White Room

"There's nothing in here." Eldon's voice was faint. Edmond looked at his cell phone. The connection wasn't broken. He checked the volume control.

"Full tilt," Edmond mumbled. "Hey!" he tested.

"You don't have to yell!" Eldon chuckled. "You're coming in loud and clear, brother!"

"Well, you're not," Edmond complained to his twin. "I'm inside now, in the hall. Wide enough to drive a car through! You in the master bedroom?" he asked.

"Yeah," Eldon answered. "Yeah," he repeated a little louder.

Edmond checked himself in the ornate hall mirror. His dark hair was clipped short and he wore no beard or mustache -- unlike Eldon who wore a short beard and mustache as well as somewhat longer hair. Edmond's left eye was brown, his right eye blue. Eldon's eyes were mirror opposites. He tried the door at the end of the hall on the right where their boss said the master bedroom was located. The black doorknob wouldn't even wiggle.

"Why'd you lock the door?" Edmond demanded.

"It closed automatically," Eldon answered. "Didn't know it locked." He shook his head. "Like I said, there's literally nothing in here."

"What?"

"Nothing," Eldon repeated, louder now. "A whole lot of nothing."

"As in," Edmond pursued, "nothing remarkable, nothing out of the ordinary . . .?"

"Oh, it's out of the ordinary," Eldon interrupted. "There's nothing ordinary about the absence of anything at all to report, or even photograph. Just a whole lot of flat white. Not just the walls -- the floor, ceiling, walls all match. Smooth, flat white. It's . . . it's hard to tell where they intersect. There's not even any trim anywhere, and no windows. No other door. No closet. If the door I came through didn't have a shiny black doorknob, I wouldn't know where it is!"

"Well, take some pics anyway, okay?"

"Sure." Eldon tapped camera mode on his phone and snapped several shots from the door side of the room, then turned and snapped one of the door -- that is, the area around the doorknob. He backed a few steps toward what he hoped was the center of the room so he could get a shot of the whole wall where the door was.

"You okay, El?" Edmond's voice came through the phone more faintly than before.

"Yeah," Eldon answered, "last pic."

The doorknob appeared to be fading to gray now, and seemed smaller. Eldon took the pic, then glanced around, feeling disoriented. He tapped camera mode off. "I'm outta here, brother," he said.

"What? El?" The only sound Edmond heard was static.

"Just open the door!" Eldon yelled. That doorknob was light gray now and wouldn't budge. Panic was gripping him.

Edmond heard nothing. "Eldon!" he yelled into the phone as he grabbed the doorknob. It would't turn. Concern became panic. His phone rang. It was Freddie, the head of their interior remodeling team. Edmond tapped the answer icon. "Hey!" he yelled.

"Y'all about done?" Freddie asked.

"Get over here!" Edmond commanded. "Bring keys!"

"I gave them to Eldon."

"Get over here, anyway! Eldon's in trouble! I think he's hurt!"

"Shit," Freddie responded. "Okay."

"Hurry!" Edmond was trying the unresponsive doorknob again.

"Alright, alright. Getting in my truck."

Edmond tapped his phone back to his connection with his twin. "Eldon? El! You there?"

No answer. Nothing.

--/--

Lune-y Lundi - Obsessions

Happy Lundi (Monday)!

The theme of today's Lunes is "obsessions".

Most of us have at least one...a hobby, t.v. show or person that took over your life, or at least a couple of days of your week.  My own obsession is writing, and lately, writing lunes.  I am more prolific than proficient.  But an obsession is nothing if not motivating, and I am motivated to keep at it.  If the style attracts you, why not try your hand at it?  If you're already an experienced lune composer, please consider sharing.  All contributions are very welcome, as are comments on my own posts.

For instance, here are a few words about a not-uncommon suburban obsession:

The lawn's blotchy,
hedges uneven, vines unbalanced.  Oh!
My imperfect yard!
-/-
That was a Collom style lune (3 words first line, 5 words second line, 3 words last line).  I recently learned that Mr. Jack Collom intended to write a Kelly style lune (5/3/5 -- syllables per line), but confused the syllable count per line with that of a haiku (5/7/5) and accidentally invented his own style that counts words instead of syllables per line.  I like knowing this because I have frequently had to double check which is which -- 5/3/5 syllables or words?  Or is it 5/7/5?  Oh, no, that's a haiku.  Good grief, where's my cheat sheet?

Well, I double checked and the following is Kelly lune style.  However, in this case, I wrote a sequence of lunes to tell a story about an obsession...

"Debating Ink"

This ink was my first.
Here's my twelfth.
Planning on twelve more.

Have you considered
how those tats
will look at eighty?

If I live that long,
I will be
an inkspiration!

If you keep on, you
will become
a wrinkled ink spot.

Smooth or wrinkled, my
skin wears my
heart and soul out loud!
-/-

I'm not into tatoos, myself, and first intended to stop at the second sequence.  But my imaginary walking canvass kept coming up with interesting arguments pro-ink, so I finally decided to let her have the last word.

In case you're thinking, "I can do that" but can't think of another obsession to lune about, I offer the following prompts to help shake some creativity loose...

electronic devices/apps
sports stats/teams
house cleaning
reality shows
car/pickup detailing/enhancing
social networking
exercising
texting
lunes!/other poetry styles (haiku, sonnet, sestina, free verse, etc.)

...and be sure to post your name with your verse.  That is an automatic copyright.  My own are copyrighted by virtue of my having stated here that they are my own.  Just thought I would mention this fact in case anyone is concerned about publicly sharing their creativity.  No one likes to have anything stolen, including our written words!

Write on, my little Lune-atics, and Happy Lundi!

Lune-y Lundi

Happy Monday (Lundi)!

Time -- or the need to manage it, account for it, etc. -- is probably the thing that drives me looniest.  So I've decided to launch Lune-y Lundi with a spate of Lunes I've written about Time.

FYI: A Lune is a three-line poem.  That is it's only similarity to the traditional Haiku.

The Haiku has a syllable count for each line and a reference to nature is required; purists prefer that each line of a Haiku also be a complete thought.

The only rule that applies to the original Lune style -- attributed to Robert Kelly -- is a syllable count: 5/3/5 (it gives the poem a shape like a cresent moon -- or "lune" shape).  Then along came Jack Collom, who devised another Lune style that doesn't count syllables per line at all, but words per line instead: 3/5/3.  So Collum's Lune is usually half-moon shaped, sort of.

So now for timely Lune-acy...

A Kelly style Lune:

The long of it: sun
to sun; short
of it: nano-secs.
     -/-

Some Collom Lunes:

Time is not
on my side -- time is
on my back.
     -/-

"Not from here!"
the islander laughed, pointing at
my wrist watch.
     -/-

Nuclear clocks -- ack!
Give me Plautus' confounded day
hacking shadow caster!
     -/-

About that reference to my man Plautus.  He wrote a great piece about time around 200 BCE.  Managing time must have been grating on his nerves as much as it does on mine, because he wrote:

"The gods confound the man
     who found out
How to distinguish hours!
     Confound him, too
Who in this place set up a
     sun-dial,
To cut and hack my days
     so wretchedly
Into small portions."

What he said!

I guess I'm hoping this Lune-acy will become contagious so that I'll have fellow Lune-atics to share my Lune-y bin with!  Am I getting on anyone's nerves? Well, write about it -- in the comment box below!  Post your own Lune!  Suggest a topic for next Monday, suggest improvements to the blog or my Lunes....puhleez do!  And have a luvly Lundi!
--Rob