This blog is devoted to a select group of poets. We're starting with poets from the Ann Arbor area, but, hey, if you're from Detroit, Grand Rapids, Saginaw or the Upper Peninsula, then that is okay, too.
Our goal is to provide you with a prompt every day from which you are to garner inspiration and submit a poem. How to submit will be very easy. Just write or place your poem or short story in the comments section and hit post. You may not immediately see your post, but it is there under the "Comments" section. You may need to click on "Comments" to see your poem. It is there on another page.
You may need to have a Gmail account to post in the comments section. Most of you do have Gmail, but for those of you that don't it’s extremely worthwhile to open up an email account now! That way you've got a chance to get your work out there in the world through writing on the blog.
Today's poem or short story prompt is the word "loud"
Sunday
ReplyDeleteDay 5 of 7: LOUD
[I've decided that I will use this week's prompts to create a 7-part short story. Wish me luck!]
A wall of water splashed over the ship's gunwale. I hardly had time to notice it, though. A huge fist appeared to my left, swung fast and smashed against the side of my head. I fell over and everything went black.
When I finally opened my eyes, I saw a bearded man leaning over me. He poked a finger at my chest and growled something in a language I didn't understand. I lay perfectly still. I figured playing dead was my smartest option.
The man was huge. Not tall, but as wide as a car. He was wrapped in furs with a wide leather belt with a brass buckle. His hair was a huge orange-red mane around his head, his beard hung down to his belt.
A Viking?
That would make sense. The fighting I saw before I was hit and blacked out - the dark thundering sky, the waves of water sloshing over the (what are the sides of a boat called?).
I was on a Viking ship.
I wondered what they thought of me. A scrawny (certainly by comparison) pale-skinned stranger in khakis and a white shirt who appeared on the deck of their ship mid-battle. They might worship me as a god or destroy me as a demon, a troll, a fairy or some other magical creature.
"English?" I tried, already knowing the answer. I tried German and French, exhausting my small arsenal of languages.
One of them, a big man with a rough-beaten helmet, pushed the others aside and pulled me to my feet. He brought my face close to his and looked at me closely.
He grunted something that sounded like "drep den hemmede".
Two of the others picked me up and dragged me toward the stern of the ship. A third man stood there, massive and terrifying. He was taller than the others and dressed in black leather hides from head to toe. They covered his arms, legs, and head completely. He raised a blunt wood-and-metal club while the others pressed my head against the top of a wooden chest.
I screamed as he swung it and brought it down on the side of my head.
***
"Rise!"
I looked up and saw another Viking. This one was holding a long, twisted horn instead of a weapon. He stared down at me and smiled, showing a row of gold teeth.
Heimdall.
I was at the gates of Valhalla.
"You don't belong here. You are not one of us," he growled. His voice, though powerful and coarse, had a tenderness to it I hadn't expected. He sat down on a tree stump and rubbed his chin. "You seek something."
Somewhere along the way in my travels, it seems I'd lost the ability to be terrified. I looked at him and said, "yes. Answers."
He laughed, the sound resonating through the heavens, making the stars nervous and the black sky behind them anxious. He laughed again and I heard something far off. A chariot. Horses.
Heimdall's laugh was joined by another. It came closer. Louder and louder until everything around me shook.
A chariot stopped ten yards or so from where I was standing. From it stepped a man, taller than Heimdall and thinner. He wore the kind of hat one associated with wizards, carried a staff, and had an eyepatch. Heimdall dropped to one knee and addressed him as, "My Leige."
Odin?
All of my Norse mythology came from the Thor comic books I read as a kid. I laughed when I realized I was face-to-face with one of Jack Kirby's creations, but he looked nothing like the King had drawn him.
Odin walked toward me, stopped a few feet away and made a sweeping gesture with his right hand. Nothing magical happened and I just stared.
"You were expecting maybe the answers to come to you?"
I looked at him for a second, confused. Then, I felt myself getting angry.
"You don't know anything either do you? It's all 'the Fates' and 'Destiny' and 'the Law of the Cosmos' isn't it? You can't help me! You are useless, you are powerless, you are..."
Mid-sentence, Odin raised his spear Gungnir and ran it through the center of my chest.