For Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge, scream, I made a new filter to visually symbolize the horrible screams my skeleton candles made all night. I’m afraid they were traumatized by yesterday’s photoshoot. But then I went out to get the mail, and nature really made me scream. This is a real warning, I will be sharing a very very gross horror of nature I screamed at this morning. After taking pictures, and going back to my bokeh, I was reminded why fake horror is so much better than the real thing.
“Scream” also made me think of the great sound at the beginning of Purple People Eater. I have the original 45. It was my mom’s. While finding this video, I saw that Neil Patrick Harris was in a Purple People Eater Movie when he was a kid (and Screech was in it too),so my day has changed. Today is full of all sorts of surprises and twists and turns.
and the Wilhelm scream:
The first Wilhelm scream was recorded during an alligator attack in the film Distant Drums in 1951. So my alligator will be expected at today’s photoshoot.
Yesterday, I had Toy Story (affiliate link) playing in the background, but did not notice the Wilhelm scream. I have it on again now to see if I hear it this time. And here’s the gross discovery nature used to make me scream:
OctPoWriMo
Today’s prompt, “Paris,” made me think of cathedrals and stained glass rose windows. Which made me think of one of my fabric glass pieces. A long time ago, I was inspired by the cover on the box of The Old Dark House (1932). I used fabric dyes to paint the face on treated spandex and created a series. My bather in her vintage swim-cap always looks so spooked. She’s still one of my favorite creations. I’m actually wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt with her on it right now. However, she also looks spooky as Medusa.
Today’s suggested form, Rhopalic Verse, a poem in which each line increases by one syllable, also fits well with the 2018 prompt, “By the Numbers” which me think of The Count. I checked my Sesame Street Fever record and that happy little vampire counting and laughing is featured on the song Sesame Street Fever. “I’m counting in disco. I love it. Get down! That’s one get down. Ah Ha Ha!”
So how does all of that become a poem? Let’s find out. Should be a scream!
Silent Screams
Screams
in dreams
silent a
threat approaching
horror of no sound
light through the colored glass
at a slant casts blood red hues
against long shadows contrasting
expanding along the floors and walls
like fingers or tentacles or vines crawl
closer as I breathe out and begin to count:
my heart beats pounding my breaths fluttering the hairs
on my arms standing upon the goosebumps on my skin
the danger comes closer, I can’t count it away so I
scream and scream again but nothing comes out: no sound, no release
I curl up tight like the cat and think of the poor nested squirrel
tossed in the storm, left with an empty orbital socket for me to see
and scream at nature’s horror, unaccountable cruelty, and I scream
silently to no one, no one hears me as if I’m facing fear in a dream
Experience Writing 