After linking with Friday Flash 55 tonight, I will be taking a short break from my computer as we are putting our house on the market for sale and I need to focus on that process. This is our second attempt as last season it did not sell. See you all next week!
by Margaret Bednar, January 28, 2013 This is for Imaginary Garden with Real Toad's "Open Link Monday" & "Sunday Mini-Challenge". The mini-challenge was hosted by Susan and we were to take a last line from an old poem and use it as the first line for a new poem and to let a feeling just come and to write it rapidly. The "old poem" I used was "Getting to Happy" and I used a portion of its last line.
I googled 1970's favorite nail polish color... and it was "natural". I guess I am too young to remember that. :)
This is also linked with "The Mag #153". The photo above is this week's inspiration.
by Margaret Bednar, originally written 1-17-11 titled "Hand in Hand"
This is for The Mag #152 - the photographic weekly prompt is below. You are invited to follow check the link and read other poetry written to the image below.
The website is www.savinglincoln.com . Please do not confuse with the movie "Lincoln" starring Daniel Day Lewis - which I also really loved!)
This really looks interesting - told from the perspective of Lincoln's law partner and self-proclaimed body guard, Ward Hill Lamon. It is an independent (epic) film, and one can donate and help them finance the film's release at Kickstarter (it is on the above link).
I also just watched on Netflix "History's Mysteries: Lincoln: The Untold Stories" It explores writings by his former law partner and friend, William Herndon, who felt it was his duty to be the biographer of the "real" Lincoln. Herndon didn't like the "mythical-like" portraiture Lincoln was fast accumulating after his death and wanted the real Lincoln, whom he admired and loved, to be known. The public didn't take to it and it sat in the Library of Congress for years, ridiculed by historians. Not until the 1980's did it get "dusted off" and examined. I believe the book is entitled: "Herndon's Lincoln" and I will be downloading it on my Nook.
I wrote a Friday Flash 55 last summer and I don't think I ever posted it. I am digging it up and posting it now. It is about Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
by Margaret Bednar, Art Happens 365, July 5, 2012 (selected words from last diary entry)
Below is the appointment book John Wilkes Booth carried on his body and wrote in after the April 14 assassination. HERE is the entire entry. Being an actor, he loved words, drama, and the limelight, but I took the liberty to shorten it for him in 55 words in the above poem.
The first place I visited in Washington D.C. was Ford's Theatre. I sat in the seats and looked up into the balcony where Booth shot President Lincoln and then he jumped to the stage shouting in Latin "Sic simper Tyrannis" (Thus always to tyrants).
A walked the winding stairs upon which Booth tread, derringer in his pocket, vengeance in his heart. Before Gettysburg, Booth's original plan was to kidnap Lincoln and transport him to the South. If he had been successful, would history have rewritten him a hero as the "winner" writes the pages of history?
The museum under the theatre is amazing. I spent two hours slowly absorbing history and viewing the actual pieces that carried out this tragic deed. Booth's actions killed the very man who would have shown compassion and forgiveness to the South... instead, healing took a very, very long time.
And if you are REALLY a Lincoln follower, there is also a book "Herndon's Informants": Publication of this long-awaited volume makes available for the first time in complete and accessible form the most important source of information on Lincoln's early life. For twenty-five years after the president's death William Herndon, his law partner, conducted interviews with and solicited letters from dozens of persons who knew Lincoln personally. Up to now, the valuable information he collected has been available only in a microfilm edition in the Library of Congress, of such poor quality that it has been rarely used, particularly since there was no table of contents or adequate index, and in collections at the Huntington Library and the Illinois State Historical Library. The only previous publication of Herndon's materials, more than a half century ago, contains less than 10 percent of the collection and is so unreliable that scholars have hesitated to use it. Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis have earned the gratitude and admiration of scholars by taking on the daunting task of collating the collections in the three libraries, painstakingly deciphering the all but illegible handwriting of Herndon and some of his informants, and carefully documenting the entire work.
How cool is that? I will be buying this book as well. (I just bought it through B&N. I had to order it though, they said that the publisher has designated it a "must order" book - it isn't to be stocked. I wonder why? It isn't that expensive. It will be shipped directly to my door, though.)
For those with further interest, following is a link which claims might have the earliest known portrait of a young Abraham Lincoln:
We once lived
in a Garden of Eden,
and of yesteryear I still dream
where we wandered free
amid swaying grass and
clear water pools.
Man's greed
and fire of 1869
rocked our world,
a handful survived,
fled into the forests,
and the Southern Cape
forever weeps.
by Margaret Bednar, January 20, 2013
HERE is a link to the Knysna Elephant Park. I thought the following quote by Romain Gary was sadly perfect: "in a truly materialistic society, poets, writers, artists and elephants are a mere nuisance."
Cradled,
you first arrived
within devoted arms
of a little mommy
so eager to love
her "little Muffy".
I spared you that,
named you Moxie,
watched you two scamper
throughout the seasons,
laughing, barking, confiding,
listening, protecting.
We said goodbye today,
couldn't help but notice
into each other's eyes
you gazed, within her lap,
cradled.
by Margaret Bednar, January 15, 2013
Rest in Peace, dearest Moxie "Muffy"
I HAD to do something with all this emotion - can't remember the last time I have cried so much. This will also be for Friday Flash 55 - but this is not fiction, it did happen today, January 15 - we lost the very best dog in the world to liver failure.
I have been very sick this past month. A series of flu, cold, sore throats... I hear it is quite contagious and rampant this year and hope it escapes most of you! I think I'm on the road to recovery ... but you should see my house (at least I know I'm needed. :)
Yearning
I'm trapped in today,
unable to grasp
why I survived;
instead I float and bob
like a leaf atop a pond,
endlessly yearn
to sink below,
embrace the past,
beyond the reach
of destiny's fingers.
by Margaret Bednar, January 6, 2013
This print somehow led me to remember a book I read this past summer, "Sarah's Key". It changed the way I view a certain subject - made me more compassionate. It takes place in France, and is a story about WWII - a story many are unaware happened. It is not an easy read, but one I hold dear. I just found out there is a movie with subtitles and will watch it on Neflix soon (it currently is a Play Now item).
New Year's innocence blossoms pink,
cradled in mornings golden light,
morning's tea inhaled, as beneath my fingers
frayed diary and bitter words unspool,
replaced with crisp, clean pages,
silvery slanted scrawl declaring 2013
a year of "Endless Rejuvenation".
by Margaret Bednar, January 3, 2013
This is for Imaginary Garden with Real Toad's "Get Listed" Thanks to Fireblossom, we were given a list of words and very "loosey goosey" rules (we all know she is a rule breaker :) I used eight words. This is really a challenge that I find quite hard... this short little ditty took me all day - lots of erasing and quite a few not-so-nice words. ;P
