Lost in the Forest

Deep in the Forest by Maria L. Berg 2023

If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I am responding to the prompts from Deep in the Forest.

Today was a the first frost of the season. I took a nice walk hunting for small leaves and fronds to use as filters on clear plastic to create forests in the mirrorworld.

Among the Leaves by Maria L. Berg 2023

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

What We Didn’t See Through the Trees

From above, the green swath does not look dry
Zooming in, the forest becomes trees
Beneath the firs, a woman cries
on a log by broken glass
A bottle dropped shattered
A slant of light cuts
through crisp needles
She walks on
unseen
spark


Cedar Forest by Maria L. Berg 2023

Writober 2023

Today’s prompt for 13 Days of Samhain is “Dead Man’s Shoes” which sparked an idea to go with the visual prompt.

Discarded Shoes

Logan woke up to the sound of someone on the landing outside of his apartment door. He thought he heard a scuffle, a grunt or stifled scream, so he threw on a robe and rushed out with his cellphone prepped with 9-1. No one was there. There was, however, a pair of brown loafers neatly lined up at the base of the stairs. Who would do that? Just leave their shoes like that? What he heard must have been a dream.

He forgot about it at work and when he returned home the shoes were gone. As he watched the news, eating a microwaved dinner of mystery meat, mashed potatoes, and cubed vegetables, the shouting and stomping over the blaring, thumping music from the apartment above him became unbearable. He put on his noise-cancelling headphones, turned off his laptop, and went to bed early.

In the morning as he left for work he noticed a pair of women’s bright red stilettos at the base of the stairs and some new high tops on the first and second step as if they were climbing the stairs.  Logan shook his head and hurried down the stairs.

When he got home his neighbor and his girlfriend were headed out. He couldn’t help but notice her red stilettos and his new high tops. They smiled and waved as they locked up and headed past him. So they were just messing with him. Why would they do that? Well two can play at that game.

While he pulled all of his shoes from his closet, he noticed it was completely quiet. No stomping, or horrible music from upstairs. They must have finally split up, he thought, smiling and noticing his muscles relax. Maybe they moved out. That thought made him really happy.

That night he set his alarm for one am, after putting all but one of his pairs of shoes in his laundry basket. When the alarm went off, he jumped out of bed fully clothed, slipped on his loafers, and took his laundry basket into the hall. He lined up four pairs of old sneakers at the base of the stairs. It was weird, but not disturbing, so he started moving the shoes up the stairs. 

He heard something like the whisper of the wind, and thought someone was coming down the stairs. All light was blocked from above and a giant head, a huge face filled the entire space. It wore a strange toothy grin and silently stared with huge blank eyes. A shoe still in hand, Logan ran and banged on his neighbor’s door, yelling for help.

He answered rubbing his eyes and seeing the shoe said, ” Oh, so it is you leaving those shoes. That is so weird. But, hey, thanks for the shoes, man,” and closed and locked the door.

Logan kept his back to the wall and slid toward his apartment. Not seeing the face anymore, he darted toward the stairs to retrieve his shoes. But the monster was only hiding in the shadow. The huge smiling mouth opened; its tongue wrapped around him, lifting him out of his brown loafers. It swallowed him whole.

Oct. 27 Prompts: Deep in the Forest

Through the Forest by Maria L. Berg 2022
The Spooky Forest by Maria L. Berg 2021
The Eye of the Forest by Maria L. Berg 2017

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

Forest for the Trees: It’s easy to get caught up in details and lose the big picture, or be so focused on the big picture that the details get lost. Think about the opening of a film: the camera flying over a big city, then zooming into a location then to a character, then perhaps to an object, or detail. For today’s poem you have two options, either start with a very broad view and zoom in through the poem to very specific details, OR start with very specific details and zoom out to a very broad view.

This poem might be fun as an Etheree.

Writober 2023

Today’s image prompt, “The Stairs” by tohdraws depicts something I would never want to come across in a stairwell.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Facing What Haunts Me

Haunted by Maria L. Berg 2023

If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I am responding to the prompts from Haunted.

For today’s images I wanted to create that feeling when you’re alone at night and you think you see someone out of the corner of your eye, or you hear doors creak and cupboards bang. Today’s photo shoot was a lot of fun.

Visitors by Maria L. Berg 2023

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

Today is open link night at dVerse Poets Pub, so don’t forget to link up your poem, and read and comment on the other poets’ offerings.

For today’s poem I looked back through my poems at the beginning of the month and decided to write a new poem to revise my poem in response to the Fear of Monsters prompt. I started with a new metaphor and didn’t use a form. I then tried to force it into a Mirror Sestet, but I didn’t like it, so here’s my free-form monster metaphor poem.

For the Monster’s Pleasure

This decade is the Bride of Frankenstein
grave-robbed pieces and parts
forced together and electrocuted into life
by a mad scientist for the pleasure of a monster

The frightened masses with pitchforks
and torches filled with hate
for what they don’t understand
are right to plead for it to stop

The doctor knows what he’s doing is wrong
but he can’t undo what he has created
and the monster must be appeased
His only hope is that a woman’s touch
will calm the violent heart and appeal
to what’s left of the rational mind


Bleeding Wall by Maria L. Berg 2023

Writober 2023

Today’s prompt for 13 Days of Samhain is “Rest in Pieces” which should work well with the visual prompt.

Here’s the beginning of my new story:

They Broke Through In Pieces Needing Faces

I took the night janitor job when I realized I couldn’t be around people anymore. Every single thing someone said to me was so banal and asinine, I just wanted to slap them, which really isn’t good for a nurse. I knew if I didn’t quit I would do something horrible, so I moved to this rural hole-in-the-wall and took the night janitor position at the middle school. I figured less puke and piss clean up and not old enough for serious vandalism or weird sex shit, so the easiest night janitor job I could find.

When it started, it was an almost imperceptible flaw in he paint in the gym. It looked like someone, some kid who didn’t like exercise was just standing in one spot picking at the paint. I found a can of a matching color in the basement supply closet and touched it up, and left a note for the gym teacher in the office mail slots, and thought that would be the end of it. But the next week, the spot had become a hole and each day it grew. I continued with my cleaning duties, waxing the gym floor, staring at the growing hole but trying to ignore it, until one night the walls around the now large hole started pulsing and the space behind the hole glowed with a white light which appeared to pulse into the walls like blood in veins. The white light pushed through the hole like dust or fine sand arching through the air and landing on my newly waxed floor becoming dress shoes, socks, slacks, an entire sleek black suit with white shirt and skinny black tie. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I know I should have been afraid, but I was too curious. When the last of the other-worldly light sand stopped flowing, I was staring at a very well-dressed faceless man being. It turned toward me, and with what looked like two steps crossed the entire gym, put its hand on my face and took my features then left through the gym doors into the school just as quickly. I touched my face afraid nothing would be there, but he had only copied not stolen. My relief didn’t last. While I was worrying about what the skinny well-dressed copy me was about to do in this world, the hole began to pulse with light again, and the veins reached further along the walls. This time I ran, not wanting to have to deal with more than one copy of me out there doing who knows what.

Like last year, I’ll be continuing daily posts through November. The Writer’s Digest November Poem a Day (PAD) Chapbook Challenge provides daily poetry prompts which I’ll combine with my continued study of contradictory abstract nouns. I’m creating a contradictory abstract noun pairs calendar for November’s Photography Challenge. Each of the pairs is connected to my Big Five to explore them more thoroughly throughout the month. Last year I found that this focus on contradictory abstract nouns helped with my novel writing, focusing the internal and external conflicts for my characters. I’ll also talk about new writing resources, and tips and tricks I discover while I write my new novel. I hope you’ll continue to join me.

Now that I have my idea for my story, I’m starting to brainstorm scenes. Once I have ideas for my main scenes throughout the story, I’ll plug them into a Scrivener file so I have a blueprint that I can keep feeling in as NaNoWriMo approaches. I didn’t find much information about specifically plotting for horror, but I found a Horror Beat Sheet from T. L. Bodine that looks like it might help as I’m starting my loose outline.

How’s your NaNo Prep going? Are you getting excited?

Oct. 26 Prompts: Haunted

Haunted by Maria L. Berg 2022

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

Fear of Not Being Good Enough: Is one of your poems from earlier this month haunting you? Choose one of your poems from the beginning of the month and revise it. Choose the best line and start a new poem with it, or start with the last line and write from there, or choose a different form you think would work better.

I did a series of posts on poetry revision if you want to look at some other revision ideas: Revising Poetry – A Demonstration

Here’s a poem I wrote for haunted last year:

Sudden Losses

Cold dinners in dying candlelight, wax dripped over handmade tablecloths swept smooth over milk-crate tables, worried waiting extinguishing imagined intimacy, the cruelty of equations with passion over time unequal in each lover’s mind.
The second time, there were no instruments to take, only sentimental value and fear remained, and the new alarm that startled them to leave the pillow case containing the disappointments of violating rummaging.
Another argument on the way home, after feeling the ecstasy of camaraderie,
beauty and elegance of shared glamor, the delusional comfort of acceptance when told “you can ask me anything,” prying a bit too far, picking a scab never healed, crashing painfully into the barrier.
The replacements never lived up to what was taken, not that the original possessions were of better quality or held more value. They were of then, of there. He said it was good they were gone. They would lose their hold. But he was wrong.

Writober 2023

Today’s image prompt, “Lunar Wind” by Alex Andreev, could be an entity arriving or departing. Where are we? Where did that hole come from and what’s on the other side?

Halloween Photography Challenge

Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Strange Superstitions

Opening Umbrellas in the House by Maria L. Berg 2023

For today’s images I cut some new filters to play with superstitions in the mirrorworld. I thought it would be fun to see if I could “break” the mirrors with my filters to avoid the bad luck.

Broken Mirror by Maria L. Berg 2023

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

I think this is the first time I’ve tried the Mirror Sestet. I like it. I think I’ll play with it some more in future poems.

More Out Than In

Out the window I see the too long grass I doubt
doubt that the dead patches between will ever grow out
small waves on the lake and thick rhodies tall
tall firs behind then tops so far they’re small
I’m looking past the cat who cleans himself the whole time
time to go out and see what’s inside where I’m

surprised to find more reflection than insides
inside’s belongings are covered in me surprised
and bushes and lake and the sad grass on land
land where I stand watching the cat in the window and
he’s still cleaning himself and there’s more land and me
me and the outside to my left in the tv with that me I’m three


Breaking All the Mirrors by Maria L. Berg 2023

Writober 2023

The Sound of Fungus Knuckles Cracking

I had no idea where we were when the train came to a sudden halt. Roger was reading and didn’t even look up. I had been staring at the green blur of light and shadow through the window. When I focused, I didn’t see anything but large white and gray stones protruding down a grassy hill. An announcement came over the loud speaker in German, and though I didn’t understand—or I must not have understood because the words I caught didn’t make sense—the voice was fast and high-pitched.

The train car filled with gasps and other non-verbal reactions. A rush and push to the other side of the car to look out those windows, passengers fighting over opening them, and closing them, made me want to see what was happening. I nudged Roger who looked at me irritated then put down his book, looking confused.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know. The train’s stopped. Let’s go look between the cars.”

We got up and slipped out the door. Roger opened the external door and we heard war cries, and small white-specked red-topped mushroom raced toward us down the rocky slope. My eyes followed one running poison-looking mushroom to the one behind it until I saw a long-eared troll wearing furs with a spear yelling in a language I had never heard. Behind him an enormous mushroom with eyes and a large mouth and teeth in its stalk—perhaps the father of the one getting frighteningly close to us— towered over everything, pounding its fists, and then it cracked its knuckles. It was a horrible breaking noise that echoed down the hill as if it was already gnawing on our bones. How does a mushroom, a fungus, have knuckles?  And teeth?

“Roger, close the door! Now!”

He must not have seen the mushroom at our feet, jumping and growling, trying to grab hold of the train and get to us. He was staring up with his eyes glassed over and his mouth wide open.

“Roger! Move!” I yelled, pushing him back and pulling on the door, but somehow the small mushroom and two of its friends stopped the door and pushed through. I slipped behind Roger and the mushroom missed me but grabbed Roger’s wrist before pushing into the train car. That was all it took to pass its poison. I could see it in Roger’s veins like black ink spreading up his arms and then swirling in his eyes and dripping out of his still gaping mouth. He fell back and slid down to the platform between the train cars. Screams erupted behind me and in front of me.

I hid under Roger’s body hoping to never know what happens next.

Oct. 25 Prompts: Superstitions

Unlucky by Maria L. Berg 2022
Lucky by Maria L. Berg 2022

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

Fear of the World: Describe what you see out the window. Now, go outside and describe what you see looking in through that window. Write a poem about the similarities and differences. What did you notice first? What most surprised you?

The Mirror Sestet might work well with this prompt.

Writober 2023

Today’s image prompt is a horror fantasy with scary giant mushrooms.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

RIP XVIII

A Bloody Tuesday

Blood Splatter by Maria L. Berg 2023

For today’s images I had fun with paint and markers.

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

Don’t Say Anything At All

Mama said, if I can’t say anything nice
don’t say anything at all
so my not nice thoughts
they have been building up
and I’ve bit my tongue to bleeding

Mama said, never talk to strangers
I think she’s afraid of words
the pressure of all the things unsaid
is building as I bite my tongue
Mama said, if I can’t say anything nice

my head will burst and fill the air
with all the mean things I didn’t say
especially to strangers
who never try to give me candy and
don’t say anything at all

I think Mama worries that I will
make people angry, or embarrass her
with all the mean things I could say
I think Mama just likes the quiet
My not nice things to say

would grate on her nerves
she just wants to look at me
and believe that I am sweet and kind
not so full of mean words I will burst
they have been building up inside

Does she not see the blood
always dripping from my lips
my teeth like a wall holding in the words
by biting my tongue?


In the Blood by Maria L. Berg 2023

Writober 2023

In the dead of night I feel your fur on my face, your weight on my chest, and I hurry to let you out. Because I know from experience that if I don’t, you’ll pee on my laundry in a pile in the corner. I stretch my fingers as far as they’ll go, trying not to disturb you and flick on the bedside lamp. I hold in a scream as your nose so close to mine looks distinctly like a human skull, and blue and pink lights floating in your eyes look like screaming captured souls.

I blink my tired eyes, and that horrible vision is gone. You are just a patient cat wanting to stalk the night. I pick you up watching your nose for skull-like form as my feet take us along our well-worn path to the glass sliding door. I place you on the mat outside, and you bound off over the grass. But the vision haunts me and I’m not in a hurry to let you back in. I worry that I am one of those screaming pink or blue lights in your eyes. I wonder how long it has been.

Oct. 24 Prompts: Pulsing Beneath the Surface

In My Blood by Maria L. Berg 2021
River of Blood by Maria L. Berg 2021

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

Fear of Danger: Think of a warning you received from your parents as a child. Start your poem with “My mother says/said” or “My father says/said” and in the poem try to capture their fears behind the warnings.

For this poem you may want to try a Cascade. Here’s a cascade I wrote during OctPoWriMo last year:

Facing Day

This morning is a joy of possibilities
scattered with barriers and disappointments,
challenges with the potential to deter or discourage,
but there’s light I want to capture, so I persevere.

As if gratitude asks for trouble,
each tool soon breaks from obsolescence,
but I release the need and adapt, knowing
each morning is a joy of possibilities.

It’s not in my nature to see failure
as opportunity to fail better—I try
to fight the perfectionist, but she disapproves
scattering conflicts, barriers and disappointments.

However, starting each day in creative action
fills me with such complete satisfaction
even slow progress armors me against
challenges with the potential to deter or discourage.

I have to fight a dark fear of complete loss,
of the coming change that will rearrange
my view, values, and purpose,
but there’s light I want to capture, so I persevere.

Writober 2023

Today’s image prompt looks like a scary bunny to me, but it’s so close up, it could definitely be something else. And what’s up with those colored dots reflected in its eyes? What are those?

And if you want some more inspiration don’t forget 13 Days of Samhain.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

The Night Sky

Orion by Maria L. Berg 2023

For today’s images, I made pin point filters of constellations: Orion and the Big Dipper, then I pretended the mirrorworld was the night sky.

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

The Music of My Night

after Muriel Rukeyser

When I who can never sleep without a video on my laptop,
waking often to keep the nightmares away, can no longer
find the energy to write or even read another word
and my eyes keep closing—I meet the sheets

Watch as the cawing crows nip at the wings
of the screaming eagle soaring over the lake
trying to return to its nest
they don’t seem to bother him

Notice the cats out on the prowl
they also scream in the darkness

and growl and hiss when they encounter

other felines marking territory

And after I rise to break up an especially violent
skirmish by adding my scream to the night,
my voice completes the frightening chord
over the rhythm of waves slapping rocks

Vaguely a fish leaps and slaps the surface
upon its return; a truck rumbles behind the houses
on the other side of the lake; a boat, bad rap blaring,
motors slowly not to make a wake

The masochistic lyrics pierce the walls
and fill my room swearing into the nightmare
that has already begun behind my lids
the show ends, and I wake to start the next episode

I am grateful for my night music defense system.

Today is also Haibun Monday at dVerse Poets Pub, and Frank Tassone’s prompt is to indulge in the seasonal colors, so I wrote a second poem.

Against the Gray

The army, kelly, and olive green leaves look brighter against the gray sky. The wind has picked up today, pulling the yellow, red, and brown leaves from the bushes and trees and, littering them everywhere, leaving more bare branches than before.

It is cold, sweater cold, hard to believe I was swimming just last week. The chill won’t leave my feet, covered in a pine green blanket brighter juxtaposed with the wine couch. I feel littered and tossed, crisp like a dead leaf.

The wind rips and scatters
maroon and umber leaves from the
autumn dogwood tree

Dipper by Maria L. Berg 2023

Writober 2023

I did it again! I wrote to this image last week with my “fog” responses, and skipped the image of the giant monster with the glowing eyes and its tongue hanging out, so I’m writing to that one today. I have now scheduled all of the prompts, so hopefully my brain will stop playing tricks on me.

Logline: Exploring a new planet, an astronaut encounters a giant monstrous inhabitant, the last of her kind. She’s tired of being alone.

Here’s the opening of my story, “Uninhabited.”

When we landed the ship sunk in a swamp. I barely made it out alive. The rest of the scout team wasn’t as lucky. I sent out a rescue call. A lander should come for me in a couple hours.

The discovery robot that we sent here last year found an hospitable environment, but no signs of life. An uninhabited planet rich with minerals and other resources, a possible colony, but more likely a place to mine and pillage.

Imagine my surprise when the marsh shook beneath my feet and the vegetation in front of me parted revealing a giant, twenty foot tall beast with a hairy mane, glowing red eyes, and a thin, forked tongue that tasted the air like a snake’s. I was even more surprised when it spoke and I understood its deep, smooth voice.

Oct. 23 Prompts: Music of the Night

Night Vision by Maria L. Berg 2022
Screams in the Night by Maria L. Berg 2021

I am so glad you are still on these challenges with me. This last week, I started writing full flashes, and cutting more surprising cuts for my photographs. And I finished my pocket quilt in its first rendition. So much creative energy heading toward Halloween.

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

A few weeks ago I read Muriel Rukeyser’s Ballad of Orange and Grape (link to audio), and I fell in love. So I put all of the books that my library system had by Muriel Rukeyser on hold, and picked them up last week. For today’s prompt I want to share her poem, “Night-Music,” from The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser (amazon assoc. link) edited by Janet E. Kaufman & Anne F. Herzog, for inspiration.

NIGHT-MUSIC

When those who can never again forgive themselves
finish their dinner, rear up from the chair,
turning to movies are caught in demonstrations
sweeping the avenues—Meet them there.

Watch how their faces change like traffic-light
bold blood gone green as horses pound the street,
as plates of sweated muscle push
them squarely back into retreat.

Notice their tremulous late overthrow
caught irresponsible : as the first rank presses
up at the brown animal breast of law
defying government by horses.

And after the quick night-flurry, the few jailed,
the march stampeded, the meeting stopped, go down
night-streets to unique rooms where horror ends,
strike-songs are sung and the old songs remain.

Vaguely Ilonka draws her violin
along to Bach, greatest of trees, whereunder
earth is again familiar, grandmother,
and very god-music branches overhead.

Changeable spirit! build a newer music
rich enough to feed starvation on.
Course down the night, past scenes of horror, among
children awake, lands ruined, begging men.

Rebel against torment,
boats gone, night-battles, the sleepers up and shaking,
fear in the streets
cruelty on awaking.

Make music out of night will change the night.

Prompt: For today’s poem think about the people, places, and things that make up your night music, and in your poem “Meet them there.” Watch, and notice, and describe what (you imagine) each sound is. What are the actions of these sounds, the consequences of these sounds? “Build a newer music.”

Writober 2023

Today’s image prompt is so creepy. How scary would it be if everyone suddenly looked like that?

Halloween Photography Challenge

Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.