sung with some vocal peculiarities that vary from place to place: interjections (măi, hei, dui-dui, iuhu), glottal clucking sounds, choked sobbing effects, etc. Instrumental doinas are played on simple instruments, usually various types of flutes, or even on rudimentary ones, such as a leaf. The peasant doina is a non-ceremonial type of song and is generally sung in solitude, having an important psychological action: to “ease one’s soul” (“de stâmpărare” in Romanian). Grigore Leşe believes that, while scholars describe in great detail the technical aspects of the doina, they fail to understand its psychological aspects. Doinas are lyrical in aspect and their common themes are melancholy, longing (dor), erotic feelings, love for nature, complaints about the bitterness of life or invocations to God to help ease pain, etc.
Unlike peasant doinas, lăutar and klezmer doinas are usually accompanied and played on instruments with more musical possibilities (violin, pan-pipe, cymbalom, accordion, clarinet, tarogato, etc.). Also, unlike peasant doinas, lăutar and klezmer doinas are mostly played as an introduction to another tune, usually a dance.
In the regions of Southern Romania, Romani lăutari developed a more complex type of doina called “cântec de ascultare” (meaning “song for listening”, sometimes shortened to “de ascultare” or simply “ascultare”). The “cântec de ascultare” spread to other regions of Romania, with local particularities.
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Zdob şi Zdub (Здоб ши Здуб, [zdɔp ʃi zdʊp]) is a Moldovan band, based in Chişinău, whose work for the last several years has combined elements of hip-hop (especially sampling), hardcore punk and comical lyrics with traditional Romanian folk music and lyrics. The name is onomatopoeic for the sound of a drum beat. In English the name is sometimes rendered “Zdob shi Zdub,” and this is how their work is catalogued at iTunes and elsewhere. The band represented Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 in Kiev, Ukraine and in 2011 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Source : Wikipedia.
So, I Want To Be A Writer
Sunday evening. Dark outside. Fever in my mind.
Funny how sitting here and writing and imagining and dreaming can feel. I’ve always been a writer, only I’ve never known it. Just like I’ve always been a smoker and I only discovered it much later than others. Pieces of my life, a huge complicated puzzle, are coming back to me out of the blue. I know who I am but still I discover it every single day. But I guess this is valid for all of us, isn’t it?
Just as others use every spare moment to sing, listen to music or paint, I find myself also stealing moments from life just to write and feel, for this is my absolute passion. Of all that I write I will always be in love with poetry, my first true love. But it’s not important what I write, I’m still learning and I always write from the depths of my soul. When life allows me to sit and write, things just gush out of my mind, I just do it, it’s only afterwards that I take time to recline and re-read what I’ve been posting and to think more about it.
As I drink my cup of tea right now, my mind runs free between several posts I’m working on. Sometimes I write in not more then 3 minutes with a lot of passion, sometimes it takes me quite few days to come to the point where I feel that the story closes and makes sense. The only thing that matters for me is to keep on writing, good, bad, long, short, poem, prose, does not matter…
At the end of the day there’s always one fabulous quote shining in my mind:
“if it doesn’t come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don’t do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don’t do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don’t do it. if you’re doing it for money or fame, don’t do it. if you’re doing it because you want women in your bed, don’t do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don’t do it. if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it, don’t do it. if you’re trying to write like somebody else, forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you’re not ready. don’t be like so many writers, don’t be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don’t be dull and boring and pretentious, don’t be consumed with self- love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don’t add to that. don’t do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don’t do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don’t do it. when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.”
Thank you Charles, you are so damn right!!!
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600 words
memyselfandela, 2013
Abandoned
As the Communists were hunting them, Mihai, Ion and David decided to hide deep inside this forest, and so they became the only group of the resisance that ever managed to remain hidden and not detected for several years. The three of them, even though they had families, wives, children, had decided to never allow a soul know where their den was, after seeing how many times, despite all love, wives, mothers or children ended up by giving crucial information to the Political Police, sacrificing their own beloved without even knowing it while thinking that food or clothes or medicines will be sent to them.
By the news that the Communism was over and Ceausescu was dead the three men were absolutely reduced to silence, happy, finally free to return to their families and society but not knowing what a life in freedom ever could be.
They have left the den with a trembling soul though: a part of their life was left there and nobody could ever know what moments or feelings they have lived in that small chamber digged underground with bare hands in a winter’s night.
Sometimes they return to this place just to find again a part of their lost soul, as what for others looks abandoned will always mean only one thing for them : life .
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220 words
memyselfandela, 2013
this is my entry for the Five Sentence Fiction Challenge
after the nightmare
Relief,
The blanket over the inner blankness
Sensation arriving beneath ribbs
Of stopped seagulls, hidden white starflowers
And white lilies of the valley…
Never mind corporeality,
The relief wrapped on his child mind.
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33 words
memyselfandela, 2013
This is my entry for Trifecta
Angel
Family. She was tought that this is all that matters. And it was because she was born in South America, in a family of strong characters, that Maria dedicated her whole life to her family. It was not easy to grow up in their rich family with their strong father and extremely religious mother.
Maria was the best in everythng, better than her brothers. Now a doctor, mother of two, wife and daugther she was facing her own drama: the cancer only left her few months to live.
It was only now, after a lifetime’s sacrifice, that her family forgot all the rigour of rules and discipline and supported her. Countless drugs and treatments were tried, countless clinics contacted, a cortege of specialists came straingt to the family villa to see Maria and find a cure. Even the old mother, Lucia, swore crying on her knees, in front of Saint Anthony, that if her daughter will regain her life she will live like a nun for the rest of her life.
Yet, all money and prayers served for nothing. And all regrets could not make good this drama. Maria closed her eyes in a Sunday morning as the shining sun made her face look like an angel.
Tears in her eyes
Lucia regrets the days
when she gave no love.
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220 words
memyselfandela, 2013
This is my entry for: Līgo Haībun Challenge
Remains of a misplaced weekend
My weekend was compressed in one day this week, Friday, because for the next days duty calls me.
The weather was horrible today, freezing cold and snowing. So whatever plans I had yesterday for going out have vanished in the morning by the sight of that sad frozen lanscape outside.
I mean don’t get me wrong, I love snow very much, but that snow with big white snowflakes that covers the ground and reminds of Christmas. The snowflakes of today were very feeble and the cold was simply cutting through skin.
So I dedicated my quiet day to reading and posting few things. In between I smoked few times, I cooked, I listened to music.
Then I tried to fix one of the lights that broke yesterday. Memyselfandela is usually a very good do-it-yourselfer, but today bad luck. Seems that the cables made a shortcut, so on Monday hopefully the mentainance guy will change the whole lamp and if he succeeds he will tell me again the joke : “hehe, it costs you 50 Pounds”… So I will answer him again with the same smile: “hehe, go straight to the manager”… 🙂
I have spent all my day with my old friend, my sciatic pain, a friend that kindly visits me every once in a while. I am a very warm soul and I welcomed it a bit too often, it seems now my friend wants to stay for longer. 🙂
I have read awesome posts all day long, listened to fabulous music and worked myself on several posts, so this was a great day after all.
I know that outside, despite all that cold, flowers continue to grow and prepare to show their beautiful faces in the morning sun.
So Good Night World, tonight I’ll be dreaming of restless buds and shiny sunrises. 🙂
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memyselfandela, 2013
The Statue
The statue.
As he arrived in the square his heart stopped beating for a moment.
Her memory filled up his mind, the image of the days when she was working on this piece, their last month together, the night before she had to leave, her tragic accident.
His eyes looking at the statue he remembered her saying “I’m dead without you”.
He saw just now the dispair the woman silhouette showed, as if she had the premonition of what was about to happen.
“I’m dead without you too.”
There he was, eyes in tears. Alone with her, lost without her.
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100 words
memyselfandela, 2013
This is my entry for the Friday Fictioneers Challenge
Rose
the night crystallizes truths
despite of all the imperfections
in the crevasses of my broken soul
left at the end of the day with
raw images of degradation and fragments
from fights of silent dragons and demons,
of humans rifted in the damnation to feel only nothingness
because they have nothing holy in their soul,
though they deserve angel shapes.
truly pure love is the one
that gives itself whole, without judgement,
with no hope of reward
with complete oblivion of all fruits and all joy,
of all gratification, of all praise and ego.
the one that does not build temples for
his self satisfaction, his wisdom or nobleness.
this love is the condescendent eye
on all creature, the rose that blooms in the winter frost.
there’s no way above this nightmare
that is at the same time lesson and life
but to give love to all, without any expectation.
no angels walk on this ground,
they must leave us so we can make our own choices.
there’s no oneness but the one
we freely give to stranger and foe.
there’s no wholeness but love,
and if you don’t have it, give it
and if you can’t imagine it, create it.
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200 words, memyselfandela, 2013
Paradise
The late morning light gently opened his eyes as he remembered that she will come.
She said she will wait for him there, where they have met last year, her feet in the waves, her eyes on the vast skyline, waiting for him, the only man she had ever loved.
Damn!!! It was noon… Her plane landed 3 hours ago… He had to find her!!!
Rushing through the stairs he ran out on the way to the beach, the same path where they kissed last year.
And as his feet touched the sand he saw her:
Paradise in her eyes.
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100 words
memyselfandela, 2013
Photo: Renee Homan Heath
This is my entry for the Friday Fictioneers
Melt
Yesterday. The sound of the slamming door still resonates in his ears, again and again. He feels so very empty,even though Fang is there, warm, by his side. Good old buddy that never left him alone, from his college years always by his side. Fang loves him, only Fang loves him, Fang who never left him. Not even when she could not stand the poor dog and sent him out of the house every night. She never liked Fang, but Fang was right, he could not stand her, he is the only one that saw her real face.
Now all is history, separation is a fact, yesterday is gone. She left, slamming the door and taking all his joy and dreams. Here he is, broken, left with the memory of her beautiful face laughing while he held her, when they were happy, when they believed it will last forever…
He misses her kiss, her presence, he still feels her presence floating in the air around him like a perfume… His dying soul is melting , liquid like the tears streaming on his eyes. Fang licks his wet cheeks and sits still by his side as he contemplates the dawn and all the emptiness in it…
…the light from the sky
falling like a gray paint over
his eyes and his soul…
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220 words
memyselfandela, 2013
This is my entry for The Līgo Haībun Challenge
memyselfandela 