The Apparition

He is there when you close your eyes…..you cower in terror at his presence….he haunts your every dream, turning them into nightmares….the daylight does not seem to deter him, then he lurks behind your doubts, uncertainties and weaknesses…and just when you think he might be gone, you see the edge of his long shadow, making you wonder if he symbolizes something deeper….a deep-seated fear that has materialized into…

“The Apparition”
(A Wetplate collodion image)

Our Reflections, He Will Dim

O Curvy and Gorgeous One,
Where did your beauty go?
It used to radiate like the sun,
Setting your being and life aglow.
Looks that turned all heads,
Male and even female too.
You tore suitors into shreds,
Breaking a heart or two.
Yet now the glow is gone,
The radiance is no more.
No admirers to fawn,
Or even try to score.
Then Death ever so grim,
Did your reflection even dim.

O Strong and Handsome one,
Where did your strength go?
Your life was full of fun,
Always leading the show.
The ladies swooned over you,
Wishing in your arms to melt.
From you, the men took their cue,
Before your suaveness, they knelt.
Yet now that physique is gone,
The striking looks no more.
No dainty admirers are drawn,
To your now very lonely door.
Then Death ever so grim,
Did your reflection even dim.

You Cold and Stealthy One,
Why do you plague us so?
Must you always stun,
Such misery always sow?
No one is safe from you,
Then your cold fingers reach far.
Into each psyche you finally tattoo,
Pain and a deep, endless scar.
Thus into living, we must fully dive,
And our time wisely use.
Each minute we must strive,
Our lives with the good to infuse.
Then Death ever so grim,
Will soon our reflections even dim.

© Nana Dadzie Ghansah 2018

Terror

This was not what they said it would be like!…His whole life, he had lived for this moment and now… and now…he was staring at eternity and all he saw filled his bones with…

“Pure, unadulterated Terror”
(A wet plate collodion image)

Those Boots

“These boots are made for walking,
And that’s just what they’ll do,
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you…”
– from the song “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”.
Written in 1966 by Lee Hazlewood and performed by Nancy Sinatra.

“The Boots”
A wet plate collodion image

That Silver Lining

Look closely at the edges of the darkest clouds and you will see something interesting. You will see a rim of light as the sun tries to force its way through the murkiness. It almost looks like a rim of silver.
 
This observation might have inspired John Milton to write these words in his 1634 masque, “Comus: A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634”:
 
I see ye visibly, and now believe
That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glistering guardian, if need were
To keep my life and honor unassailed.
Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err; there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
 
Milton coined the phrase silver lining. It would be expanded to the idiom, “There is a silver lining in every cloud” in the 19th century.
In 1840, one Katty Macane wrote a review of a novel titled “Marian: Or, A Young Maid’s Fortunes” by a Mrs. S. Hall in “The Dublin Magazine”. The review contained this sentence: “…there’s a silver lining to every cloud that sails about the heavens if we could only see it.”
Since those days, the phrase has come to represent something positive and hopeful – that one can always find a positive aspect in the worst circumstances.
 
Can one really find something positive in life’s tumultuous and frustrating instances? Can a path be found amidst the ruins of tragedy? Can one really find a song when the heart is in pieces like glass that fell in a storm?
Even with my hardened and faithless heart, I have to agree that every dark cloud really has a silver lining.
 
However, must we necessarily experience dark clouds before we can enjoy silver linings?
Why?
Sometimes I think there are two men out there – two old and cantankerous men. It has to be men – we are mean like that. Men like Randolph and Mortimer Duke from the 1983 movie, “Trading Places”. Two old farts who find joy in turning our lives upside down and then betting with each other on whether us poor mortals down here can see the silver lining that hovers at the edges of the dark clouds that they placed in our lives in the first place. I bet they don’t even bet much at all on their experiments. And as they sit up there pulling the strings and laughing their tails off, we strut around this stage trying so hard to make sense out of this thing called life. I wonder which of them bets on the fact that we will see the silver lining and move on to the next act and the next iteration of dark clouds. I bet he is the one who whispered these words to John Milton:
 
“…there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove”
 
I bet he did.
 
For my part, one of these days, when the sun sets into the recesses of the oceans that are rising faster than the fears that grip our world…one of these days, I might write about all those times I saw the silver linings that adorned those dark clouds that turned my days murky and my nights darker than Hades.

Justice

“You see, it’s the slow knife…the knife that takes its time. The knife…that waits years without forgetting…then slips quietly between the bones. That’s the knife…that cuts deepest.”
―Talia al Ghu (Miranda Tate) in “The Dark Knight Rises”

Help

She retreated into her corner… that dark foreboding place…where her terrifying thoughts were her only friends…and her fears haunted her every minute…she erected a glass wall, that was fogged by her tears, fears, and breath…yet if one looked closely at that wall…that glass wall that really could not hide her turmoil, one could hear and even see her silent screams for…

“Help!”