Sunshine Challenge #1: Hades

( prompt text )

Title: Waltzing with Cerberus
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Poetic form: Rhyme pattern of an English sonnet but lines are alexandrine
Length: 122
Characters: Sherlock Holmes & Roy (the dog from "The Creeping Man")
Notes: see below poem
Rating: Gen



he waltzes like a lord, lord of the underworld,
detective-sleuth by trade, his noble carriage glides,
with lissome step, he guides, a nether grace unfurled,
a turn in triple time, across the floor, he slides.

he dances, he instructs, his hum, a lilting praise,
not jerking on the lead, he’s Hades of lithe whim,
his partner has three heads; these three heads he does raise,
an Irish Cerberus, he’s he, himself and him.

the follower is apt, a wolf breed in wiry coat,
his senses are acute, they harken as they traipse,
he knows he jigs with Death; with certainty, they float,
with vigilance, they skate, and not a note escapes.

their silhouette confounds alert pedestrian;
a handsome hellish pair, pure terpsichorean.

( Notes )

Poet's Corner: three by Kay Ryan

Relief by Kay Ryan

We know it is close
to something lofty.
Simply getting over being sick
or finding lost property
has in it the leap,
the purge, the quick humility
of witnessing a birth—
how love seeps up
and retakes the earth.
There is a dreamy
wading feeling to your walk
inside the current
of restored riches,
clocks set back,
disasters averted.

Star Block by Kay Ryan

There is no such thing
as star block.
We do not think of
locking out the light
of other galaxies.
It is light
so rinsed of impurities
(heat, for instance)
that it excites
no antibodies in us.
Yet people are
curiously soluble
in starlight.
Bathed in its
absence of insistence
their substance
loosens willingly,
their bright
designs dissolve.
Not proximity
but distance
burns us with love.

( A Hundred Bolts of Satin )

Into the Void

The boys enjoyed gymnastics camp. The parts they enjoyed most (the foam pit and going outside to play...soccer) aren't the most gymnastic-y parts so I don't think we'll be following up. Nevertheless, it was a good way to get them out of the flat and doing something different for 3 hours a day.

I paid the rent. This is the first time I've ever done it. The check hasn't gone through yet, and I'm irrationally anxious I did something wrong. There is a $49 'convenience' (ha! whose convenience?) fee for paying online so I did it the old fashioned way and handed someone a check in person. Despite knowing it's a holiday weekend, I really won't rest easy until it clears. It's the last of the bills I am learning to pay. I've done the electricity and the internet but those are both online. [these are the Head of Household bills that the boys' father usually pays]

I read about 3 chapters of the Shedunnit book club book The Postscript Murders by Ely Griffiths and sent it back. My only regret is that I was on the waiting list for almost two months! But I am too old to read books I don't like. And the Rivers of London series fills my quota for modern literature. I am on Book 3 but I am not enjoying it. This has an American FBI agent in it, and the narrator's American accent is SOOOO bad. His Canadian one is worse. The book says the FBI agent is from the South or Midwest and her adenoids sound like she's a maid Miss Marple is trying train to go onto better things. I love this narrator when he does everybody else but...luckily the rock tumbler can drown him out.

Midsomer Murders is giving Minor insomnia so we have to cut it out for now. We watched the one where Cully gets married and all three of us screamed "TROY!" when sidekick #1 made a cameo! :)